The Small Hours E-Book

Katherine Soper

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

'I dunno. Like…I think I just wanna do something different, I don't wanna do things the way everyone else is doing them but I don't know how and I don't know what I even mean.' It's the middle of the night, and Peebs and Epi are the only students left at school over half-term. At the end of their night out, former step-siblings Red and Jazz try to navigate their reunion. With only a couple of hours until morning, Jaffa tries to help Keesh finish an essay. As day breaks, Wolfie is getting up the courage to confess a secret to VJ at a party. Their choices are small yet momentous. The hours are small but feel very, very long. And when the night finally ends, the future is waiting – every last bit of it. Katherine Soper's play The Small Hours was written specifically for young people. It formed part of the 2019 National Theatre Connections Festival and was premiered by youth theatres across the UK. The play offers rich opportunities for a large cast of young performers.

Leseprobe

Katherine Soper

THE SMALL

HOURS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Epigraph

Production Information

Note on Play

Characters

The Small Hours

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

The drink you spilt all over me

Lover’s Spit left on repeat

My mom and dad let me stay home

It drives you crazy getting old

This dream isn’t feeling sweet

We’re reeling through the midnight streets

And I’ve never felt more alone

It feels so scary getting old

Lorde, 2013, aged sixteen

I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the time you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies.

Julian Barnes, 2011, aged sixty-five

The Small Hours was commissioned as part of the 2019 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK, including a performance at the National Theatre in June 2019.

Each year the National Theatre asks ten writers to create new plays to be performed by young theatre companies all over the country. From Scotland to Cornwall and Northern Ireland to Norfolk, Connections celebrates great new writing for the stage – and the energy, commitment and talent of young theatremakers.

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/connections

Note on Play

The first four scenes are set on the Friday night (or, technically, Saturday morning) of May half-term.

The final scene is everything after that.

A line across the page in the final scene indicates a new ‘unit’. Even though it’s all one scene, these units are like miniature scenes within it.

When there is a dash instead of a character’s name, this indicates somebody speaking who isn’t one of the eight named characters. It’s mostly up to you who that is, though if you choose to have actors playing multiple roles, it should be clear that the dash speaker isn’t one of the original eight characters.

I’ve kept the locations vague – an island, a city, the suburbs, the sticks – in the hope that you can pin them down in locations that work well for you.

Even where a character’s gender is specified, I originally wrote all these characters gender-blind, with the intention and hope that they could be performed in any combination. Any dialogue that seems to nail down a gender for a character can easily be cut or adapted as you see fit.

K.S.

Characters

EPI

PEEBS

JAZZ

RED

JAFFA

KEESH

VJ

WOLFIE