National Theatre Playscripts: Treasure Island


Book Description

Working in partnership with the National Theatre, these new playscripts bring the theatre alive in the classroom. Each play has been carefully selected to ensure maximum impact and relevance to students, while the activities and teaching support are underpinned by National Theatre strategiesso that teachers can feel confident using these approaches. Vibrant production images and the "Making the play" section show how the play is brought to life on stage while the activities combine a focus on English skills with the play as a perfomance.Adapted by Bryony Lavery, this is an exciting new adaptation of Stevenson's classic tale of money, murder and mutiny. Young Jim Hawkins leads a quiet life at the Admiral Benbow Inn run by her Grandma. One night, fate brings Billy Bones, a large sea chest and a treasure map to their door. As Jim setsoff on a voyage to find the treasure, she encounters a crew of the bloodthirstiest pirates, including the infamous Long John Silver, and she begins to wonder whether any of them will make it back alive...




Treasure Island


Book Description

It’s a dark, stormy night. The stars are out. Jim, the innkeeper’s granddaughter, opens the door to a terrifying stranger. At the old sailor’s feet sits a huge sea-chest, full of secrets. Jim invites him in—and her dangerous voyage begins. Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale of murder, money, and mutiny is brought to life in this thrilling adaptation.




Divided City


Book Description

Nominated for ten UK book awards, Theresa Breslin's hit novel tells of how two young boys - one Rangers fan, one Celtic fan - are drawn into a secret pact to help a young asylum seeker in a city divided by prejudice. Now adapted for the stage by Martin Travers, the play has already been produced to great acclaim at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre. Graham and Joe just want to play football and be selected for the new city team, but a violent attack on Kyoul, an asylum seeker, changes everything when they find themselves drawn into a secret pact to help the victim and his girlfriend Leanne. Set in Glasgow at the time of the Orange Order walks, Divided City is a gripping tale about two boys and how they must find their own way forward in a world divided by difference. This educational edition has been prepared by national Drama in Secondary English experts Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan. Published in Methuen Drama's Critical Scripts series the book: - meets the curriculum requirements for English at KS3, GCSE and Scottish CfE. - features detailed, structured schemes of work utilising drama approaches to improve literary and language analysis - places pupils' understanding of the learning process at the heart of the activities - will help pupils to boost English GCSE success and develop high-level skills at KS3 - will save teachers considerable time devising their own resources.




Frankenstein, based on the novel by Mary Shelley


Book Description

Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, adapted for the stage by Nick Dear, premiered at the National Theatre, London, in February 2011.




National Theatre Playscripts: Emil and the Detectives


Book Description

Working in partnership with the National Theatre, these new playscripts bring the theatre alive in the classroom. Each play has been carefully selected to ensure maximum impact and relevance to students, while the activities and teaching support are underpinned by National Theatre strategiesso that teachers can feel confident using these approaches. Vibrant production images and the "Making the play" section show how the play is brought to life on stage while the activities combine a focus on English skills with the play as a perfomance.Set in the 1920s, Emil and the Detectives tells the tale of Emil, a young boy sent alone by train to Berlin. Excited to be travelling on his own for the first time, he becomes suspicious of a fellow passenger who later robs him. Not to be outdone, Emil teams up with a band of children turneddetectives and sets out to track the robber and get his money back, leading to a hair-raising chase across Berlin.




The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus


Book Description

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.




Rent


Book Description

(Applause Libretto Library). Finally, an authorized libretto to this modern day classic! Rent won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for Jonathan Larson. The story of Mark, Roger, Maureen, Tom Collins, Angel, Mimi, JoAnne, and their friends on the Lower East Side of New York City will live on, along with the affirmation that there is "no day but today." Includes 16 color photographs of productions of Rent from around the world, plus an introduction ("Rent Is Real") by Victoria Leacock Hoffman.




National Theatre Connections 2014


Book Description

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.




National Theatre Connections 2021: Two Plays for Young People


Book Description

It is the scale and range of creative collaboration inherent in theatre that sits at the very heart of National Theatre Connections Drawing together the work of ten leading playwrights, National Theatre Connections 2021 features work by brilliant artists. 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. This 2021 edition is intended as a companion to the 2020 anthology, which together represent the full set of 10 plays offered by the National Theatre 2021 Festival. The two plays included in this collection are Find a Partner by Miriam Battye and Like There's No Tomorrow, created by the Belgrade Young Company with Justine Themen, Claire Procter and Liz Mytton. The anthology contains two play scripts, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that will give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.




Her Nightly Embrace


Book Description

The first in a trilogy of whip-smart novels—currently in development as a TV series set to star Sendhil Ramamurthy (NBC’s Heroes and Heroes Reborn)—about a destructive private investigator and his eccentric coworkers, who handle cases so high-profile that they never make the headlines. Ravi Chandra Singh is the last guy you’d expect to become a private detective. A failed religious scholar, he now works for Golden Sentinels, an upmarket London private investigations agency. His colleagues are a band of gleefully amoral and brilliant screw-ups: Ken and Clive, a pair of brutal ex-cops who are also a gay couple; Mark Chapman, a burned-out stoner hiding a great mind; Marcie Holder, a cheerful former publicist; Benjamin Lee, a techie prankster from South London; David Okri, an ambitious lawyer from a well-connected Nigerian immigrant family; and Olivia Wong, an upper-class Hong Kong financial analyst hiding her true skills as one of the most dangerous hackers in the world—all under the watchful eye of Roger Golden, wheeler-dealer extraordinaire, and his mysterious office manager, Cheryl Hughes. Thrust into a world where the rich, famous, and powerful hire him to solve their problems and wash their dirty laundry, Ravi finds himself in over his head with increasingly gonzo and complex cases – and the recent visions that he’s been having of Hindu gods aren’t helping. As Ravi struggles to stay ahead of danger, he wonders if the things he’s seeing are a delusion – or if he might, in fact, be an unrecognized shaman of the modern world...