Leo Butler

National Theatre Connections 2023 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting 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. The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like climate change, politics, toxic masculinity and gang culture, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2023 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2023 Festival, as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

Grow up wantin’ to change the world. Spend yer twenties n’thirties in a daze. Fifty turns to sixty n’yer suddenly fightin’ the urge not to kill everyone. Sheffield, 1969. Kathy and Brian move into that big old house on Burngreave Road. Just turned twenty, a couple of babies on the way, they’ve got their whole lives ahead of them. But living is a funny business. Kids, money, work. Thatcherism, Blairism and Trump. As the world turns around them, will Kathy and Brian keep their home together through sixty years of change? Award-winning Sheffield playwright, Leo Butler’s (Lucky Dog, Boy), state-of-the-nation drama about all the years of our lives. This edition was published to coincide with the Sheffield Theatres' production in March 2026.

The drug laws in this country- the drug laws IN THE WORLD - all stem from this attitude that pleasure is a bad thing... In 2015, acclaimed British playwright Leo Butler accepted an invitation from former Government drugs tsar, Professor David Nutt, to be a guinea pig in the world’s first LSD medical trials since the 1960s. Monty Python, Being John Malkovich, and Alice in Wonderland all resonate in this exhilarating and original comedy as we watch Leo jump down the rabbit-hole of a medical trial in search of enlightenment - and a good story. Along the way he meets an array of characters from Aldous Huxley and The Beatles, to Steve Jobs and Ronald Reagan, whose own stories in the history of LSD are hilariously and poignantly uncovered. Does the world still need a psychedelic revolution? And will Leo make it back home in time for tea? Part history, party wild fantasy, this darkly humorous new play illuminates the drugs debate that won’t go away and examines the freedom we have to make our own choices in life, and death.

The world’s changin’, we don’t have to just ‘make do’ anymore. There’s stuff out there, there’s life, there’s … people and experiencin’ somethin’ meaningful. California, ‘Arry, Woodstock, out on the road like a rollin’ bloody stone, it’s Dylan, ‘Arry, that’s who I want to be. Yer seriously think I’m goin’ to stick round here. Modern life isn't easy and it never has been. This explosive play by Leo Butler transports us through time, looking at what happens when the next generation begin to find their feet in an ever-changing world. Through a kaleidoscope of characters, we see tensions rocket and values crumble, exposing the best and worst of what it means to be human. This epic roller coaster of a play combines euphoria and despair as different generations of young people ask the same question: where do we go from here? Decades received its world premiere at Ovalhouse, London, on 7 June 2016 in a production by Brit School for Performing Arts and Technology.

A boy. At a bus stop. Easily missed. Liam wanders through the city, repeatedly encountering people, but continually feeling disconnected and alienated. In this vivid and troubled story of an isolated young man, playwright Leo Butler casts a sharp eye over the city and picks someone for us to follow. Boy received its world premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 5 April 2016.

Butler Plays: Two brings together a selection of Leo Butler's work, currently both published and previously unpublished, covering the years 2007 to 2013. It showcases his incredible variety in style and tone, and brings together some of his best-loved works alongside some of his lesser known pieces. Airbag (Royal Court, Rough Cuts, 2007) an old woman is lying on her death bed, imagining that she is being terrorised by gorillas. Butler's play is an exploration of death and the dying. I'll Be The Devil (RSC/Tricycle Theatre, 2008): With a poetic fearlessness, Leo Butler looks at what happens when a brutal foreign power is in intimate and callous contact with the primitive heart of an ancient society. Faces in the Crowd (Royal Court Theatre, 2008): Faces in the Crowd is a darkly comic play that offers a unique insight into twenty-first century London and the debts we accrue in the wake of seeking out our ambitions. Juicy Fruits (Paines Plough and Òran Mór, 2011): a one-act comedy set in a coffee shop in which two old friends from university meet again after many years.69 (Natural Shocks Theatre Company; Pleasance, 2012): a series of 69 short vignettes, all on the subject of sex, offering a glimpse on a whole range of issues surrounding sexuality. Do It! (Royal Court, Open Court Season, 2013) is an unsettling journey through the secrets and innermost thoughts of a group of pedestrians, unwittingly watched over by a violent force. The volume includes an introduction by the playwright.

