National Theatre Connections 2023 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 the 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. Touching on themes like climate change, politics, toxic masculinity and gang culture, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2023 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2023 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

"There's me 'out there', in public, and there's me in here. I know you think they're not the same. But they're not as far away as you think." Created by the Almeida Young Company and written by Molly Taylor, Cacophony tells the story of a young woman's rise to fame after speaking up at a protest outside a controversial rape trial. Weaving a complex web of fame and shame, Cacophony explores the power social media has to liberate brave new voices and, just as quickly, bring them crashing to earth. Inspired by the ideas in Jon Ronson's book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. "When public shamings are delivered like remotely administered drone strikes nobody need think about how ferocious our collective power might be. The snow ake never needs to feel responsible for the avalanche." JON RONSON Cacophony received its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre from 26-28 July 2018, and transferred to the Yard Theatre from19-22 February 2019, in a production directed by Michael Bryher.

"My neighbours leave their at one morning but don't return. Alton and Evie, married 40 years, no kids. I have their spare keys. I cannot resist." Molly's neighbours haven't come home. The spare keys are in the lock. She's over the threshold. In a house that will never be lived in the same way again, Molly looks under the rock of a marriage, a family, an existence and brings to light what has been left in the dark. The voices of a past echoed in belongings. Items left behind. Extinguished things. A play that pieces together the story of two lives intertwined, Extinguished Things is a vivid, complex and moving look at what it means to spend your life with someone, and the nature of what you leave behind. Winner of the Critics Circle Award at the Adelaide Fringe 2019.