National Theatre Connections 2021: Two Plays for Young People

Miriam Battye is a writer from Manchester.? She was the first Sister Pictures Writer in Residence in 2018 and has various original ideas in development for television. Theatre includes: Trip the Light Fantastic (Bristol Old Vic); All Your Gold (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Electricity (NYT/Arcola); Balance (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Pancake Day (Bunker/PLAY). Justine Themen (Director) is a theatre director and change-maker. She is currently Deputy Artistic Director of the Belgrade Theatre and Co-Artistic Director for its City of Culture 2021 programme. During her time at the Belgrade, she has built a small participatory programme into a broad-reaching ethos across the work of the building. The programme provides access to arts activity to some of the city's least arts-engaged communities, shapes talent development opportunities that strongly promote diversity across the sector and creates new work for the theatre’s stages. Her co-created work includes Rise (Belgrade Young Company), Walk for Your Life (Belgrade Black Youth Theatre), Hussan and Harry (Belgrade Youth Theatre with Coventry Refugee Centre); and The First Time I Saw Snow (Belgrade Theatre). Directing work focuses on new work from female writers of colour - Red Snapper (Liz Mytton), Under the Umbrella (Amy Ng), both Belgrade Theatre. She played a key role in Coventry winning its bid to become UK City of Culture 2021, and is Co-Director of its Signature Event. She is also a Clore Fellow (2012-13). Prior to working at the Belgrade, she worked for 6 years in Senegal & Suriname co-creating theatre (Hia Maun, Stiching Botopasi) & documentaries (Abigail, VPRO) and using the Arts as a tool in Development & Cultural Diplomacy. Claire Procter (Co-Director) is the Belgrade Theatre’s Creative Producer for Education. She has over 20 years of experience working with children and young people, both as a class teacher and theatre practitioner. Prior to joining the Belgrade, Claire worked for renowned Theatre-in-Education (TiE) company, Big Brum. She has written and co-created a number of original plays for and with young people, including The Impossible Language of the Time (Belgrade Youth Theatre/ Chris O’Connell), Room to Grow (Belgrade TiE) and On the Line (Belgrade Youth Theatre/ Jennifer Farmer). Her work to integrate TIE methodology into the making of the Belgrade’s youth theatre work has been central to the development of the Theatre’s participatory practise. Liz Mytton (Wordsmith) is a playwright and poet based in the North West. She took part in the Critical Mass writing programme at the Belgrade Theatre in 2014, which led to the production of her first full-length play,?Red Snapper, a runner up for the 2016 Alfred Fagon Audience Award. In 2018 as a Bristol Old Vic Open Session writer, Liz wrote Across the River, about Marcus Garvey and the KKK, which featured in Bristol Ferment Fortnight. Liz has also developed a piece of work exploring hate crime,?Southside Stories, which premiered at the Tobacco Factory in February 2019, and recently her own musical project, Shame Shanties, which uses seas shanties to explore women’s mental health. Liz regularly works as a writer and lyricist with Talking Birds Theatre Company in Coventry, most recently on a commission for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. She has worked with the Belgrade’s Young Company on two occasions in the role of wordsmith – firstly on Rise in 2017, and again in 2020 on Like There’s No Tomorrow. The Belgrade Young Company was established to give young people showing particular talent/ ability from across the Belgrade’s participatory programme an opportunity to grow their skills and abilities in a semi-professional context. Past work has included Frank Wedekind’s youth classic, Spring Awakening, rarely performed by young people of the same age as the characters; a physical production of The Tempest with Frantic Assembly; and Rise, co-created with a company of 10 young women aged 13 to 23 about their experiences of discrimination and rising beyond it.

Two plays on very different but relevant topics that will be a useful and insightful additional to your bookshelf.

• 1. Introduction to the 2021 Collection 2. Directors Notes to Find a Partner by Miriam Battye3. Find a Partner by Miriam Battye4. Directors Notes to Like There’s No Tomorrow, created by the Belgrade Young Company with Justine Themen, Claire Procter and Liz Mytton5. Like There’s No Tomorrow, created by the Belgrade Young Company with Justine Themen, Claire Procter and Liz Mytton