National Theatre Connections is an annual festival which brings new plays for young people to schools and youth theatres across the UK and Ireland. Commissioning exciting work from leading playwrights, the festival exposes actors aged 13-19 to the world of professional theatre-making, giving them full control of a theatrical production - from costume and set design to stage management and marketing campaigns. NT Connections have published over 150 original plays and regularly works with 500 theatre companies and 10,000 young people each year. This anthology brings together 9 new plays by some of the UK's most prolific and current writers and artists alongside notes on each of the texts exploring performance for schools and youth groups. Wind / Rush Generation(s) by Mojisola Adebayo Tuesday by Alison Carr A series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor Look Up by Andrew Muir Crusaders by Frances Poet Witches Can't Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan Dungeness by Chris Thompson .

このアンソロジーは、単なる若者向けの戯曲集を超え、現代社会の歪みや葛藤を鋭利に切り取る「対話の実験場」です。各戯曲が放つ言葉の熱量は、アイデンティティや政治、孤独といった重層的なテーマを、若者ならではの鮮烈な感性で昇華させています。読者はテキストを通じて、舞台上の一瞬の火花が生まれる前の、静かながらも強靭な思想の骨格に触れることができるでしょう。 映像化された各作品では、肉体と言葉が衝突するライブ感が補完され、物語がより立体的な熱を帯びて迫ってきます。しかし、あえて活字で辿ることで、劇作家たちが言葉の一音一句に込めた詩的な余白や、沈黙の持つ重みがより鮮明に立ち上がります。視覚的な演出とテキストの深掘り、その双方向の往復こそが、本作が持つ重層的な芸術性を最大限に享受する醍醐味と言えます。