Simon Longman Livres

National Theatre Connections 2023 draws together 10 new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting playwrights such as the creator of Derry Girls Lisa McGee, award-winning writers Simon Longman and Jon Brittain, and acclaimed performance poet Avaes Mohammad. 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 10 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.

Kate, Sam and Pete are stuck. The town they live in doesn't have much going on. But they don't really care about that when they've got cheap cider and their whole lives ahead of them. And they're going to break away anyway. Someone's about to get a car. And all roads go somewhere else. Right? Island Town is bittersweet story about friendship, hope and dreams of an escape. Written by Simon Longman, recipient of the 2018 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright (Gundog; Royal Court).

"On a farm in the middle of nowhere, sisters Becky and Anna try to hold their family together after the death of their mother. Time is always moving somewhere - but here it's very quiet. When they discover a stranger wandering aimlessly across the land, the three establish an unlikely partnership in their determination to survive." -- Back cover.