Connections (also referred to as New Connections and formerly Shell Connections and BT Connections) is the Royal National Theatre in London's annual youth theatre festival.[1]
It was founded in 1995 and sponsored by Royal Dutch Shell until 2007 when the Bank of America took over the sponsorship. The plays are also published by the National Theatre each year.
Scheme
The National Theatre annually commissions ten plays from established playwrights which are performed by youth theatre groups across the UK. Groups are invited to perform at Connections Festivals held at a professional theatre in their area. A random performance group from each play is then performed at the end of the Festival at the National Theatre.[2]
Professional productions
Several of the specially commissioned Connection plays have been professionally produced at the National Theatre. In 1999 Sparkleshark was performed. In 2006 three were produced; Burn by Deborah Gearing, Chatroom by Enda Walsh and Citizenship by Mark Ravenhill were performed in 2006;[3] the latter two were revived in 2007 when they also toured.[4] In 2008 Baby Girl by Roy Williams, DNA by Dennis Kelly and The Miracle by Lin Coghlan also received professional productions in the Cottesloe.[5]
Commissioned plays
2023
Orchestra by Charlie Josephine
2022
Cable Street by Lisa Goldman
Chat Back by David Judge
Find a Partner! by Miriam Battye
Hunt by Fionnuala Kennedy
Like There's No Tomorrow, created by the Belgrade Young Company with Justine Themen, Claire Procter and Liz Mytton
The Ramayana Reset by Ayeesha Menon, with choreography by Hofesh Shechter, in association with Hofesh Shechter Company
Remote by Stef Smith
Superglue by Tim Crouch
Variations by Katie Hims
You don't need to make a Big Song and Dance out of it by Abbey Wright, Shireen Mula and Matt Regan, in association with Tackroom Theatre
Theatre of Debate: Big Hopes a verbatim play by Gary Owen inspired by an xl. group from The Princes Trust, Cardiff followed by Safe by Deborah Gearing inspired by Fairbridge Southampton
Karamazoo by Philip Ridley (Script not included in the Shell Connections 2004 anthology book. Instead the first draft of the script was available to download for free from the NT Shell Connections website.[12] The script received a physical release in 2015 as part of Ridley's play collection The Storyteller Sequence.)
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