Books in the Modern Plays series

Anka got in and is here for good.Olufemi is being coached to break back in.Bashir has been here forever but he's just been sent to limbo.Lisa wants to send them all home. Welcome to England.A journey into to the heart of what it is to be a citizen, and finding a place where you belong.A cutting new play about immigration and exile, and what happens when people fall through the cracks, Routes opens up the borders of friendship and family.

Just tennis all day, whenever you want. Not many 13 year olds have that, do they? They're going to make you so good we won't recognise you. Creating a tennis champion costs a lot; it requires time, dedication and, most importantly, cash. Nina and Ade decide early on that their daughter is worth the investment. Imagine the return - prize money, world travel, endorsements and maybe their own tennis academy. Hell-bent on their child becoming Britain's number 1, the pair are willing to sacrifice just about anything. If you want to reach the top spot in the game of tennis, love means nothing.Oli Forsyth's breakthrough play is a blistering exploration of blind, parental ambition and the consequences of tough love.

Nine plays from the annual National Theatre Connections festival, commissioned for young performers and schools. Contributions from Rob Drummond, Nell Leyshon, Katie Hims and more.

Labour MP David Lyons cares about modernisation and "electability"... his constituency agent, Jean Whittaker cares about principles and her community. Set away from the Westminster bubble in the party's traditional northern heartlands, this is a clash of philosophy, culture and class against the backdrop of the Labour Party over 25 years, as it moves from Kinnock through Blair into Corbyn... and beyond?This razor-sharp political comedy from James Graham was produced by Michael Grandage Company and Headlong and received its world Premiere at the Noël Coward Theatre in September 2017.

Can a computer program, that basically shuffles numbers of zero and one, duplicate the ability of the neurons to create minds, with mental states, understanding, perceiving. Can we replicate consciousness? David sets his brother Lewis up on a blind date with April. April is like no woman Lewis has ever met before. She is beautiful, kind and intelligent. In fact, she seems perfect, perhaps even too perfect to be real.A moving and fascinating story about the modern intersection of grief, technology and late capitalism, R and D asks what''s more powerful: science or the soul? And when it comes to our obsession with ''research and development'', how far is too far in the search for ''progress''?R and D was first performed at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs on 22 September 2016.

When that baby''s born . . . your life ceases being your life. That child owns every single one of your actions. Every breath of your body. Every dream that you ever had, Mrs. Top Two Percent, those dreams are sucked out of you and poured into the soul of that child.It''s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in this economy-Sue should know. It''s harder when you''ve got kids, even whip-smart, talented ones like Judy. Sue has big dreams for both her basement beauty shop and her daughter, who''s anxiously waiting for a letter from Berkeley that could change her life. Armed with tough love, combative humor and an uncompromising work ethic, Sue is struggling to balance her own livelihood and Judy''s future. A heartfelt play about the true cost of dreams.American Beauty Shop received its world premiere at Chicago Dramatists in April 2016, having received readings at Steppenwolf, Florida Studio Theatre, Steep Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival and Chicago Dramatists.

"Towards the end of the First World War, three young soldiers, a private, a corporal and a captain, cross no-man's land in a terrifying night raid on an enemy trench. Stealth is key to their survival and so they walk in silence ... in the present day, a visitor on a tour of the battlefields encounters rememberance, restraunts and bright, themed gift shops."--Provided by publisher.

Freedom has only ever meant Love. And life lived without loveIs not life enough. Chess is in prison. Facing a lengthy sentence, her cell mate, Serena, becomes her soul mate. But when Serena is given parole, Chess faces total isolation.Hope comes in the form of a music producer looking for a reason to love music again. She finds a powerful voice in Chess. But to harness her talent, Chess must first face her past. Featuring Kae Tempest's trademark lyrical fireworks and live music, this is a story of love and redemption. Hopelessly Devoted received its world premiere on 19 September 2013 at the DOOR, Birmingham Rep, co-produced by Paines Plough and Birmingham Rep. It toured the UK again in 2014.

Described by Brecht as "a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all", Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade.

My Mother Said I Never Should premiered in 1987 at the Contact theatre in Manchester and was subsequently presented in 1989 at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Set in Ankh-Morpork one of the most thoroughly imagined cities in fantasy, Night Watch is the story of Sam Vimes, running hero of the Guards sequence, who finds himself cast back in time to the Ankh-Morpork of his youth.

-So where you going? And isn't it a little past your bedtime?-Coming from you?-This ain't no open top tourist thing you know? It's the 11.Circling the outskirts of Birmingham on the Number 11 bus, two teenagers develop an unlikely friendship. Meanwhile a mother observes her daughter's attempt to leave a violent relationship. Against the backdrop of a changing city everyone involved is forced to re-examine what they thought they knew about love, trust, family and friendship.Rachel's De-lahay's vivid and powerful new play boldly explores cycles of violence and what it takes to break them, examining the effects of such violence on a generation of young women.Circles received its world premiere at the Birmingham Rep on 9 May 2014.

