Nancy Harris – författare

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2012 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. Power struggles, rites of passage, love and forbidden relationships are some of the rich themes that run through the 2012 cycle of plays. Some are deeply funny, some are provocative and some reflective; and one has really catchy songs!For the 2012 Festival, the anthology has an international feel and offers a window on the world. It includes from Australia a play based on a nineteenth century court case in which a teenage girl was falsely convicted; from Brazil a drama about young lovers doomed to tragedy; set in Russia, a play exploring differing attitudes to National Service and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; a drama about students' rights to an education and the Cultural Revolution of 1966 in China; and a comedy involving a group of Irish country girls travelling to London to audition for the X-Factor.

Ivar is tired of sitting on the sidelines making sails while other men experience adventure on the high seas. He decides to take matters into his own hands and stows away on Leif Erikson's ship. Find out what adventures await Ivar and Leif on their expedition to explore new lands.

'We are all the authors of our own love story.'Casey's new boyfriend Brett is handsome, romantic and devoted – a dream come true. He writes poetry! He makes quiche! For once in her life, Casey is in a relationship with a man who attends to her every whim and desire.But when her suspicious sister Cynthia starts digging into Brett's past, she threatens to take away the one good thing that's ever happened to Casey…Nancy Harris's play Somewhere Out There You is a romantic comedy with a twist, playfully unravelling the love stories we weave for ourselves and inviting us to question what compels us to tell them in the first place. It was first performed in 2023 at the Abbey Theatre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, directed by Wayne Jordan.

'What's wrong with wanting to dance?'When an orphaned young woman is taken in by some local do-gooders, she is expected to be seen and not heard.Dazzled by a pair of beautiful shoes, she sees in them an opportunity to shine – but soon her feet betray her, taking her to places she does not wish to go.Nancy Harris's version of The Red Shoes is a contemporary retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's extraordinary fairytale of dance, desire and destruction. It was first performed at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 2017 and revived in the version published here in 2024 at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Kimberley Rampersad.

A tender and funny tale about our secret selves, No Romance is a play about our search for connection in a fractured world. It received the Stewart Parker Trust Award in 2012.Laura has a secret. Joe's has been revealed. Peg's been keeping hers for years.Rich with the absurdities, hypocrisies and vulnerabilities that course through our lives, Nancy Harris's No Romance playfully observes the longings, fears and desires we reveal - and don't reveal - in our closest relationships.No Romance was first staged at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2011.

Two plays from one of Ireland's leading dramatists.Our New Girl is a startling psychological drama about the darker side of modern parenthood.Behind the shiny door of Hazel Robinson's immaculate London home, things aren't as good as they look. Her plastic surgeon husband, Richard, has embarked on his latest charitable mission to Haiti, leaving the heavily pregnant Hazel to cope with a failing business and a problem son. When a professional nanny arrives unannounced on her doorstep, Hazel finds her home under the shadow of a seemingly perfect stranger, and one who has an agenda of her own. Nancy Harris's play Our New Girl was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2012.This volume also includes her short play, Little Dolls.Vicky seeks counselling from John to overcome her intense fear of darkness. But what if there really is some truth in her anxiety, and what if the darkness really is a disease?Little Dolls was first performed as part of the Bush Theatre's Broken Space season in 2008.

Keep your enemies close, and your wives closer.As their husbands clash over an international crisis, the first ladies of France and America find themselves alone together in a side room.Friends, or enemies? When the stakes are so high, can they trust each other? Can they trust their husbands?Nancy Harris's play Two Ladies premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, in 2019, directed by Nicholas Hytner, and featuring Zoë Wanamaker and Zrinka Cvitešić.

A mysterious accident. A dead husband. People are talking. Secrets are resurfacing from the depths. Is the past ever truly dead?Beiv, a celebrated artist, has moved from suburban Dublin to her holiday cottage on an island off the coast of West Cork. But a dark shadow from the past hangs over her. When her estranged son and his new young wife arrive to stay, she is faced with some difficult questions.Nancy Harris's play The Beacon was premiered at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, in September 2019 before transferring to the Gate Theatre, Dublin, as part of the 2019 Dublin Theatre Festival, in a co-production between Druid and the Gate, directed by Garry Hynes.