NT Connections Festival

Every year the National Theatre commissions new plays by leading playwrights for young theatre companies all over the country to perform as part of their nationwide Connections Festival. 

This year is the 21^st anniversary of Connections. 500 youth theatre companies and  10,000 young people from every corner of the UK, working with 41 partner theatres, will perform twelve outstanding plays drawn from the 150 works written for young people since the festival began in 1995.

Curve are pleased to present the following plays as a series of double bills.

Eclipse by Simon Armitage
(Performed by Lincoln Young Company)
Six friends are interviewed by the police after the disappearance of Lucy Lime, a strange unnerving girl – ‘I am a walking Universe, I am’ – whom they met beneath the cliffs on a Cornish beach, just before the total eclipse of the sun.

It Snows by Bryony Lavery and Frantic Assembly
(Performed by Lutterworth College)
Same old story. Boy doesn’t meet Girl. Girl doesn’t meet Boy. Threatened by terrifying Lad’s Gang. Threatened by awe-inspiring Girl’s Gang. Mum and Dad have declared war… against each other. Weird neighbour in the building opposite. Usual ordinary gloominess. Then, one day, it snows. Everything changes.

Take Away by Jackie Kay
(Performed by North Kesteven School)
Take Away tells the story of a town which is in the grip of onions – everyone is doing what they can to get their fix. Darcus, a travelling poet, turns up and offers to rid the town of the onions with his rhymes, for a small fee.

A poetic ensemble piece about a community who pay the price for refusing to keep their promise.

I’m Spilling My Heart Out Here by Stacey Gregg
(Performed by Curve Young Company)
It’s the daily scramble across no-man’s-land: you flinch as you pass those even more clueless than you, strewn from the barbed wire of exams, first dates, evil former best mates… but hell’s ok if you stick together.

Schedule
Sat 7 May 11am – Eclipse and I’m Spilling my Heart Out Here
Sat 7 May 3.30pm – Take Away and It Snows
Sun 8 May 1pm – It Snows and I’m Spilling my Heart Out Here