When Don Revie took over this club, Leeds were a rugby league town. No interest in football. Gates under 10,000. We'd never won a thing. He built one of the great clubs of English football, one of the great teams of English football, from scratch on barren ground from nothing more than spirit and fight and nous, which are the exact same qualities you used at Derby. And out of jealousy, you never tried to understand that. Never tried to make the most of that. Sad. 1974. Brian Clough, the enfant terrible of British football, tries to redeem his managerial career and reputation by winning the European Cup with his new team, Leeds United. The team he has openly despised for years, the team he hates and that hates him. Don Revie's Leeds.A West Yorkshire Playhouse and Red Ladder Theatre Company co-production, adapted from David Peace's ingenious and much-lauded novel, which was subsequently made into a film starring Michael Sheen, The Damned United takes you inside the tortured mind of a genius slamming up against his limits, and brings to life the beauty and brutality of football, the working man's ballet.Anders Lustgarten's stage adaptation of David Peace's novel received its world premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 3 March 2016.

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.

A play which contains an uncompromising depiction of rape, torture and violence in a society at war with itself.

First issued by Methuen in 1959, this play was the first title in the "Modern plays" series aimed at the burgeoning readership of young theatregoer This title and five others are reissued, representing the range and vitality of the list of titles in print .

A play which looks at the political costs of women rising to the top. This volume is published in the Student Edition series and as well as the text of the play there is a chronology of the playwright's life and work, an introduction giving the theatrical and social content of the play and questions for study.

The Yardies are burning up Hackney and Digger's offers of protection for the diner smacks more of threat than promise. How can Deli save his truanting, thieving son when temptation looms so large on Murder Mile?

A play set in London in the 60s reflecting a time of social change. Its subject is the cultural poverty and frustration of a generation of young people on the dole and living on council estate

The National Theatre Connections anthology selects nine plays commissioned for young performers and schools, tying in with the National Theatre Connections annual drama festival for young performers. Features work by Brad Birch, In-Sook Chappell and Natalie Mitchell.

I want, one more time, to be absolutely in the moment . . .I am going to try as hard as I can to not be a human being. A series of suggestions on desire, death and time. Nuclear War is the searing result of a groundbreaking and form-defying collaboration between Simon Stephens and the choreographer and movement director Imogen Knight, developed by Actors Touring Company.Introduced by the author, this edition also features a suite of lyrics written by Simon Stephens for a musical collaboration with Dutch singer-songwriter Wende Snijders, performed at Schouwburg Het Park in Westerdijk, The Netherlands, in March 2017. Nuclear War was published to coincide with the world premiere of the play at the Royal Court Theatre, Upstairs, London, in April 2017.

Love ain't something you just say. Just this word. It's something you do. A twenty-first-century love story. Caneze meets Sully in the college canteen. The heat rises over triple chilli sauce in Nando's. She makes her move in the sweet smoke of a shisha bar. A touchpaper is lit . . . but neither of them bargained on the lengths to which her brother would go to keep them apart. Blood is a heartfelt play by Emteaz Hussain, the writer of Tamasha's Sweet Cider. It received its world premiere in a production by Tamasha Theatre company in March 2015.

if I was gold almighty himself,and destroyed this first attempt at life.what would my second version be?. . . a dead end of endless possibility.A pedlar boy wakes up in a field somewhere in London, surrounded by the remnants of the night before. With no memory of how he has come to be there, he knows he must go back to the start in order to understand it all. His attempts to retrace events from the previous days lead him on a haunting journey where everything comes into question: his life, his world, his future.peddling is Harry Melling's remarkable debut play following a day in the life of a door-to-door salesman as he battles difficult questions and attempts to come to terms with the resulting truths.peddling received its world premiere at Hightide Festival on 10 April 2014, performed by Harry Melling, before transferring to 59E59 Theatre, NY, for a four-week run. It was revived in 2015 by HighTide at the Arcola Theatre, London.

The Arab world's greatest folk stories re-imagined by the acclaimed Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh, published to coincide with the world tour of a magnificent musical and theatrical production directed by Tim Supple

"I can't believe we're arguing over a Blue Riband""I can't believe we're stuck down a mine.""Yet here we are"3rd May 1979, South Wales. Thatcher is counting her votes, Sid Vicious is spinning in his grave, and six Welsh miners are trapped down a coal mine. Within two weeks everything these men believe in and everything they know will have changed. A darkly comic drama looking at the dramatic two weeks in which a group of Welsh miners are trapped underground.Chris Urch's debut full-length play is packed full of blistering comedy and summons a generation of lost voices.