Zoe Cooper – författare

The night before the funeral was when he told us that he was getting the lot and I said, I said only then in retaliation, you know, and I am not proud of this, but how Dad had, how he had smashed his glass and cried, cried for Simon when he rang home to tell him how he had failed his exams, how it broke his dad's heart.Simon and Sean’s dad is dead. Returning home from London, Simon is shocked to find Sean in a relationship with a man called Aidan. Sean is irritated by Simon’s new cosmopolitan ways. And Aidan? He just wants to be part of the family.This is a play for anyone who ever left home and comes back to find everything changed. And for anyone who never went away in the first place.Attempting to find common ground, they head out for a booze-fueled night in Gateshead. Before long they are arguing. What is it about the memory of a childhood trip to Whitby that sets them off? Darts, pints and fists fly across the room, as past and present collide with dizzying consequences.Petrification received its world premiere at Live Theatre, Newcastle, on 23 May 2016, before a UK tour, presented by Telltale in association with LittleMighty.

Meet Jess and Joe. They want to tell you their story. Joe is Norfolk born and bred and wears wellies. Jess holidays there with her au pair and is slightly too tubby for her summer dresses. They are miles apart even when they stand next to each other. This is a story of growing up, fitting in (or not), boys, girls, secrets, scotch eggs and maybe even love, but most of all, it’s about friendship.Spanning several summer holidays, Jess and Joe Forever is an unusual coming of age tale that explores rural life and what it means to belong somewhere, if you can really belong anywhere.A layered and thoughtful play about finding your place in the world when you only know a small corner of it.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere of the play at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in September 2016.

Meet Jess and Joe. They want to tell you their story. Joe is Norfolk born and bred and wears wellies. Jess holidays there with her au pair and is slightly too tubby for her summer dresses. They are miles apart even when they stand next to each other. This is a story of growing up, fitting in (or not), boys, girls, secrets, scotch eggs and maybe even love, but most of all, it’s about friendship.Spanning several summer holidays, Jess and Joe Forever is an unusual coming of age tale that explores rural life and what it means to belong somewhere, if you can really belong anywhere.A layered and thoughtful play about finding your place in the world when you only know a small corner of it. This edition was published to coincide with House Theatre's production at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2017.

And we are watching the huge grey waves crashing and this is the moment when I say I have to tell you something. Claire and her wife Kit have moved from the confines of London to the wide open coasts of South Shields.To be nearer family, to be nearer the sea, to put down roots. To have a baby.Claire’s new job at the local school is a step up, and she wants to make a real difference, but she soon discovers that she has as much to learn from her students as they have from her.A tender new play about gender, wild swimming, and how we define who we are.

Theatre has a complex history of responding to crises, long before they happen. Through stage plays, contemporary challenges can be presented, explored and even foreshadowed in ways that help audiences understand the world around them. Since the theatre of the Greeks, audiences have turned to live theatre in order to find answers in uncertain political, social and economic times, and through this unique collection questions about This anthology brings together a collection of 20 scenes from 20 playwrights that each respond to the world in crisis. Twenty of the world’s most prolific playwrights were asked to select one scene from across their published work that speaks to the current world situation in 2020. As COVID-19 continues to challenge every aspect of global life, contemporary theatre has long predicted a world on the edge. Through these 20 scenes from plays spanning from 1980 to 2020, we see how theatre and art has the capacity to respond, comment on and grapple with global challenges that in turn speak to the current time in which we are living. Each scene, chosen by the writer, is prefaced by an interview in which they discuss their process, their reason for selection and how their work reflects both the past and the present. From the political plays of Lucy Prebble and James Graham to the polemics of Philip Ridley and Tim Crouch. From bold works by Inua Ellams, Morgan Lloyd Malcom and Tanika Gupta to the social relevance of Hannah Khalil, Zoe Cooper and Simon Stephens this anthology looks at theatre in the present and asks the question: “how can theatre respond to a world in crisis?” The collection is prefaced by an introduction from Edward Bond, one of contemporary theatre’s most prolific dramatists.

Nativities is a darkly comic new play set in the wasteland of petty office politics, designated smoking areas and personal alienation.Excited about her new job as administrative assistant at a call centre, Stella is eager to fit in with her workmates and they seem to like her too, especially when they find out how much they all have in common. It's really like a family at Scion Communications so when they discover that Stella is pregnant they're all delighted for her. However, as her pregnancy progresses, their certainties about love, relationships and parenthood are questioned and their lives both at work and at home begin to unravel.Set somewhere between an Orwellian dystopian vision and an all too familiar contemporary reality, Cooper's writing turns a lens on everyday office life and how personalities are warped in its liminal space. Within the repeating motifs of the anonymity of the corporate existence, recurrent unvaried routines and ominously authoritative performance targets, the core of the play focuses on the sheer isolation and loneliness of the characters. The dialogue is overlapping, misunderstood and disconnected, and the characters are unable to communicate in spite of spending the majority of their waking lives together. This kaleidoscopic dialogue and the slippery, shifting ground between the characters effectively creates a new language for the stage which is startlingly original. This is writing which is innovative, relevant, chilling and blackly funny.