The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh welcomes back Connections, the National Theatre’s festival of new plays for Youth Theatres and Schools. Each year the National Theatre invites 10 writers to create new plays and this year we have asked each of the connections 2013 playwrights to go back to their home town and work with young people on ideas for their plays. From these encounters come stories of circuses, spaceships sound clashes, mystery texts, fibbing parents, phoney gadgets, mistakes, explosions, heartache and love.
John Glancy NT Connections Partner Producer says, “This year’s Connections festival is the Lyceum’s largest ever with 11 companies from as far afield as Northumbria and Oslo. It’s inspiring to see so many young people perform on one of the country’s premier stages. National Theatre Connections gives youth theatres and schools the opportunity to explore working with new writing by some of the UK’s best playwrights, a privilege which is often not available to them. We are particularly excited to see so many local companies this year including two Edinburgh schools –Westerhailes Education Centre and Drummond- making their Connections debut. Audiences attending NT Connections at the Lyceum will be getting a real opportunity to see some of the best the next generation of theatre makers has to offer.â€
Festival timetable June 17-22 2013
All shows start at 7.30pm and tickets are for a double bill.
Monday 17th:Â LYT Senior Engage: Connections Festival Curtain Raiser.
Oslo International School: What Are They Like? by Lucinda Coxon
Existential angst, mood swings, fashion fiascos, terrifying physical changes, never enough money… And that’s just the parents. How well do you know yours?
Tuesday 18th: PACE: The Guffin by Howard Brenton
Four young people hanging out in a derelict house find a strange object; it’s the Guffin. Touch it and your life is changed forever.
Collision YT: Mobile Phone Show by Jim CartwrightÂ
A communication cacophony, a fully charged up chorus line of chaos in a rhapsody of rap, text, tweet and gabble.
Wednesday 19th:North Lanarkshire YT: Allie and the Alien by Morna Pearson
Allie is a human and things have been going wrong for her for a while now. Finn is an alien who has crash landed on earth. When Finn take a shine to Allie things suddenly start going right in her life. But when Finn is summoned to return home everything begins to unravel.
Craigholme School: What Are They Like? by Lucinda Coxon
Existential angst, mood swings, fashion fiascos, terrifying physical changes, never enough money… And that’s just the parents. How well do you know yours?
Thursday 20th:
Drummond Community High School: Soundclash by Lenny Henry
A bunch of mates have been challenged to put together a reggae sound system to perform at a ‘Sound Clash’ a recreation of a legendary music competition between DJs and MCs. None of them have the money or the equipment. But they do know a little kid whose dad used to be a DJ. Deep in the cellar of Lil Kid’s house, they find out more about music than they could possibly have imagined.
Crisscross Productions : We Lost Elijah by Ryan Craig
Elijah’s older brother and two friends were charged with getting him home safely while the riots were raging. Somewhere en- route, something happened and they didn’t make it home together. Did Elijah get caught up in the events or was there another reason for his disappearance?
Friday 21st: Explosive Arts: Don’t Feed the Animals by Jemma Kennedy
Sparks Circus is on its way down. The owners have been forced to sell their star attraction Tiny the elephant and a rival circus is poaching their artistes. With a busy bank holiday weekend approaching, it’s down to acrobatic twins Zack and Missy to fill the house and stop their family business from going under. When a local gang of bored youths volunteers to help them, the twins are faced with the task of training an un-trainable mob in circus skills.
Westerhailes Education Centre: I’m Spilling My Heart Out Here by Stacey Gregg
It’s the daily scramble across no-man’s-land: you flinch as you pass those even more clueless than you strewn from the barbed wire of exams, first dates, evil former best mates… but hell’s ok if you stick together.
Saturday 22nd : Largs Youth Theatre: Mobile Phone Show by Jim CartwrightÂ
A communication cacophony, a fully charged up chorus line of chaos in a rhapsody of rap, text, tweet and gabble.
Lyceum Youth Theatre: What Are They Like? by Lucinda Coxon
Existential angst, mood swings, fashion fiascos, terrifying physical changes, never enough money… And that’s just the parents. How well do you know yours?
Tickets £8/£5/£2.50 LYT members
Lyceum Box Office:Â Tel 0131 248 4848 Â