Josh Azouz – författare

National Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities.The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance.This 2024 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2024 Festival (eight brand-new plays, and two returning favourites), as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

'On the way over I saw three vipers copulating… I know what you're thinking… monogamy is under threat.'1943. Four months into the Nazi occupation of Tunisia. You're imprisoned in a labour camp. You're buried up to your neck in earth. You're dying of thirst, you miss your wife, and your best friend just pissed on your face. How could things possibly get any worse?Josh Azouz's Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia is a brutally comic play about home and identity, marriage and survival, blood and feathers. It was first produced at the Almeida Theatre, London, in August 2021, directed by Eleanor Rhode.

'Private Gigi. One Direction awaits your commands.'A roadblock. Two young women armed with machine guns and Nutella. Days away from finishing the army.Gigi has a secret. Dar dreamt she'd be shot today. And there's a strange vehicle heading their way… Well, that's okay. Nothing ever happens here. Right?A comic tragedy about what we bury in order to survive, Josh Azouz's play Gigi & Dar was first performed at the Arcola Theatre, London, in 2024, directed by Kathryn Hunter.

Two plays showcasing the exciting and distinctive voice of Josh Azouz.Buggy Baby is a horror comedy about trying to build a normal life when nothing about life is normal.Jaden, Nur and baby Aya have escaped another country and ended up in a rotting room in London. While Nur is at college, Jaden chews leaves and has visions of giant rabbits with burning red eyes. He thinks Aya is someone else, someone dangerous. But she’s just a baby. Isn’t she?The Mikvah Project is a playful and poignant play about two men who meet every Friday in a north-west London Mikvah, a traditional Jewish pool used for ritual cleansing.Avi is married but childless. Eitan’s voice is breaking and he’s having wet dreams. At the Mikvah they talk about football, the synagogue choir, women. And as their bond deepens, a transformation begins…Both plays premiered at The Yard, London: Buggy Baby in 2018, directed by Ned Bennett, and The Mikvah Project in 2015, directed by the theatre’s Artistic Director, Jay Miller.