Northampton goes national to connect with new plays

Published: 6 April 2013
Reporter: Steve Orme

National Theatre Connections

New plays will be performed by actors aged 13 to 19 when the annual National Theatre Connections Festival takes place at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate this week.

Each year the National Theatre asks ten writers to create plays which are performed by schools and young theatre companies all over the country. Royal and Derngate is one of 20 venues across the UK to host Connections.

Ryan Craig’s We Lost Elijah has proved the most popular and four theatre companies including Royal and Derngate’s youth theatre will perform it.

The play takes audiences back to the 2011 riots when Elijah’s older brother and two friends are charged with getting him home safely. But they don’t make it. Did Elijah get caught up in the events or was there another reason for his disappearance?

Craig, a writer-in-residence at the National Theatre Studio, says writing for Connections has been a “liberating” experience.

“Young people are as fired up by great themes of faith and redemption, or appearance and reality, as they are by crude bawdiness; all stuff that goes into making a good piece of drama.”

Other writers whose works will be performed at Royal and Derngate include Anya Reiss, Jonathan Harvey, Stacey Gregg, Jemma Kennedy and Jim Cartwright.

Eleven groups from places including Luton, Bedford, Oxford and Nottingham will be performing at the National Theatre Connections from Monday until Saturday. Performances are from 1:30 until 7PM each day.

Tickets are available from the box office on 01604 624811 or the Royal and Derngate’s web site.

Ten companies chosen from around the country will go on to perform at the National Theatre from 3 until 8 July.

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