Butler Plays: Two brings together a selection of Leo Butler's work, currently both published and previously unpublished, covering the years 2007 to 2013. It showcases his incredible variety in style and tone, and brings together some of his best-loved works alongside some of his lesser known pieces. Airbag (Royal Court, Rough Cuts, 2007) an old woman is lying on her death bed, imagining that she is being terrorised by gorillas. Butler's play is an exploration of death and the dying. I'll Be The Devil (RSC/Tricycle Theatre, 2008): With a poetic fearlessness, Leo Butler looks at what happens when a brutal foreign power is in intimate and callous contact with the primitive heart of an ancient society. Faces in the Crowd (Royal Court Theatre, 2008): Faces in the Crowd is a darkly comic play that offers a unique insight into twenty-first century London and the debts we accrue in the wake of seeking out our ambitions. Juicy Fruits (Paines Plough and Òran Mór, 2011): a one-act comedy set in a coffee shop in which two old friends from university meet again after many years.69 (Natural Shocks Theatre Company; Pleasance, 2012): a series of 69 short vignettes, all on the subject of sex, offering a glimpse on a whole range of issues surrounding sexuality. Do It! (Royal Court, Open Court Season, 2013) is an unsettling journey through the secrets and innermost thoughts of a group of pedestrians, unwittingly watched over by a violent force. The volume includes an introduction by the playwright.

When Dave moved south to London he left behind his family, wife Joanne and mounting financial woes in favour of a playground of riches, sex and shopping. Ten years on and Joanne wants payback with interest. Faces in the Crowd is a darkly comic play that offers a unique insight into twenty-first century London and the debts we accrue in the wake of seeking out our ambitions. It is published as a programme text to accompany the world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, running from October to November 2008.

A dark love story, written in response to The Tempest, Leo Butler's I'll Be the Devil is set in occupied Ireland in 1775. Knowing that her soldier lover is leaving for England, a local woman unleashes a sequence of events that will result in tragedy for both their children. With a poetic fearlessness, Leo Butler looks at what happens when a brutal foreign power is in intimate and callous contact with the primitive heart of an ancient society. This is an epic play that marks an exciting departure from the stark realism of Butler's earlier work and that provides a powerful demonstration of Butler's maturity and ambition as a writer.

Butler Plays: 1 brings together into one volume four of the major plays by this award-winning author. Praised for the gritty detail and realism of his work, Leo Butler has quietly established a reputation in recent years as a potent and skilfull documenter of contemporary social and moral issues. Made of Stone produced in the Royal Court Young Writers' Festival 2000, was praised for its 'rock-hard characterisation with buzzing dialogue' (Evening Standard). In Redundant 'Butler boldly creates a psychologically complex female lead, surrounding her with unjudged dead-beats, each distinctively vocalising caustic Sheffield Vernacular.' (Evening Standard) Lucky Dog is a startlingly sensitive depiction of one couple's relationship. Michael Billington commented, 'I am still astonished by Butler's profound understanding of marital solitude. Nothing much happens on the surface, yet underneath a lot goes on as Sue and Eddie, a Sheffield couple in their late fifties, share a solitary Christmas.' (Guardian) The Early Bird taps into the darkest fears of any parent - the disappearance of their child - to brilliantly capture the nightmare of recrimination and loss. It premiered at the Belfast Theatre Festival in October 2006.

The Early Bird taps into the darkest fears of any parent - what if your child simply disappears? Debbie and Jack blame each other and themselves, and in doing so reveal the inner secrets of their own relationship in this disturbing and darkly humorous play. Butler's language moves between naturalism and hyper-realism, brilliantly capturing the surreal quality of the worst time in this couple's life. The play premiered at the Belfast Theatre Festival in October 2006.

Over Christmas dinner Sue and Eddie gossip and discuss the good times they used to have together before their son left home, leaving a void in their lives. But then Eddie disappears with the dog and their neighbour's son comes round to liven things up and stay the night. Through the creation of a seemingly banal universe, Butler creates an intense atmosphere of guilt and suspicion within this couple's world. Published to tie in with the Royal Court premiere in May 2004

Do you believe in paradise? Do you believe in family? Do you believe in god? Do you believe in war? Commissioned and toured by the Theatre Centre, Leo Butler exposes war and its aftermath among a group of confused young people in this George Devine Award-winning piece of theatre.

"You will come back though won't yere, Darren? Yer will come back? Say yer'll come back. Come back." Lucy is 17. She dreams of love, security and a bright future. But first she must confront reality - and reality means deciding who to trust. Leo Butler won the 2001 George Devine Award for REDUNDANT. His first play, MADE OF STONE, produced in the Royal Court Young Writers' Festival 2000, was praised for its "rock-hard characterisation with buzzing dialogue" (Evening Standard).