Making Scenes 2: Short Plays for Young Actors

Paul Godfrey was born in the West of England and trained as a director in the Scottish Theatre. His work includes Inventing a New Colour (Royal Court, Bristol Old Vic), A Bucket of Eels (RSC Festival: The Other Place, BT Connections Scheme: Royal National Theatre), Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens (Royal National Theatre), The Panic, libretto to a score by David Sawer (Royal Opera House, Garden Venture), The Blue Ball (Royal National Theatre), Trilogy of New Plays from Different Sources: The Modern Husband (Actor's Touring Company), The Invisible Woman (The Gate), The Candidate (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), and Catalogue of Misunderstanding. Jenny McLeod lives in London. Her plays include Cricket at Camp David (Nottingham and Derby Playhouses, 1987, and Bolton Octagon, 1988), about life in a difficult West Indian family; Island Life (commissioned and toured by Monstrous Regiment in 1988); Raising Fires (Bush Theatre, 1994 - winner of the LWT Plays on Stage Award) about the first young black girl in a small community in East Anglia; and Victor and the Ladies (to be produced at the Tricycle Theatre in 1995). She has also written for The Wake for the BBC. Jan Maloney (1952-2008) was a playwright, based in Hastings for much of her life. There she set up the dabArts Youth Theatre, and researched and wrote the scripts for issue based dramas such as SHED (Self Harm and Eating Disorders) and Shh! that were shown locally and in London. Maloney was the local representative for Cardboard Citizens, the national homeless charity that specialises in communication and confidence building through drama and forum theatre. She was writer-in-residence for the Contact Youth Theatre, Manchester, where The Minotaur was commissioned. It went on to play in London and at regional theatres. SNOO WILSON was one of a handful of playwrights who reinvented British theatre in the 1970s and 80s. Together with Howard Brenton, David Hare and Tony Bicât he founded Portable Theatre Company, which presented his early work, including the still-performed Pignight. His other plays include The Pleasure Principe, The Glad Hand (Royal Court), The Soul of a White Ant, Vampire, The Number of the Beast, More Light, Darwin's Flood (Bush Theatre), The Beast (RSC), Orpheus in the Underworld (ENO), Bedbug, a musical (with Gary Kemp & Guy Pratt) based on Mayakovsky's 1929 satire (NT Connections 1995, 2016), and Reclining Nude with Black Stockings (Arcola Theatre). Following his sudden death in 2013, the many obituaries honouring both the man and the playwright confirmed that, at their exuberant, inventive and utterly original best, Snoo's plays deserve their place in the country's history of post-war playwrighting. "He encouraged audiences to go on a rollercoaster ride into the beyond, albeit with engaging and recognisable characters. It was not whimsy. He was a one-off, quite unlike any other dramatist." Dusty Hughes, Guardian.An archive of Snoo's work will soon be available at the University of East Anglia. His plays are published by Methuen Drama and represented by Micheline Steinberg Associates info@steinplays.com