A FUNDRAISER in Dorchester will look at the similarities between drama and poetry.

Dorchester Arts and Dorchester Community Plays Association (DCPA) have joined forces to raise cash in special evening The Poetry of Plays at Dorchester Corn Exchange on Friday February 17 at 8pm.

Playwrights Stephanie Dale and David Edgar will demonstrate how drama shares many of the elements and structures of poetry.

Illustrating the evening, local actors will read from classical, contemporary and community plays.

David and Stephanie will show how these plays use similar techniques to poetry to communicate meaning, such as drawing unexpected connections between different elements.

The evening will be followed by a Q&A session with the authors and actors.

Rowan Seymour of DCPA said: “This is the first joint fundraiser between Dorchester Arts and the DCPA and we are very excited at the prospect of hearing some of this country’s leading playwrights talking about the approaches used to write great plays.”

Stephanie Dale writes for stage, radio and large-scale theatre and is currently writing Spinning the Moon, the 7th Dorchester Community Play. She has also written numerous Afternoon Dramas for BBC Radio Four.

David Edgar is one of Britain’s leading playwrights who has written extensively for The National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre and many others. His best-known work includes a multi-award winning adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby.

*Tickets are £10 and are available from the Dorchester Arts box office, in person at the Corn Exchange (weekdays 10am - 4pm) or from dorchesterarts.org.uk.