Marking its 30th anniversary, National Theatre Connections 2025 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights.
These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test 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. Wrestling with themes like the cost-of-living crisis, activism, neurodiversity, the point and pointlessness of regret, human rights, and loneliness, this collection lays bare a rich and complex terrain in which students can fully immerse themselves, explore and discover.
This 2025 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2025 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.
Like candles on a 30th birthday cake, this collection is bright, striking and set to make a lasting impression – the culmination of the celebrations it also strikes a note of eager anticipation as the next chapter begins
Chohan, Satinder: - Satinder Chohan is a journalist and documentary researcher/associate producer turned playwright who won the Adopt A Playwright Award in 2013. Her play MADE IN INDIA (Tamasha, Belgrade and Pilot Theatre) directed by Katie Posner toured the UK in 2017 to great acclaim receiving an OffWestEnd award nomination and winning the award for Best Production at the Eastern Eye awards. Her plays ZAMEEN and KABADDIKABADDIKABADDI have toured the UK with Kalí and Pursued By A Bear respectively and 1984 was part of The Finborough's Vibrant Festival 2014. She won a Kalí Futures Writer Award, completed The Traverse Theatre's Emerging Writers' Residency, was on attachment at the Hampstead Theatre and took part in the Kudos-Court scheme at the Royal Court in 2016. She is currently under commission to co-adapt GULLIVER'S TRAVELS with Mike Kenny for the Bolton Octagon
Donoghue, Vickie: - Vickie Donoghue graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Plays and Screenplays) at City University in September 2009. A rehearsed reading of her MA piece Talk for England took place at RADA in March 2010. Her first short play One Last Wave was one of the three finalists of the 2005 Windsor Fringe Marriott Award. She was Dramaturg for The Caroline Carter Show by Flick Ferdinando which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2011. Mudlarks, her first full length play, was first performed at the HighTide Festival, Halesworth, Suffolk on 4 May 2012.
McNair, Gary: - Gary McNair is a multi-award-winning writer and performer from Glasgow who aims to challenge and entertain in equal measure. Previous shows include: Square Go, Jekyll and Hyde, Dear Billy, Donald Robertson is Not a Stand Up Comedian, A Gambler's Guide To Dying, Letters To Morrissey, and Locker Room Talk. He has three times won the Scotsman Fringe First Award and has toured the world with his plays. His work has been translated into multiple languages including Italian, Arabic and Japanese.
Metcalf, Alys: -
Alys Metcalf is a Welsh writer. She recently wrote the comedy Beginner's Guide to Line of Duty, voiced by Diane Morgan for BBC platforms. Her interactive story, The Act, was commissioned by BBC Taster. Her TV sitcom, The Home, was optioned by Hartswood Films and she has developed another sitcom and two shorts with Sharon Horgan's company, Merman. Her short film, Remnants, was screened at The Hackney Empire as part of the London Short Film Festival and won the main award for Best Film and Best Writing in the International 100 Hour Film Racing competition. Alys has also been part of the writers' room for BBC Radio Wales's topical comedy show, The Leak.
In terms of theatre, Alys's new play (title TBA) has been taken on for a full 2021 run at The Rose Theatre, directed by Artistic Director, Christopher Haydon and produced by Francesca Moody Productions. Alys's other plays include five-star sell-out hit
You Only Live Forever, at SOHO Theatre,
Reel Life, at Ustinov Studio Theatre Royal Bath, and
Unearthed, which was chosen as one of the Guardian Readers' Favourite plays of 2015 and enjoyed a successful UK tour, playing the Arcola, Hull Truck and Cheltenham Everyman theatres, amongst others.
Samal, Danusia: - Danusia Samal is a London-born actress, writer and jazz singer. Busking It is inspired by her experience as a London Underground busker. Danusia is also a resident playwright with Tamasha. Other writing credits include Conditionally (Oxford School of Drama/ Soho Theatre), Langthorne Stories (Soho Theatre/ Waltham Forest), and Las Americas Above (Chaskis Theatre).
Sirett, Paul: - "Paul Sirett is an award-winning playwright, dramaturg, musician and teacher. His theatrical works include the Olivier-nominated The Big Life (with Paul Joseph) at Theatre Royal Stratford East & West End, Rat Pack Confidential at Nottingham Playhouse & West End, and Come Dancing (with Ray Davies) at Stratford East. Other works include Bad Blood Blues (Theatrescience and Stratford East) and Worlds Apart (Stratford East), Reasons to be Cheerful (Graeae Theatre Company - published by Methuen Drama), and plays for Soho Theatre; Polka Theatre; Yellow Earth Theatre; Live Theatre, Newcastle; New Wolsey, Ipswich; Dukes, Lancaster; and the Edinburgh Fringe. Awards include, Best Off-West End Musical, Whatsonstage; Best Play, Pearson; Best Production, City Life; Best Writer & Best Play, New York International Radio Festival; and nominations for TMA, Evening Standard and Olivier awards. Paul has also worked extensively as a dramaturg for companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Theatre, Ambassador Theatre Group, Trafalgar Entertainment, the Royal Court, and the National Theatre. He is currently an Associate Artist of Soho Theatre, Associate Fellow at the University of Warwick, Literary Associate at Trafalgar Entertainment, and Associate Teacher of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he teaches playwriting and dramaturgy."
Sumbwanyambe, May: -
May Sumbwanyambe is a librettist, radio dramatist, academic and playwright from Edinburgh. For National Theatre of Scotland: Ghost Light (Edinburgh International Festival and National Theatre of Scotland); Joseph Knight (BBC Scotland, National Theatre of Scotland).
Other work includes: After Independence (Arcola Theatre, Papatango Theatre); The Parrot House (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); After Independence and The Trial of Joseph Knight (BBC Radio 4). He is currently writing new stage plays for the National Theatre of Scotland, the Citizens Theatre and Grid Iron Theatre Company/ National Trust for Scotland, all are about the historical visibility of Black peoples in Scotland. He is also developing a new TV series for Two Rivers Media/the BBC and a new radio play for BBC Radio 4. In 2016 May's debut play was the winner of the Alfred Fagon Audience Award. He was the inaugural Papatango Resident Playwright and winner of the £10k BBC Performing Arts Opera Fellowship. Other award recognition includes being shortlisted for the Channel 4/Oran Mor Comedy Drama Award (2012), the Papatango New Writing Prize (2012), the Alfred Fagon Award (2011, 2012, 2015), the BBC's Alfred Bradley Award (2011) and OffWestEnd's Adopt a Playwright Award (2010 and 2009), the Old Vic 12 award (2016), Perfect Pitch £12k musical award (2016), IASH/Traverse Fellowship (2017, 2018), Live Theatre/Northumbria University Writer in Residence (2018) and the DrGavin Wallace Fellowship (2018). He also reached the final round of Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award (2011) and won the BBC's inaugural Scriptroom competition (2012).
