Fin Kennedy

– Every man for himself. – I'd say we're better off sticking together. In a mysterious dystopia, against a backdrop of war, a life raft filled with children is adrift at sea – their passenger liner sunk by an unknown and unseen enemy. As darkness falls and their rations dwindle, fear, superstition and madness start to take hold. Hours turn into days, and it becomes clear that not all of them will make it back to dry land alive... Life Raft is a thrilling contemporary adaptation of The Raft of the Medusa, Georg Kaiser's 1945 play, written during his exile from Nazi Germany, and inspired by a terrifying true story. Written by Fin Kennedy in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic's acclaimed Young Company, and originally performed by them under the direction of Melly Still, this large-cast play for young actors is a dark study in the psychology of survival – and an urgent allegory for our times. This definitive edition of the play is accompanied by a series of interactive games specially created by award-winning games designer Tassos Stevens, allowing young people a deeper exploration of the play’s themes, and the opportunity to create their own new stories inspired by the scenario.

This second volume of plays from award-winning playwright Fin Kennedy features three ensemble plays for large casts of young people aged thirteen to nineteen, each developed via a long-term, collaborative process with the target age group. In The Dream Collector, a school group on a Media Studies field trip to the isolated country house of a black-and-white movie pioneer enter a sinister dreamworld when they go exploring after dark. Once they step through the movie screen, each of the young friends meets their dream double, the sinister Neverborn… In Fast, a twenty-four-hour school fundraiser in a semi-rural town takes on a new urgency when farmer’s daughter Cara refuses to eat again until the supermarkets she holds responsible for her father’s suicide agree to her demands. In The Domino Effect – a five-star hit at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe – a silent girl finds her voice, and her mother, when a mysterious East End antiques dealer teaches her how small actions lead to big effects, and how to master the law of unintended consequences. With their flexible, mixed casts, the plays are particularly suited to performance by young people’s groups, who will enjoy the demands and challenges of playing roles specifically created for teenage actors.

Four plays from award-winning playwright Fin Kennedy, created in parnership with Mulberry School in East London - ideal for performance by schools and youth groups. Tender, uncompromising, haunting and lyrical, these four plays together comprise a contemporary chronicle of the lives of East London's young women. In The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping, four young friends leave the city behind and head into the wilderness, but a burning secret threatens to tear their lives apart. A bittersweet comedy about life, love and friendship once school is long gone. Mehndi Night is a touching family tale about resentment and forgiveness on the night before a wedding, exploring the pleasures and pains of a cross-cultural identity in twenty-first century Britain. From the heart of London's East End, Stolen Secrets are urban fairytales, bold, lyrical and gruesome, that can be performed individually or together for maximum shock value. In The Unravelling, a dying mother challenges her daughters to weave her the greatest tale, using nothing more than pieces of cloth. A Fringe First Award-winning fable about the power of mythology to change your life. These plays are the result of a unique four-year partnership between award-winning playwright Fin Kennedy and Mulberry School in East London. Originally performed by the school at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and at Southwark Playhouse, London, they are written in an ensemble storytelling style that will suit younger performance groups around the country, especially those looking for predominantly female roles.

Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors is an anthology of work written for actors aged 11-25. Ideal for youth theatre groups, schools and amateur dramatic companies, it contains a diverse selection of plays suited to large casts and ensemble performance. Varying in style and subject matter, the plays offer performers, directors and designers a range of exciting challenges: from recreating the mythological world of The Odyssey to a dramatisation of two hundred years of slavery that will take the audience on a journey from eighteenth century Africa to 1990s London in Sweetpeter. Contemporary urban living is confronted in plays ranging from the starkly realistic to the playful, lyrical and surrealistic. From the innocent and imaginative world of a school playground to issues of racism, peer pressure, crime and communication in a mobile phone obsessed culture, this is a wide-ranging anthology that will enrich the repertoire of youth theatre groups and the curriculum in schools. The volume is introduced by Paul Roseby, artistic director of the National Youth Theatre.

The award-winning play that follows one man's desperate attempts to buck the system, and asks what really makes us who we are in the 21st century. When a young executive reaches breaking point and decides to disappear, he pays a visit to a master of the craft in the form of a seafront fortune teller in Southend. Haunted by visitations from a pathologist who swears he is already lying flat out on her slab, he begins a nightmarish journey to the edge of existence that sees him stripped of everything that made him who he was. Fin Kennedy's play How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found won the 2005 Arts Council’s John Whiting Award and was subsequently staged at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield, in March 2007.

A tough but vulnerable play about our crumbling social fabric - and the people who have to pick up the pieces. Protection is a behind-the-scenes look at a team of social workers and their 'clients' in Britain's most misunderstood public service. Angela breaks the rules to get things done - her way. Shirley misses the old days, when protection came without a price. Their manager, Gordon, is screwing Angela whilst busy claiming on expenses. And for newcomer Grace, it's a struggle simply not to piss anyone off. Fin Kennedy's play was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in 2003.