Katherine Chandler

Clean Break is a British theatre company set up in 1979 by two women in prison. It exists to tell the stories of women with experience of the criminal justice system and to transform women’s lives through theatre. Over 40 years, Clean Break has commissioned some of the most progressive and brilliant women writers to write ground-breaking plays, alongside developing the writing skills of the women they work with in its London studios and in prisons. This is a collection of monologues from this canon. Rebel Voices: Monologues for Women by Women celebrates the opportunities inherent when women represent themselves. Offering female performers a diverse set of monologues reflecting a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience, the material is drawn from a mix of published and unpublished works. This book is for any performer who does not see themselves represented in mainstream plays, for lovers of radical women’s theatre and for rebels everywhere who believe that the act of speaking and being heard can create change.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

Unmanning studies the conditions that create unmanned platforms in the United States through a genealogy of experimental, pilotless planes flown between 1936 and 1992. Characteristics often attributed to the drone—including machine-like control, enmity and remoteness—are achieved by displacements between humans and machines that shape a mediated theater of war. Rather than primarily treating the drone as a result of the war on terror, this book examines contemporary targeted killing through a series of failed experiments to develop unmanned flight in the twentieth century. The human, machine and media parts of drone aircraft are organized to make an ostensibly not human framework for war that disavows its political underpinnings as technological advance. These experiments are tied to histories of global control, cybernetics, racism and colonialism. Drone crashes and failures call attention to the significance of human action in making technopolitics that comes to be opposed to “man” and the paradoxes at their basis.

Unmanning studies the conditions that create unmanned platforms in the United States through a genealogy of experimental, pilotless planes flown between 1936 and 1992. Characteristics often attributed to the drone—including machine-like control, enmity and remoteness—are achieved by displacements between humans and machines that shape a mediated theater of war. Rather than primarily treating the drone as a result of the war on terror, this book examines contemporary targeted killing through a series of failed experiments to develop unmanned flight in the twentieth century. The human, machine and media parts of drone aircraft are organized to make an ostensibly not human framework for war that disavows its political underpinnings as technological advance. These experiments are tied to histories of global control, cybernetics, racism and colonialism. Drone crashes and failures call attention to the significance of human action in making technopolitics that comes to be opposed to “man” and the paradoxes at their basis.

‘Lock up your sons. And your daughters if the mood fits. Tonight we are getting destroyed.’ Nate's coming to the end of his career, Yaz hasn't the means to get herself one, and Josh's injury could finish his before it's even started. Today's been a bad day – and bad days need great nights out. But when things get out of control, someone might get hurt. A fast and wild ride into the darker side of our celebrity-obsessed culture, with three people who share a single goal: to lose themselves in the night. Written as intertwining monologues, Katherine Chandler's play Lose Yourself premiered at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, in May 2019.

Two women from very different worlds: Karen has built a picture-perfect life while Gail struggles to keep hers together. When Gail re-enters Karen’s life from out of the blue, she brings with her everything Karen has been running from… Katherine Chandler's tense, revealing play explores what it means to care for one another and asks who, in a time of increasing disconnect, we expect to look after us. Thick As Thieves was premiered at Theatr Clwyd, Mold, in October 2018, in a co-production between Clean Break and Theatr Clwyd. Acclaimed theatre company Clean Break produces ground-breaking plays with women writers and actors at the heart of its work. Founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who needed urgently to tell their stories through theatre, the company today has an independent education programme delivering theatre opportunities to women offenders and women at risk, in custodial and community settings.

Ava and Tash are up on a cliff, looking out at the flocking birds – and at their future. On the cusp of adulthood and about to leave the care home they've shared, the two friends road-test their impending freedom and living in the outside world. Ava must confront the mother she left behind. Tash will have to look for a new home. And both girls will go on living dangerously with the men who surround them. Raw, delicate and bold, Katherine Chandler's play Bird is a story of growing up outside a family but inside the fiercest of friendships. It was the winner of a Judges' Award in the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and premiered at Sherman Cymru in 2016 before transferring to the Royal Exchange, Manchester.

I think it's sad. A sad place. Full of sad people with fucked-up lives. And I thinks, how? How did they get there? How did they get to this? What was it? What happened that got them there? Cos you're not just born into it, are you. You're not born into being fucked up? Steph is fifteen years old. Simon is her teacher. Both live in Cardiff but their parallel lives couldn’t be more different. When an accusation is made and their worlds collide, things aren’t as simple as they might seem. Award-winning playwright Katherine Chandler explores truth, class and power in contemporary Wales in this gripping, uncompromising play. It received its world premiere on 20 November 2013 at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, and won the inaugural Wales Drama Award.

Funny, brave and beautifully told, Before It Rains is a tale of parenthood, protection and provocation set on a proud, forgotten Cardiff estate. Gloria is a single mum who enjoys sitting in her deckchair drinking her troubles away on her allotment, while her gentle son, Michael, digs the soil and makes sure everything is in order. From a relocated, troubled home, Carl - wild, unpredictable and near feral - watches both the mother and son with interest, bouncing his ball. Katherine Chandler's play Before It Rains was first performed at the Bristol Old Vic in September 2012. The play won the Writers Guild Playwright Award at the Theatre Critics of Wales Awards 2012, and was a finalist for the 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.