Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors

Book excerpt: Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors is an anthology of work written for actors aged 11-25. Ideal for youth theatre groups, schools and amateur dramatic companies, it contains a diverse selection of plays suited to large casts and ensemble performance. Varying in style and subject matter, the plays offer performers, directors and designers a range of exciting challenges: from recreating the mythological world of The Odyssey to a dramatisation of two hundred years of slavery that will take the audience on a journey from eighteenth century Africa to 1990s London in Sweetpeter. Contemporary urban living is confronted in plays ranging from the starkly realistic to the playful, lyrical and surrealistic. From the innocent and imaginative world of a school playground to issues of racism, peer pressure, crime and communication in a mobile phone obsessed culture, this is a wide-ranging anthology that will enrich the repertoire of youth theatre groups and the curriculum in schools. The volume is introduced by Paul Roseby, artistic director of the National Youth Theatre.