National Theatre Connections 2020: Plays for Young People

About Alison CarrAndrew MuirChris BushChris ThompsonFrances PoetHattie NaylorJohn DonnellyMojisola AdebayoSilva SemerciyanVivienne Franzmann

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 WERE 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 Shakespeares Globe. His short radio play The Perfect Non Starter was broadcast on BBC Radio 3s 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 Mans 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 Playwrights 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.