National Theatre Connections is an annual festival which brings new plays for young people to schools and youth theatres across the UK and Ireland. Commissioning exciting work from leading playwrights, the festival exposes actors aged 13-19 to the world of professional theatre-making, giving them full control of a theatrical production - from costume and set design to stage management and marketing campaigns. NT Connections have published over 150 original plays and regularly works with 500 theatre companies and 10,000 young people each year. This anthology brings together 9 new plays by some of the UK''s most prolific and current writers and artists alongside notes on each of the texts exploring performance for schools and youth groups. Wind / Rush Generation(s) by Mojisola Adebayo This is a play about the British Isles, its past and its present. Set in a senior common room, in a prominent university, a group of 1st year undergraduates are troubled, not by the weight of their workload, but by a ''noisy'' ghost. So they do what any group self-respecting and intelligent university students would do in such a situation - they get out the Ouija Board to confront their spiritual irritant and lay them to rest - only to be confronted by the full weight of Britain''s colonial past - in all its gory glory. Fusing naturalism, with physical theatre, spoken-word, absurdism, poetry and direct address - this is event-theatre that whips along with the grace, pace and hypnotic magnetism of a hurricane. Tuesday by Alison Carr Tuesday is light, playful and nuanced in tone. And a little bit sci-fi. The play centres on an ordinary Tuesday that suddenly turns very weird indeed when a tear rips across the sky over the school yard. The play touches on themes of friendship, sibling love, family, identity, grief, bullying, loneliness and responsibility. And in the process we might just learn something about ourselves as well as some astronomical theories of the multiverse! A series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly This satirical play is heightened in its naturalism, in its seriousness, in its parody and piercing in its interrogation of how our attempts to define ourselves in public are shaped by the fear of saying the wrong thing. Presented quite literally as a series of public apologies this play is spacious, flexible and welcoming of inventive and imaginative interpretation as each iteration spirals inevitably to its absurdist core. This is a play on words, on convention, on manners, on institutions, on order, online and on point. THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann THE IT is a play about a teenage girl who has something growing inside her. She doesn''t know what it is, but she knows it''s not a baby. It expands in her body. It starts in her stomach, but quickly outgrows that, until eventually ittakes over the entirety of her insides. It has claws. She feels them. Presented in the style of a direct to camera documentary, this is a darkly comic state of the nation play exploring adolescent mental health and the rage within, written very specifically for today. The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor The Marxist in Heaven is a play that does exactly what its title page says it''s going to do. The eponymous protagonist ''wakes up'' in paradise and once they get over the shock of this fundamental contradiction of everything they believe in.....they get straight back to work....and continue their lifelong struggle for equality and fairness for all....even in death. Funny, playful, provocative, pertinent and jam-packed with discourse, disputes, deities and disco dancing by the bucketful, this upbeat buoyant allegory shines its holy light on globalization and asks the salient questions - who are we and what are we doing to ourselves?.....and what conditioner do you use on your hair? Look Up by Andrew Muir Look Up plunges us into a world free from adult intervention, supervision and protection. It''s about seeking the truth for yourself and finding the space to find and be yourself. Nine young people are creating new rules for what they hope will be a new and brighter future full of hope in a world in which they can trust again. Each one of them is unique, original and defiantly individual, break into an abandoned building and set about claiming the space, because that is what they do. They have rituals, they have rules, together they are a tribe, they have faith in themselves....and nothing and no one else. They are the future, unless the real world catches up with them and then all they can hope for is that they don''t crash and burn like the adults they ran away from in the first place. Crusaders by Frances Poet A group of teens gather to take their French exam but none of them will step into the exam hall. Because Kyle has had a vision and he''ll use anything, even miracles, to ensure his classmates accompany him. Together they have just seven days to save themselves, save the world and be the future. And Kyle is not the only one who has had the dream. All across the globe, from Azerbaijan to Zambia, children are dreaming and urging their peers to follow them to the promised land. Who will follow? Who will lead? Who will make it? Witches Can''t Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan St. Paul''s have won the schools Playfest competition, three years in a row, by selecting recognised classics from the canon and producing them at an exceptionally high level, it''s a tried and trusted formula. With straight A''s student and drama freak, Anuka cast as Abigail Williams in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the school seem to be well on course for another triumph, which would be a record. However, as rehearsals gain momentum, Anuka has an epiphany. An experience resulting in her asking searching questions surrounding the text, the depiction and perception of female characters, the meaning of loyalty, and the values and traditions underpinning the very foundations of the school. Thus, the scene is set for a confrontation of epic proportions as Anuka seeks to break with tradition, before tradition breaks her and all young women like her and reality begins to take on the ominous hue of Miller''s fictionalized Salem. Dungeness by Chris Thompson . In a remote part of the UK, where nothing ever happens, a group of teenagers share a safe house for LGBT+ young people. While their shared home welcomes difference, it can be tricky for self-appointed group leader Birdie to keep the peace. The group must decide how they want to commemorate an attack that happened to LGBT+ people, in a country far away. How do you take to the streets and protest if you''re not ready to tell the world who you are? If you''re invisible, does your voice still count? A play about love, commemoration and protest.

