Bano Alia Bano & Grose Carl Grose 
National Theatre Connections 2011 
Plays for Young People: Frank & Ferdinand; Gap; Cloud Busting; Those Legs; Shooting Truth; Bassett; Gargantua; Children of Killers; The Beauty Manifesto; Too Fast

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 2011 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. The Pied Piper re-imagined, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, witches in seventeenth century Norfolk, a giant baby on the rampage, an extraordinary day in an ordinary school are just some of subjects covered in the thrilling and varied new plays created by talented writers for young actors to perform in National Theatre Connections 2011. The plays in this anthology offer a huge variety of stories and styles to ignite the imagination of young casts and creative teams. Themes are both teenage and universal – ambition, dashed hopes, fear and confidence, loyalty and betrayal. These new plays embrace a huge range for their inspiration: they plunder classics and imagine the future.