Winner! 2011 Samuel French Canadian Play Contest Winner! King's Cross Award for New Writing (UK) Winner! Tarragon Theatre's RBC Under 30 National Playwriting Competition (Canada) "If you were looking at us, you might have even thought we were friends. Old friends. If my son hadn't raped her daughter." It could be a morning like any other as Brenda cooks breakfast for her two sons...But eight year-old Jason's refusing to go to school and teenager Matthew is under house arrest upstairs. And Brenda's face is splashed across the cover of every newspaper. For Matthew has committed a horrible crime, and as Brenda fights for him to be sentenced as a child, she learns it's the laws inside the house that matter most: boys can become men, and a mother can at once become victim and monster. How far does a mother's love go, and at what cost to herself?

This collection features four urgent and explosive plays by award-winning playwright Evan Placey, each tackling issues facing young people today. They provide ideal material for teenagers to read, study and perform. Girls Like That explores the pressures caused by technology when a schoolgirl's naked photograph goes viral. Commissioned in 2013 by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, it has subsequently been performed by school and youth-theatre groups across the UK, at the Unicorn Theatre, London, and in the Houses of Parliament. It won the Writers' Guild Award for Best Play for Young Audiences. Banana Boys, published here for the first time, is about the challenges of being on the school football team - and secretly gay. It was commissioned and produced by Hampstead Theatre's heat&light company in 2010. In Holloway Jones, Holloway dreams of being a world-class BMXer, but she is held back by the tough reality of a parent in prison. Also making its debut in print here, the play was commissioned by Synergy Theatre Project, toured schools and the Unicorn Theatre in 2011, and won the 2012 Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People. Finally, Pronoun is a love story about two childhood sweethearts dealing with the fact that one of them, Isabella, has now become a boy. As one of the plays in the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival it proved enormously popular with youth theatres and college companies. 'Maybe change starts with plays like this' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, on Girls Like That

An urgent and explosive play that explores of the pressures on young people today in the wake of advancing technology. When a naked photograph of Scarlett goes viral, she becomes the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. But while rumours run wild and everyone forms an opinion, Scarlett just stays silent... With roles for up to twenty-four young female actors (though it can also be performed by a smaller cast), the play is perfect for any schools, youth theatres or drama groups looking to tackle a contemporary subject in a theatrically exciting way. Specially commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Evan Placey's play Girls Like That was developed through work with young people from the three theatres and first performed by their youth theatre companies in 2013. It was revived at the Unicorn Theatre, London, in November 2014. Girls Like That was named Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2015.

An explosive and thought-provoking play from the author of Girls Like That, exploring what happens when buried secrets catch up with you. As Head of Year 11, Diane is meant to be implementing the new 'Healthy Relationships' curriculum. But then Freddie arrives. She hasn't seen him since that night six years earlier when he was fifteen. She thinks he took advantage of her. He thinks she groomed him for months. Neither is sure. But when it comes to sex and consent, how far can you blur the lines? Evan Placey's Consensual was first performed by the National Youth Theatre in their 2015 West End season.

A love story about transition, testosterone, and James Dean. Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy. Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. Especially written for young actors, the play can be performed by a cast of seven, with some doubling of roles, or a much larger cast.

Everyone has another face they hide behind... A radical re-imagining by playwright Evan Placey of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale, where civilised society meets seedy Soho in a thrilling collision of Victorian England with the here and now. Written for the National Youth Theatre, and first performed by the company at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End in 2017, Jekyll & Hyde offers a full range of parts for schools and youth-theatre groups looking for a contemporary reinvention of a macabre classic. Evan Placey's other plays include Consensual, Pronoun, Girls Like That (Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards), Mother of Him, Banana Boys and Holloway Jones.