Shelley Silas

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a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience, the material is drawn from a mix of published and unpublished works.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.

Mercy Fine is in her prison bed at midnight. In just over 24 hours she'll be going back home, but home was the family she destroyed. As Mercy's future looms, her past haunts her... Clean Break Theatre Company commissions a play from a female playwright every year. These plays are based upon issues relating to women in the criminal justice system. Writer Shelley Silas researched "Mercy Fine" together with women prisoners in HMP East Sutton Park. Shelley Silas's stage plays "Falling" and "Calcutta Kosher" are both published by Oberon Books. Her plays for BBC Radio 4 include "The Sound of Silence" and a co-adaptation of "The Raj Quartet". "Mercy Fine" opens at The Drum, Birmingham Rep in October 2005.

"In a crumbling Calcutta home, two sisters are forced to come to terms with their mother's secret history. In this funny and moving play, award-winning writer Shelley Silas examines how family and culture, time and distance, influence our sense of who we are. Set in the Indian Jewish community, it explores conflicts between old and new, east and west, tradition and truth. If the past is another country, where is home? Calcutta Kosher was produced by the Kali Theatre Company and toured the UK in February and March 2004."

Falling is an intense comedy drama about mid life crisis, teenage angst, growing up and growing old - even at forty. It's about babies, sibling rivalry and learning when it's time to give up on the dreams and get on with life. Falling is a moving and funny investigation of the modern extended family.

A play collection with an introduction by Afia Nkrumah and bibliography by Susan Croft Featuring five works by prominent Black and Asian playwrights. Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan | Under their Influence by Wayne Buchanan | Calcutta Kosher by Shelley Silas | Made in England by Parv Bancil | Brother to Brother by Michael McMillan These five plays in this collection each give us a glimpse of a different world - from the poverty of a Bombay tenement in Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan to the world of rock and pop in Made in England by Parv Bancil, from the fading grandeur of former wealth in Calcutta Kosher by Shelley Silas to the inside of a mental institution in Under their Influence by Wayne Buchanan and many voices collide in the tales from the city in Brother to Brother by Michael McMillan. Some of these plays have been commended by critics and won awards, going on tour nationally. A few have been broadcast or adapted for film. By publishing these texts, we aim to inspire further productions, perhaps in venues where little or no work by black and Asian writers has previously been performed. In addition, the book includes a unique list of published plays by black and Asian writers, compiled by Susan Croft, so that those looking for plays to study or perform can access the considerable body of work that now exists in libraries, bookshops and archives.