Hattie Naylor

Each year, the National Theatre commissions ten new plays for young people to perform, bringing together some of the UK's most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. This 2021 pack captures the two new plays written for the 2021 festival that are perfect for schools and youth groups to perform and study. Written with flexibility in mind, these are perfect for exploration both virtually and in-person, responding to the restrictions in place due to Covid-19. It also includes National Theatre Connections 2020 anthology which features 9 plays, 8 of which are included in the 2021 festival performances. The plays included in this pack are: Find a Partner by Miriam Battye Like There’s No Tomorrow, created by the Belgrade Young Company with Justine Themen, Claire Procter and Liz Mytton Wind / Rush Generation(s) by Mojisola Adebayo Tuesday by Alison Carr A series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor Look Up by Andrew Muir Crusaders by Frances Poet Witches Can’t Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan Dungeness by Chris Thompson .

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 Tuesday by Alison CarrA series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor Look Up by Andrew Muir Crusaders by Frances Poet Witches Can’t Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan Dungeness by Chris Thompson .

I can still hear them, I hear them in my head all the time. Those songs I sang. But I don’t sing them anymore.Alfie keeps hiding Beth’s gardening gloves. She’s got lots to do and it’s just not funny anymore. Why won’t he realise that gardening is helping her forget everything? Why can’t he see she’s still not over her divorce? Why can’t he just be nice?Based on a true story of a woman who struck up an unlikely friendship with a wounded crow, As the Crow Flies is a heart-warming story of friendship, healing and kindness from award-winning playwright Hattie Naylor.A funny, moving and timeless story of our endless fascination with birds As the Crow Flies was first produced by Pentabus Theatre Company in March 2017.

This is all we are. This is all sex is. The attempted obliteration of the self. That’s why it’s so brutal. All there is the plane of nature. It was what was before and will always be, and our complete annihilation, this leisurely murdered world, is after all, what is.Bluebeard invites you into his chamber to share in the violent passion of his deviant sexual acts. Will he excite you? Will he seduce you? Will he love you to death?With its provocative, intelligently handled exploration of sexually motivated violence, Bluebeard is a psycho-sexual, stark and violent reimagining of the famous fairy-tale.

How far can you see? A mile? A hundred miles? Or to the furthest shores of the universe to a far away galaxy?Going Dark explores contemporary society's lost connection with the night sky and its wonder at the cosmos, with a portrait of one astronomer slowly losing his sight and how one man's vision becomes illuminated by darkness.It's Max's job to ask the cosmic questions. Passionate about astronomy, he works as the narrator at the city's planetarium where he challenges his audiences with the mysteries of stars and science.When his own life takes an unexpected turn, Max discovers that understanding the universe requires a different kind of vision.Representing a unique collaboration between the innovative theatre company Sound&Fury and playwright Hattie Naylor, Going Dark will be produced using highly original theatre vocabulary of immersive surround sound design, total darkness and imaginative lighting and projections.Sound&Fury's innovative style of collaborative theatre combines the shared skills of theatrical storytelling, writing, performance, visual art and sound design to create both immersive performance pieces and a startling new theatrical language. This has been described as 'Total theatre that doesn't just happen all around you, but that swallows you up completely ... you feel as if you are experiencing the whole thing through your skin" (Guardian).This play is an example of innovative, immersive theatre-making at its best and explores contemporary society's lost connection with the night sky and its wonder at the cosmos.

'All the money went and there was nothing to buy food with. So Mothers and Fathers tried to find things they could get rid of, things that ate, things that drank or things that needed to be kept warm. The dogs went first.' Ivan and the Dogs is based on the extraordinary true story of Ivan Mishukov, who walked out of his Moscow apartment at the age of four and spent two years living on the city streets where he was adopted by a pack of wild dogs. In the recession-ravaged city, the human world is dominated by deprivation and violence. When social breakdown from extremes of impoverishment, cruelty and selfishness starts to set in, a homeless child's only hope is to turn to feral dogs for company, protection and warmth. This spellbinding story of survival and need conjures the streets of Moscow in the 1990s through the eyes of a child. With innocence and fear, Ivan's perceptions of the world are beautifully described, from the acute awareness of hunger and fear, to the innocent understanding of chemical abuse in the 'empty eyes' of children and the ridiculed 'Bombzi'.

Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors is an anthology of work written for actors aged 11-25. Ideal for youth theatre groups, schools and amateur dramatic companies, it contains a diverse selection of plays suited to large casts and ensemble performance. Varying in style and subject matter, the plays offer performers, directors and designers a range of exciting challenges: from recreating the mythological world of The Odyssey to a dramatisation of two hundred years of slavery that will take the audience on a journey from eighteenth century Africa to 1990s London in Sweetpeter. Contemporary urban living is confronted in plays ranging from the starkly realistic to the playful, lyrical and surrealistic. From the innocent and imaginative world of a school playground to issues of racism, peer pressure, crime and communication in a mobile phone obsessed culture, this is a wide-ranging anthology that will enrich the repertoire of youth theatre groups and the curriculum in schools. The volume is introduced by Paul Roseby, artistic director of the National Youth Theatre.