National Theatre Connections 2020: Plays for Young People (Modern Plays)

Literature & Fiction

Thompson, Chris

Bush, Chris

Adebayo, Mojisola

Carr, Alison

Donnelly, John

Franzmann, Vivienne

Naylor, Hattie

Muir, Andrew

Poet, Frances

Semerciyan, Silva

Dramas & Plays

Methuen Drama

Theatre has a complex history of responding to crises, long before they happen. Through stage plays, contemporary challenges can be presented, explored and even foreshadowed in ways that help audiences understand the world around them. Since the theatre of the Greeks, audiences have turned to live theatre in order to find answers in uncertain political, social and economic times, and through this unique collection questions about This anthology brings together a collection of 20 scenes from 20 playwrights that each respond to the world in crisis. Twenty of the world's most prolific playwrights were asked to select one scene from across their published work that speaks to the current world situation in 2020. As COVID-19 continues to challenge every aspect of global life, contemporary theatre has long predicted a world on the edge. Through these 20 scenes from plays spanning from 1980 to 2020, we see how theatre and art has the capacity to respond, comment on and grapple with global challenges that in turn speak to the current time in which we are living. Each scene, chosen by the writer, is prefaced by an interview in which they discuss their process, their reason for selection and how their work reflects both the past and the present. From the political plays of Lucy Prebble and James Graham to the polemics of Philip Ridley and Tim Crouch. From bold works by Inua Ellams, Morgan Lloyd Malcom and Tanika Gupta to the social relevance of Hannah Khalil, Zoe Cooper and Simon Stephens this anthology looks at theatre in the present and asks the question: "how can theatre respond to a world in crisis?" The collection is prefaced by an introduction from Edward Bond, one of contemporary theatre's most prolific dramatists.

Theatre in Times of Crisis: 20 Scenes for the Stage in Troubled Times (Methuen Drama Play Collections, 39)

