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...

Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'.Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed gian...

'There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways ... their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger.'The Triwizard Tournament is to be held at Hogwarts. Only wizards who are over seventeen are allowed to enter - but that doesn't stop Harry dreaming that he will win the competition. Then at Hallowe'en, when the Goblet of Fire makes its ...

'You are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. The Headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.'Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark for...

'Give me Harry Potter,' said Voldemort's voice, 'and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded.'As he climbs into the sidecar of Hagrid's motorbike and takes to the skies, leaving Privet Drive for the last time, Harry Potter knows that Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters are not far behind. The protective charm that has kept Harry safe until now is broken, but he cannot keep hiding. Th...

There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building... wherever they had murdered...When Dumbledore arrives at Privet Drive one summer night to collect Harry Potter, his wand hand is blackened and shrivelled, but he does not reveal why. Secrets and suspicion are spreading through the wizarding world, and Hogwarts itself is not safe. Harry is convinced that M...