The Dramaworks site is no more but I have retained the plays written by myself and other teacher/writers and put them on a new site called Plays For Schools. The plays have always been popular though I am aware that some were written a while ago. For that reason I am busily writing new plays for the site, but there is always permission to make alterations and updates to any of the existing plays, as needed.
Coming soon are one-hour-long plays about Extinction Rebellion and a group of aid workers in a war-zone, plus a full-length play based on my own novel The Courage Game, which is about my great-aunt who was a militant suffragette. Since its publication a couple of years ago, I have been asked to do many talks to Schools, History Societies, WIs and Book Reading Groups. I enjoy this very much! I dress up [approximately] as a suffragette and [can’t help my background] find myself acting out some of the scenes, such as forcible feeding and my great-aunt’s hold-up of the mounted police in Birmingham! I have all her medals too, which has been an enormous help to what, for me, approximates to the lovely heydays of running drama workshops.
I’m hoping that these plays will continue to be a help to busy teachers. I’m aware of the new demands made on students and that part of the skill for A level is to make appropriate cuts without losing the sense or the flow. For this reason all the plays at A level are at least one hour long, to allow for reductions.
Of course there are plays for all levels from Year 7 to Year 13. I am writing new ones for the lower end too. Some will be suitable for performance; others are what I call ‘training plays’, that is they encourage teamwork and are a good practice in all the basic performance skills. Then there are many plays for GCSE level as well as those mentioned above for A level, and equivalent examinations.
More ideas are flowing and, if you have any ideas to give me, please e-mail me: [email protected] I though perhaps something about the current spate of riots? But if you can think of subjects that are more light-hearted I’d be grateful!
Those of you who have written plays, please send them to me – hard copy or by email to the address in the above paragraph. I will put anything up on the site that I think is useful. The whole idea of the plays was that it was a sharing scheme: teachers get a quarter of each sale, which I send at the end of the year. It won’t make you a millionaire, but will give you the satisfaction of knowing that your play has been picked up and performed.
Another question that is commonly asked by teachers is ‘Are these plays published?’ The answer is ‘Yes’; All plays are registered with Nielsen and with ISBN numbers allocated to them.