I love reading plays. It sometimes feels like a hobby, but it’s also part of my job. It’s often the part of my job that does not get as much attention as I wish, and I can often find myself frantically rummaging through bookcases, searching folders on my hard drive and pacing around thinking “I must know a play for…”
As a director who makes work with young people, I need to feel that I am up to date with the themes that are important to young people today. I want to work with writers who are as passionate as me about making high quality theatre with, for and by young people. I need to have access to a diverse range of scripts to support young people’s drama school auditions and college assessments. One of the parts of my job that really excites me, is when I get to be involved in the process of commissioning a playwright to write a new play for young people and I’m going to be one of the first people to direct it. With these things in mind, I am always looking for plays to read and playwrights to talk to.
During the pandemic, I was furloughed from my role as Youth Theatre Director at The Leeds Playhouse. It took me a while to settle into a new way of living but with extra time, I started to read more plays. As a Champion for Open Drama UK I wanted to share a few of the plays I’ve read in lockdown to hopefully save you time finding that perfect extract or play for a lesson, project or production.
Fatty, Fat, Fat by Katie Greenall is a one woman show about the writer’s experience of “living with a body the world tells you to hate.” It is funny, straight-talking and provokes debate. It is a great text for an audition piece, as it follows Katie through different stages of her life. At the start of the play, she is talking about doing The Cha Cha Slide at age 9, while later stage directions tell us a Jason Derulo tune plays for the 21-year-old Katie. I would love to perform this play. I’d love to see it performed – it’s totally brilliant!
Unknown Rivers by Chinonyerem Odimba is a play with three teen characters and one adult. It’s a great play because there are a range of strong, black, female parts. It explores the power of female friendship, and many of the scenes are duologues, so it’s perfect for young people needing extracts for assessment that allow them to develop complex characters. A moving, important story.
Jess and Joe Forever by Zoe Cooper also has young people and their experiences at the heart of the narrative. Each scene is a duologue and follows Jess and Joe’s growing friendship over several years. This play has everything I love about a good story, and when I saw it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival I laughed and cried. I was so invested in the show, I wanted to shake the characters and say, “You don’t understand each other! Stop being mean! They are struggling like you, please don’t fall out.”
For a large ensemble cast, also with good duologues, I wanted to signpost people to Heavy Weather by Lizzie Nunnery. This play with songs, follows 16-year-old Mona as she seeks answers to hard questions in a world where adults struggle to tell the truth. Mona is a fearless female protagonist who challenges a variety of somewhat frustrating people, that will have you nodding in recognition, rolling your eyes and clapping, as Mona overcomes her next hurdle.
My hopes…
That these plays spark your interest.
That this post introduces you to new playwrights.
That you buy one or two of these plays and by placing these scripts on a shelf in your drama studio or rehearsal space, a young person will want to read it and perform it.
That by sharing stories we can begin to make sense of the world.
Let’s make sure the stories we give our time to, celebrate all that is great about young people and ensure they can see themselves in the stories being shared.
