Age is Revolting

by Abi Zakarian

performed by Shazam Theatre Company

Choir is for mad old people, right?
When a group of school kids rebel against their boring music lesson they hit the wrong note and magically transform into their 80 year-old selves…and now live in a care home. Suddenly age, and their understanding of it, feels very relevant as they begin to confusedly navigate their way back to the present; no longer older, but maybe just a little wiser.

Abi Zakarian is an award-winning British-Armenian playwright born and raised in Derby, now based in
London.

Her plays include: Found, produced by 45North for their Written on the Waves series of audio
plays; Perfect Myth Allegory at Jermyn Street Theatre for the ‘15 Heroines’ series; A Thousand Yards at Southwark Playhouse, and I Am Karyan Ophidian for the Sam Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeares Globe. Her play Fabric won a Scotsman Fringe First award and she won the Vault Festival Peoples Choice Award for I Have A Mouth And I Will Scream. Her play, Mountain Warfare, was a finalist in the 2021/22 Women’s Prize for Playwriting.

She is a co-founder of the horror theatre company Terrifying Women, and also created and hosts the UK Armenian Creatives group. Abi is currently shooting her first short film: Pomegranate, and is under commission with Derby Theatre among others.
abizakarian.com

Replica

by Titas Halder

performed by Aberdeen Academy of Performing Arts

Something happened on the school trip. One of the class has been replaced by an exact replica of themselves. At least that’s what everyone’s saying. Once a rumour starts, it can be difficult to remember what is real – or who. Convinced that there is an impostor walking among them, a group of teenagers is determined to root out the intruder. A mystery about friendship, the nature of truth, and humanity. When it comes to it, how do you prove that you are a human?

Titas Halder is a writer, director, and musician. His first two plays Run the Beast Down (Marlowe Theatre, Finborough) and Escape the Scaffold (The Other Room, Theatre 503) saw him nominated for Best New Writer at the Stage Debut Awards. His play The Basement was a finalist for the Verity Bargate Award.

He trained on the Royal Court Theatre Young Writers Programme and at the Donmar Warehouse as Resident Assistant Director. For the National Theatre he has been a director and playwriting tutor for NT New Views and was Staff Director on Consent.

Titas has worked extensively on new writing and developing new plays. His work as director includes: The Lemon Tree by Julian Barnes / Ian McDiarmid, co-directed with Michael Grandage (UK Tour), Sinners Club by Lucy Rivers (Soho Theatre, Theatr Clwyd, The Other Room), A Boy and His Soul by Colman Domingo (Kiln Theatre), The Dance of Death by August Strindberg / Conor McPherson (Donmar Trafalgar). He is currently writing his first feature film.

He performs and records as Titas and the Fox.

National Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people – aged between 13 and 19 – to perform, from some of the UK’s most talented 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. This year the National Theatre will be working with nearly 270 youth companies from all over the UK.

The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore.