National Theatre Connections 2020

Mojisola Adebayo is a playwright, performer, director, producer, workshop facilitator and lecturer. She has a BA in Drama and Theatre Arts, an MA in Physical Theatre and her PhD is entitled Afriquia Theatre: Creating Black Queer Ubuntu Through Performance (Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway and Queen Mary, University of London). Mojisola trained extensively with Augusto Boal and is an international specialist in Theatre of the Oppressed, often working in locations of crisis and conflict. She has worked in theatre, radio and television, on four continents, over the past 25 years, performing in over 50 productions, writing, devising and directing over 30 plays, and leading countless workshops, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. Her own authored plays include Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey (Lyric Hammersmith and Ovalhouse, London), Muhammad Ali and Me (Ovalhouse, Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), 48 Minutes for Palestine (Ashtar Theatre and international touring), Desert Boy (Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), The Listeners (Pegasus Theatre, Oxford), I Stand Corrected (Artscape, Ovalhouse, London and international touring) and The Interrogation of Sandra Bland (Bush Theatre, London). Chris Bush is a playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker, and was the 2013 Pearson Playwright-in-Residence for Sheffield Theatres. Past work includes A DECLARATION FROM THE PEOPLE (National Theatre); A DREAM, THE SHEFFIELD MYSTERIES, DICKENSIAN, GOODWILL TO ALL MEN, WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER and 20 TINY PLAYS ABOUT SHEFFIELD (all Sheffield Theatres); LARKSONG (New Vic, Stoke-on-Trent); CARDS ON THE TABLE (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); TONY! THE BLAIR MUSICAL (York Theatre Royal/Tour); SLEIGHT & HAND (Summerhall, Edinburgh. Also live-screened into Odeon cinemas and by BBC Arts); POKING THE BEAR (Theatre503); THE BUREAU OF LOST THINGS (Theatre503/Rose Bruford); ODD (Perfect Pitch/Royal & Derngate Northampton: concert performance) and WOLF (National Theatre Studio: reading). Chris has won the National Young Playwrights’ Festival, a Brit Writers’ Award, the Perfect Pitch Award and the Sunday Times Edinburgh Competition. Alison Carr is a playwright and radio dramatist.Her plays include: The Last Quiz Night on Earth (Box of Tricks, UK tour, 2020); Caterpillar (shortlisted for the Theatre503 Playwriting Award 2016; premiered at Theatre503, London, 2018) and Iris (Live Theatre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2016; winner of the Journal Culture Awards 2017 Writer of the Year).Hattie Naylor has won several national and international awards for her plays, and has much of her work broadcast on BBC Radio, including Mathilde, Solaris, The Making of Ivan the Terrible, Ivan and the Dogs (Tinniswood Award for Best Original Radio Drama in 2009), and Clarissa. The stage version of Ivan and the Dogs was nominated in the 2010 Olivier Awards for Outstanding Achievement. Theatre and opera work include Going Dark, Mother Savage, the opera Odysseus Unwound, The Nutcracker, Ben Hur, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Samuel Pepys' Diaries, Piccard in Space, and The Dark Art of Forgetting. Andrew Muir is a critically acclaimed writer for stage and screen with works including Double Sentence and Gold Dust (Deafinitely Theatre/Soho Theatre) and the short film A Family Man. He is the Literary Associate for Deafinitely Theatre for whom he adapted Love's Labours Lost as part of the London 2012 Festival at Shakespeare’s Globe. His short radio play The Perfect Non Starter was broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb in 2014. He also lectures at Bournemouth and Poole College. Frances Poet is a Glasgow-based writer. Her stage work includes Gut (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 2018); Adam (National Theatre of Scotland at the Traverse Theatre, 2017); Faith Fall (Òran Mór and Bristol's Tobacco Factory, 2012) and What Put the Blood (Abbey Theatre, 2017). She has also written a number of free adaptations including Strindberg's Dance of Death (Citizens Theatre, 2016) and Molière's The Misanthrope (Òran Mór, 2014). Silva Semerciyan is a native of Michigan and she moved to the UK in 1998. While at university, she wrote Another Man’s Son which won the William Saroyan Prize for Playwriting. Silva Semerciyan's play Gather Ye Rosebuds won the Best New Play award at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2013. She holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan and an MPhil in Playwriting from the University of Birmingham. She currently lectures in Drama and English in Bristol and is on attachment to the National Theatre Studio. Chris is currently under commission at the Royal Court Theatre, the National Theatre and the Bush Theatre. He was the Channel 4 Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre (formerly the Pearson Playwright’s Scheme) in 2014. In his previous career as a social worker, he worked with young people in sexual health, child protection and with young offenders. The Royal National Theatre works to spark imagination and brings people together.Every day they strive to make the world a better place through theatre; entertaining and inspiring audiences around the world, using their creativity, expertise and unique reach.

• 1. Introduction to National Theatre Connections2. Wind / Rush Generation(s) by Mojisola Adebayo 3. Directors Notes on The Changing Room by Chris Bush 4. Tuesday by Alison Carr 5. A series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly6. THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann7. The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor 8. Look Up by Andrew Muir9. Crusaders by Frances Poet 10. Witches Can’t Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan 11. Dungeness by Chris ThompsonDirectors notes follow each of the 10 plays.

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