It is the scale and range of creative collaboration inherent in theatre that sits at the very heart of National Theatre Connections. National Theatre Connections 2022 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting 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. This 2022 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2022 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

National Theatre Connections 2023 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 climate change, politics, toxic masculinity and gang culture, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2023 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2023 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

Look, gang, what we need to keep sight of is, this isn't about us. It's not personal... It's about the children. When two 9-year-old boys kiss in the school playground of a small town, two sets of parents are told to 'do something about it' – but neither of them are entirely sure what. Amira is sending inclusive children's books to the school library, whilst her wife Chloe dreams of a kitchen island. Sarah is trying her best not to upset the Mum WhatsApp group, and her husband Matt just really wants to do the right thing – as soon as he can work out what that is. Luckily, here to guide our helpless humans are two cherubic winged guardians of the gays, summonsed to attend to a disturbance in the queer atmos and intervene only where strictly necessary... but where's the fun in being an ethereal being if you can't drop in and cause a scene wearing latex? The Boys Are Kissing is a riotous comedy about angelic intervention, children's birthday parties gone sour, and whether it ever really is 'just about the children', written by 503Five 2019-20 alumni Zak Zarafshan. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Theatre503, London, in January 2023.

In Disability Worlds, Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp chronicle and theorize two decades of immersion in New York City’s wide-ranging disability worlds as parents, activists, anthropologists, and disability studies scholars. They situate their disabled children’s lives among the experiences of advocates, families, experts, activists, and artists in larger struggles for recognition and rights. Disability consciousness, they show, emerges in everyday politics, practices, and frictions. Chapters consider dilemmas of genetic testing and neuroscientific research, reimagining kinship and community, the challenges of “special education,” and the perils of transitioning from high school. They also highlight the vitality of neurodiversity activism, disability arts, politics, and public culture. Disability Worlds reflects the authors’ anthropological commitments to recognizing the significance of this fundamental form of human difference. Ginsburg and Rapp’s conversations with diverse New Yorkers reveal the bureaucratic constraints and paradoxes established in response to the disability rights movement, as well as the remarkable creativity of disabled people and their allies who are opening pathways into both disability justice and disability futures.

Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2023 I can imagine myself in the future looking back on this all. And looking back I can feel when the fire was lit. Fifteen-year-old Roxy is burning. Lost somewhere between the bonfire of girlhood and the sharp edge of womanhood, she gathers her friends and begins meddling in witchcraft to search for answers. Shadows are lurking, ready to swallow those she loves most in the world. As friendships fray, fire crackles and blood bubbles, the group unravel the bonds that unite and the secrets that surround them. Maryam Hamidi's Moonset is a blazing, coming-of-age tale filled with love, rage and self-discovery, as four young women search for the power they were promised. Moonset is published in Methuen Drama's Plays For Young People series which offers suitable plays for young performers and audiences at schools, youth groups and youth theatres. This edition was published to coincide with the Citizens Theatre production at Tron Theatre and Traverse Theatre, Scotland, in February 2023.

This study analyses the Finnish National Theatre’s activities throughout the decades during which the post-war generation with its new societal and theatrical views was rising to power, and during which Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain, was maturing to break the boundaries dividing it. Pirkko Koski summarizes the activities of the Finnish National Theatre as a cultural factor and as a part of the Finnish theatre field during 1970s and 1980s. Alongside this he examines the general requirements, resources and structures for activity, including artists, places, geographical position, performances and the analysis on the societal conditions. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of European theatre and history.

Winner of the 2021 Alfred Fagon Award It'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 new 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.

“I don't know what's beyond this minute. But whatever it is it can't be worse than all the minutes that brought us here”. Two sisters, one last drink. In the Irish border town of Newry, Chrissy promises her sister Claire that after four cans of lager she will go to the dry house to get sober. Does she mean it this time? One woman's refusal to give up on her sister powers The Dry House, an emotionally searing new family drama about love, loss and the possibility of hope after years of self-destruction. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Marylebone Theatre in March 2023.

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.