Beyond The Canons Plays for Young Activists: Three Plays by BIPOC Women (Plays for Young People): Three Plays by Women from the Global Majority

This first-of-its-kind anthology combines a diverse collection of award-winning produced plays from the UK’s most revolutionary Black, Asian and POC female writers with bespoke multimedia learning guides, hosted on a companion website. It offers young activists and global citizens aged 16+, as well as teachers and creatives at any level of experience the opportunity to diversify their education and enhance their understanding of plays, world politics and social justice.

This unique anthology amplifies these selected award-winning plays by incorporating learning guides that take into consideration different learning styles be it visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic by allowing readers to experience the play through the Beyond The Canon mission.

The plays include:
Muhamad Ali and Me by Mojisola Adebayo
A Museum in Baghdad by Hannah Khalil
Acceptance by Amy Ng

Readers will gain a deeper connection and understanding of the play by: listening to intimate interviews with the writers and some of the original creative teams, learn about the research journey through viewing photographs and video recordings, and unlock the language and characters in the play through dynamic exercises. This user friendly resource will include scene by scene breakdowns and stand alone exercises to cater for time limited lessons. Moreover, this anthology aims to spark the imagination of any reader who comes into contact with it, to inspire the next Mojisola Adebayo, Hannah Khalil and Amy Ng.

Amy Ng is a British-Hong Kong playwright. Her plays include UNDER THE UMBRELLA (Belgrade Theatre Coventry – UK tour), ACCEPTANCE (Hampstead Theatre) and SHANGRI-LA (Finborough Theatre). Radio plays include TIGER GIRLS (BBC Radio 4) and KILBURN PASSION (BBC Radio 3). She is under commission to the Royal Shakespeare Company and ice&fire, and is developing her play THATCHER IN CHINA at the National Theatre Studio. She is also part of the inaugural Genesis Almeida New Playwrights Big Plays programme. Her new adaptation of Strindberg’s MISS JULIE will be produced at Chester Storyhouse in February 2020 and for TV she is working on original projects with BBC Studios and Merman.
Amy trained as a historian with a research interest in multinational empires, imperial decline, and nationality conflict, and is the author of ‘Nationalism and Political Liberty’ (Oxford University Press). She is fluent in English, German and Chinese and regularly translates contemporary Chinese plays into English.; Mojisola Adebayo is a playwright, performer, director, producer, workshop facilitator and lecturer. She has a BA in Drama and Theatre Arts, an MA in Physical Theatre and her PhD is entitled Afriquia Theatre: Creating Black Queer Ubuntu Through Performance (Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway and Queen Mary, University of London). Mojisola trained extensively with Augusto Boal and is an international specialist in Theatre of the Oppressed, often working in locations of crisis and conflict. She has worked in theatre, radio and television, on four continents, over the past 25 years, performing in over 50 productions, writing, devising and directing over 30 plays, and leading countless workshops, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. Her own authored plays include Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey (Lyric Hammersmith and Ovalhouse, London), Muhammad Ali and Me (Ovalhouse, Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), 48 Minutes for Palestine (Ashtar Theatre and international touring), Desert Boy (Albany Theatre, London and UK touring), The Listeners (Pegasus Theatre, Oxford), I Stand Corrected (Artscape, Ovalhouse, London and international touring and The Interrogation of Sandra Bland (Bush Theatre, London).; An award-wining writer, Hannah Khalil had her first short play, Ring, selected for the Soho Theatre's Westminster Prize and her first full- length piece, Leaving Home, staged at the King's Head, London. A commission for Rose Bruford at Battersea Arts Centre followed, and she subsequently received support from The Peggy Ramsay Foundation to write Stolen Or Strayed, which received a Special Commendation in the Verity Bargate Award. Further work includes Plan D (published by TCG in their volume Inside/Outside Six plays from Palestine and the Diaspora), which was produced at Tristan Bates Theatre, London, and was nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award. She has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Royal Court Young Writers' Programme and Tinderbox Theatre, Belfast. Most recently, her play Bitterenders won Sandpit Arts’ Bulbul 2013 competition and was produced at Z Space, San Francisco, as part of Golden Thread's ReOrient Festival, and was published by . Her monologue The Worst Cook in the West Bank was performed as part of an evening of short plays about Arab women in the Arab Spring at the Old Red Lion and the Unity Theatre as part of the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival. The Scar Test was commissioned by Untold Arts and was performed in a scratch performances at the Arcola Theatre in June 2015 and is going on tour in the UK in June 2017.