Washburn, Anne

McDowall, Alistair

Ya-Chu Cowhig, Frances

Stephens, Simon

Wade, Laura

Thorpe, Chris

Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur

Bond, Edward

Gupta, Tanika

Crouch, Tim

Ridley, Philip

Graham, James

Shinn, Christopher

Ellams, Inua

Prebble, Lucy

Malcolm, Morgan Lloyd

Patel, Vinay

Khalil, Hannah

Bhuchar, Sudha

Cooper, Zoe

About the Author\nMiriam Battye is a writer from Manchester.? She was the first Sister Pictures Writer in Residence in 2018 and has various original ideas in development for television. Theatre includes: Trip the Light Fantastic (Bristol Old Vic); All Your Gold (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Electricity (NYT/Arcola); Balance (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Pancake Day (Bunker/PLAY).\nJustine Themen (Director) is a theatre director and change-maker. She is currently Deputy Artistic Director of the Belgrade Theatre and Co-Artistic Director for its City of Culture 2021 programme. During her time at the Belgrade, she has built a small participatory programme into a broad-reaching ethos across the work of the building. The programme provides access to arts activity to some of the city's least arts-engaged communities, shapes talent development opportunities that strongly promote diversity across the sector and creates new work for the theatre's stages. Her co-created work includes Rise (Belgrade Young Company), Walk for Your Life (Belgrade Black Youth Theatre), Hussan and Harry (Belgrade Youth Theatre with Coventry Refugee Centre); and The First Time I Saw Snow (Belgrade Theatre). Directing work focuses on new work from female writers of colour - Red Snapper (Liz Mytton), Under the Umbrella (Amy Ng), both Belgrade Theatre. She played a key role in Coventry winning its bid to become UK City of Culture 2021, and is Co-Director of its Signature Event. She is also a Clore Fellow (2012-13). Prior to working at the Belgrade, she worked for 6 years in Senegal & Suriname co-creating theatre (Hia Maun, Stiching Botopasi) & documentaries (Abigail, VPRO) and using the Arts as a tool in Development & Cultural Diplomacy.\nClaire Procter (Co-Director) is the Belgrade Theatre's Creative Producer for Education. She has over 20 years of experience working with children and young people, both as a class teacher and theatre practitioner. Prior to joining the Belgrade, Claire worked for renowned Theatre-in-Education (TiE) company, Big Brum. She has written and co-created a number of original plays for and with young people, including The Impossible Language of the Time (Belgrade Youth Theatre/ Chris O'Connell), Room to Grow (Belgrade TiE) and On the Line (Belgrade Youth Theatre/ Jennifer Farmer). Her work to integrate TIE methodology into the making of the Belgrade's youth theatre work has been central to the development of the Theatre's participatory practise.\nLiz Mytton (Wordsmith) is a playwright and poet based in the North West. She took part in the Critical Mass writing programme at the Belgrade Theatre in 2014, which led to the production of her first full-length play,?Red Snapper, a runner up for the 2016 Alfred Fagon Audience Award. In 2018 as a Bristol Old Vic Open Session writer, Liz wrote Across the River, about Marcus Garvey and the KKK, which featured in Bristol Ferment Fortnight. Liz has also developed a piece of work exploring hate crime,?Southside Stories, which premiered at the Tobacco Factory in February 2019, and recently her own musical project, Shame Shanties, which uses seas shanties to explore women's mental health. Liz regularly works as a writer and lyricist with Talking Birds Theatre Company in Coventry, most recently on a commission for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. She has worked with the Belgrade's Young Company on two occasions in the role of wordsmith – firstly on Rise in 2017, and again in 2020 on Like There's No Tomorrow.\nThe Belgrade Young Company was established to give young people showing particular talent/ ability from across the Belgrade's participatory programme an opportunity to grow their skills and abilities in a semi-professional context. Past work has included Frank Wedekind's youth classic, Spring Awakening, rarely performed by young people of the same age as the characters; a physical production of The Tempest with Frantic Assembly; and Rise, co-created with a company of 10 young women aged 13 to 23 about

National Theatre Connections 2021: 11 Plays for Young People (Modern Plays)

Battye, Miriam

Belgrade Young Company

About the Author\nZodwa Nyoni is a Zimbabwean-born playwright and poet based in Leeds, UK. As winner of the Channel 4 Playwright's Scheme, she was Writer-in-Residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2014. Her first full-length play, Boi Boi is Dead, was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014/15. Other theatre credits include: Tangled Roots (2014), Nine Lives (2014), Come To Where I'm From (2013), The Market (2013), Di Daakes' Part A Di Night (2013), Home Has Died (2012), Why The Drought Returns (2012), The Night Shift (2011) and The Povo Die Till Freedom Comes (2010). She has been the recipient of the following awards: Award for the Arts 2011 (Leeds Black Awards) and the Young Black and Asian Writers Award (The Big Issue in the North's Short Story Competition 2011).\nMojisola Adebayo is a playwright, performer, director, producer, workshop facilitator and lecturer. She has a BA in Drama and Theatre Arts, an MA in Physical Theatre and her PhD is entitled Afriquia Theatre: Creating Black Queer Ubuntu Through Performance (Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway and Queen Mary, University of London). Mojisola trained extensively with Augusto Boal and is an international specialist in Theatre of the Oppressed, often working in locations of crisis and conflict. She has worked in theatre, radio and television, on four continents, over the past 25 years, performing in over 50 productions, writing, devising and directing over 30 plays, and leading countless workshops, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. Her own authored plays include Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey (Lyric Hammersmith and Ovalhouse, London), Muhammad Ali and Me (Ovalhouse, Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), 48 Minutes for Palestine (Ashtar Theatre and international touring), Desert Boy (Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), The Listeners (Pegasus Theatre, Oxford), I Stand Corrected (Artscape, Ovalhouse, London and international touring and The Interrogation of Sandra Bland (Bush Theatre, London).\nJacqueline Rudet (aka Magdalene St Luce) is a playwright. She was born in England but spent her early years in Dominica before moving back to Britain. She studied drama at Barking College and began her career as an actress with the alternative theatre companies CAST and Belt and Braces, before forming Imani-Faith, a group founded to present theatre for and by black women. She went on to write for Black Theatre Co-operative, the Royal Court and Croydon Warehouse. Her plays include God's Second in Command, Take Back What's Yours, Basin and Money To Live.\nTravis Alabanza is a performer, writer and theatre-maker. In 2016/17 they became the youngest recipient of the artist-in-residence at the Tate workshop programme, starred in Scottee's theatre production Putting Words in your Mouth at the Roundhouse and the Royal Exchange adaptation of Derek Jarman's Jubilee, performed in venues such as V&A, Tate, ICA, the Roundhouse and Barbican – and had their work featured in The Guardian, BBC, Huck Magazine and more. Known for increasingly paving much of the UK conversation around trans politics, Alabanza has become a staple of the London queer scene and further afield. Giving talks and performances at over 40 UK universities, ranging from the RCA, Central St Martin's, Oxford and Cambridge University, and institutions abroad such as Harvard, Brown University and Austin, Texas. Their debut poetry book Before I step Outside (you love me) released in 2017 has been shipped to over 19 countries worldwide and listed as one of the top trans literary books of 2017. With this book they also have toured Europe and the United States, performing and reading it to over 200 venues and countless audiences, including Harvard University, Brighton Art Festival, Macedonia Pride and more. In the last two years they have been noted by numerous publications, such as ARTSY, ID and MOBO _AWARDS as one of the most prominent emerging queer artistic voices, and also listed in OUT as an influential queer f

Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre: Basin; Boy with Beer; Sin Dykes; Bashment; Nine Lives; Burgerz; The High Table; Stars

Alabanza, Travis

Mason-John, Valerie

Beadle-Blair, Rikki

Boakye, Paul

Nyoni, Zodwa

Rudet, Jacqueline

Beyond The Canon’s Plays for Young Activists: Three Plays by Women from the Global Majority (Plays for Young People)

Ng, Amy

My husband died and it's taken my whole life but Dr, I've never had one and I want one, before I die... My orgasm has got to be out there - somewhere! I know you all think I'm losing it, that I'm some kind of a space cadet and you might just be right about that! So one last job for you Dr: I'll be needing a medical certificate to prove I am fit for travel. I am going away...Meet Mrs: an old lady who goes into outer space... in search of her own orgasm. Isn't that where all orgasms go? Her quest is sparked by three encounters: a young neighbour who discloses a secret, an old friend who reveals she is intersex, and a would-be lesbian lover in a launderette who offers Mrs two drops of her own pressed lavender and a smile that says, 'I handle delicates with care'. Told through one woman, a live DJ, and creative captions, with animations by Candice Purwin: STARS is a moving and joyful, sensitive yet funny, Afrofuturist odyssey. A 'concept album on stage', the hugely original STARS is the latest play from internationally acclaimed theatre maker, Alfred Fagon award-winner and George Devine Award 2022 finalist, Mojisola Adebayo.This edition was published to coincide with the Tamasha and ICA co-production in April 2023.

STARS (Modern Plays)

Winner of the 2021 Alfred Fagon AwardIt's a play, a performance, a ritual, about human farming, farming humans, soil and the soul, seeds and cells... nursing the nursery, curing creation, remedies and vaccinations against white supremacist racism; birthing revolution, raising redemption, finding yourself in the forest of futurity, the promise of immortality and the matter of Black lives.Henrietta Lacks is one of most remarkable people in medical history. Her cells were taken without her or her family's knowledge or permission. Meet Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy and three NHS nurses in the pandemic, each denied their place in history. Now is the time for their incredible legacy to undergo a transformation. To blossom and grow into something beautiful and new.Mojisola Adebayo's Alfred Fagon Award-winning play Family Tree is a beautifully poetic drama about race, health, the environment, and the incredible legacy of one of the most influential women of modern times. This edition was published to coincide with the Actors Touring Company co-production with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Brixton House, in March 2023.

Family Tree (Modern Plays)

National Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities. The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2024 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2024 Festival (eight brand-new plays, and two returning favourites), as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

National Theatre Connections 2024: 10 Plays for Young Performers (Plays for Young People)

Azouz, Josh

Zakarian, Abi

Barnes, Luke

Zegerman, Alexis

Josephine, Charlie

Owen, Siân

Rhys, Elgan

Halder, Titas

Khan, Yasmeen

A collection of plays from Mojisola Adebayo, actor, writer, director, producer, workshop facilitator and teacher. Plays included in this collection are: Desert Boy, Matt Henson: North Star and Muhammad Ali and Me.

Mojisola Adebayo: Plays One (Oberon Modern Playwrights)

Oberon Books

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Books by Adebayo, Mojisola