Evan Placey – författare

Winner! 2011 Samuel French Canadian Play Contest Winner! King's Cross Award for New Writing (UK) Winner! Tarragon Theatre's RBC Under 30 National Playwriting Competition (Canada) "If you were looking at us, you might have even thought we were friends. Old friends. If my son hadn't raped her daughter." It could be a morning like any other as Brenda cooks breakfast for her two sons...But eight year-old Jason's refusing to go to school and teenager Matthew is under house arrest upstairs. And Brenda's face is splashed across the cover of every newspaper. For Matthew has committed a horrible crime, and as Brenda fights for him to be sentenced as a child, she learns it's the laws inside the house that matter most: boys can become men, and a mother can at once become victim and monster. How far does a mother's love go, and at what cost to herself?

Drawing together the work of ten leading playwrights - a mixture of established and emerging writers - this National Theatre Connections anthology is published to coincide with the 2014 festival, which takes place across the UK and finishes up at the National Theatre in London. It offers young performers between the ages of thirteen and nineteen everywhere an engaging selection of plays to perform, read or study. Each play is specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department with the young performer in mind. The plays are performed by approximately 200 schools and youth theatre companies across the UK and Ireland, in partnership with multiple professional regional theatres where the works are showcased.As with previous anthologies, the volume will feature an introduction by Anthony Banks, Associate Director of the National Theatre Discover Programme, and each play includes notes from the writer and director addressing the themes and ideas behind the play, as well as production notes and exercises.The National Theatre Connections series has been running for nineteen years and the anthology that accompanies it, published for the last three years by Methuen Drama, is gaining a greater profile by the year. Some iconic plays have grown out of the Connections programme including Citizenship by Mark Ravenhill, Burn by Deborah Gearing, Chatroom by Enda Walsh, Baby Girl by Roy Williams, DNA by Dennis Kelly, and The Miracle by Lin Coghlan. The series has a recognisable brand and the anthologies continue to be an extremely useful resource, their value extending well beyond their year of publication.This year's anthology includes plays by Sabrina Mahfouz, Simon Vinnicombe, Catherine Johnson, Pauline McLynn, Dafydd James, Luke Norris and Sam Holcroft.

'A system is people. These walls and bars didn't build themselves.'Inside the walls of HMP Drummond, long-term prisoners Baxter, Norton and Lenny pass the time with poker, banter and the kind of gallows humour only lifers can muster.When Lenny's body starts to give out, young prison officer Mark keeps an eye on him. What begins as a duty of care becomes an unexpected friendship, exposing the cracks in a system built to punish, not to support.Darkly funny and unflinchingly honest, Evan Placey's play Lifers challenges what we think we know about crime, punishment and redemption. Do some crimes make a second chance impossible? And when the world moves on without you, what does justice really mean? Produced by Synergy Theatre Project, it premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2025, directed by Synergy's Artistic Director Esther Baker.

An urgent and explosive play that explores of the pressures on young people today in the wake of advancing technology.When a naked photograph of Scarlett goes viral, she becomes the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. But while rumours run wild and everyone forms an opinion, Scarlett just stays silent...With roles for up to twenty-four young female actors (though it can also be performed by a smaller cast), the play is perfect for any schools, youth theatres or drama groups looking to tackle a contemporary subject in a theatrically exciting way.Specially commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Evan Placey's play Girls Like That was developed through work with young people from the three theatres and first performed by their youth theatre companies in 2013. It was revived at the Unicorn Theatre, London, in November 2014.Girls Like That was named Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2015.

A love story about transition, testosterone, and James Dean.Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy.Evan Placey's play Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. Especially written for young actors, the play can be performed by a cast of seven, with some doubling of roles, or a much larger cast.

This collection features four urgent and explosive plays by award-winning playwright Evan Placey, each tackling issues facing young people today. They provide ideal material for teenagers to read, study and perform.Girls Like That explores the pressures caused by technology when a schoolgirl’s naked photograph goes viral. Commissioned in 2013 by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, it has subsequently been performed by school and youth-theatre groups across the UK, at the Unicorn Theatre, London, and in the Houses of Parliament. It won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Play for Young Audiences. Banana Boys, published here for the first time, is about the challenges of being on the school football team – and secretly gay. It was commissioned and produced by Hampstead Theatre’s heat&light company in 2010.In Holloway Jones, Holloway dreams of being a world-class BMXer, but she is held back by the tough reality of a parent in prison. Also making its debut in print here, the play was commissioned by Synergy Theatre Project, toured schools and the Unicorn Theatre in 2011, and won the 2012 Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People. Finally, Pronoun is a love story about two childhood sweethearts dealing with the fact that one of them, Isabella, has now become a boy. As one of the plays in the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival it proved enormously popular with youth theatres and college companies.'Maybe change starts with plays like this' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, on Girls Like That

An explosive and thought-provoking play from the author of Girls Like That, exploring what happens when buried secrets catch up with you.As Head of Year 11, Diane is meant to be implementing the new 'Healthy Relationships' curriculum. But then Freddie arrives. She hasn't seen him since that night six years earlier when he was fifteen.She thinks he took advantage of her. He thinks she groomed him for months. Neither is sure. But when it comes to sex and consent, how far can you blur the lines?Evan Placey's Consensual was first performed by the National Youth Theatre in their 2015 West End season.