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 clim...

We just wait. Old light. And new light. We just wait. For each other, patiently wait.Patient Lightfollows a day in the life of a young person in Peterborough and how their vision of the future is blinded by carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. It concerns the everyday, mundane things that we carry in our head and rarely, if ever, say out loud.Presented as a stream of consciousness, the play examines our need for aspiration, and how to use t...

Anyway. I was just wondering if you had any jobs at all? . . . Yeah . . . like . . . media. Something to do with media stuff . . . Where am I based? Well, currently Herefordshire but . . . sorry . . . that's too far away . . . too far away from what? . . . Oh . . . ok.Paul is trying to find a job. Snowy is trying to find himself. But when Snowy stumbles across an ailing cow stuck in a local field, he ropes Paul into trying to help the cow, either...

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 Pla...

I think I can feel the world turning a little. It feels like it's just grinding to a halt.Mike is a 16-year-old with a bully of a brother and a mum who doesn't speak. Sarah is a weed-smoking teen who can't wait to get out of their dead-end town. One hot summer their lives collide in a blur of hormones, loneliness and dreaming as they discover that growing up is just as confusing as they say.Funny, poignant and sharply reminiscent of the joy, pain and confusion of g...

“Land beneath our feet. Got all our blood inside it hasn't it? All that time. Belongs to us.”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.Simon Longman's Royal Court debut premi...

Remember you saying you could speak to anything if you wanted to. Right? Did you say that? Remember that. Said you could speak to the stars. Just had to know how to do it.It's raining in the Midlands. Again. It won't stop. Someone's standing in it. They're shivering. They're cold. They're waiting for someone they haven't seen in a very long time. They've got a rucksack full of alcohol. And a fish.A touching play about abandoned responsibilities, what we choose to r...

Lottie is tired of long-term boyfriends who don't want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. There will be no dates and no engagement-just a straight wedding march to the altar! Next comes the honeymoon on the Greek island where they first met. But not everyone is thrilled with Lottie and Ben's rushed marriage, and family and friends are determined to interv...

'There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.'Harry Potter's summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors - and then the attacks start....

When Harry Potter is left on a doorstep as a baby, he has no idea he is the Boy Who Lived, or that he is famous throughout the wizarding world. Years later, he is astonished to receive an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and he is soon whisked off on a magical adventure like no other. Join Harry and his fiercely loyal friends, Hermione and Ron, in this story about the power of truth, love and hope.Having become classics of our time, the Harry Pott...

'Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go.'When the Knight Bus crashes through the darkness and screeches to a halt in front of him, it's the start of another far from ordinary year at Hogwarts for Harry Potter. Sirius Black, escaped mass-murderer and follower of Lord Voldemort, is on the run - and they say he is coming after Harry. In his first ...

When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he intends his stay to be just a brief stopover. However, when his magical case is misplaced and some of Newt's fantastic beasts escape, it spells trouble for everyone...Inspired by the original Hogwart's textbook by Newt Scamander, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original screenplay marks the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, author of the beloved and internationally bestselling Harry Potter books. A feat of im...