Making Scenes 1: Short Plays for Young Actors

Four short plays for young actors Making Scenes 1 is an exciting selection of plays commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT National Connections festival for young actors in 1995.Each play includes Production Notes, dealing with setting and staging, costume, lighting and casting. Also included are a set of questions and exercises for workshop classes.

Ken Campbell was born in Ilford and trained as an actor at RADA.He later joined the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, where hewrote Old King Cole, as an actor and resident dramatist. Hewrote for television and theatre and appeared regularly onstage and on screen. His work includes Illuminatus (Cottesloe,National Theatre), The Great Caper (Royal Court), Pink’sMadhouse (Young Vic), Jack Sheppard (Octagon Theatre, Boltonand Mermaid Theatre, London) and Bendingo (NottinghamPlayhouse). As a director he worked at many venues includingthe National Theatre. He received both Time Out and Evening Standard awards, as well as Olivier nominations and a TotalTheatre Lifetime Achievement award. Christopher Hampton is a highly successful British dramatist. His work for the Royal Court included Total Eclipse (1968) and The Philanthropist (1970). An accomplished linguist, his adaptation include Uncle Vany (1970), Hedda Gabler (1970) and A Doll's House (1971). His best known recent work has been his adaptaion of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Laclos. Judith Johnson is from Liverpool, and has had many stage plays produced including Working Away (Soho Poly, 1989); The Edge and Le Camp (commuinity plays which toured London's East End); Death Party (devised for the Liverpool Everyman's 'Acting Up' course); The Scrappie for Red Ladder Theatre Company, which did a national tour of youth clubs; and Los Escombros, commissioned by the National Theatre Education Department and performed by the National's Young People's Theatre Group in 1992. Nowheresville was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and Somewhere was produced at the Liverpool Everyman and in the Cottesloe Theatre at the National in 1993. It is published by Methuen Drama in Frontline Intelligence 1. Uganda was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in association with the National's Studio in 1995, and is published by Methuen Drama in Frontline Intelligence 3. Stone Moon, a short play for young actors was published by Methuen Drama in Making Scenes 1. Gregory Motton's plays include "A Message for the Broken Hearted", "The Terrible VOice of Satan", "Looking at You (revived) Again", "Lazy Brien", "Ambulance" and "Downfall", all published by Oberon.