Contemporary Welsh Plays: Tonypandemonium, the Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, Gardening: For the Unfulfilled and Alienated, Llwyth (in Welsh

Recent years have seen an explosion of new Welsh writing for the stage. With the advent of Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru in 2003 and the launch of National Theatre Wales in 2009, there has been a tectonic shift in Welsh theatre and its perception.

Wales has famously celebrated its poets and novelists, but in the twenty-first century, it is the playwright asking the crucial questions. Never before have there been so many playwrights of all ages, from across Wales, finding the stage to be the home for their stories.

This collection is the first to officially recognise this new wave of Welsh playwrights. It showcases a wide range of forms, themes and political concerns, as well as representing the most exciting voices at the forefront of Welsh drama, taking the temperature on what be considered to be the first golden age of Welsh playwriting.

Tonypandemonium by Rachel Trezise
The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning by Tim Price
Gardening for the Unfulfilled and Alienated by Brad Birch
Llwyth by Dafydd James (published in Welsh)
Parallel Lines by Katherine Chandler
Bruised by Matthew Trevannion

Featured in the volume are the following plays, along with a foreword by Professor David Ian Rabey of Aberystwyth University, and an introduction by the editors, Tim Price and Kate Wasserberg.

Tim Price is a Welsh playwright and screenwriter. His plays include For Once, Salt Root and Roe (winner of Best English Language playwright at the Theatre Critics of Wales Award), Demos, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (winner of the James Tait Black prize for drama), I’m With the Band, Protest Song and The Internet Is Serious Business. He is associate playwright at the Traverse theatre and co-founder of Welsh new writing company Dirty Protest.

Kate Wasserberg is Artistic Director of The Other Room, Cardiff’s first pub theatre. She is the former Associate Director of Clwyd Theatr Cymru, where she was responsible for new writing and for programming the annual Celtic Festival. Directing at Clwyd includes Aristocrats, Salt, Root and Roe, Glengarry Glen Ross, Last Christmas, Bruised, Roots, Gaslight, Dancing at Lughnasa, Pieces (which went to New York as part of the Brits Off Broadway Festival), The Glass Menagerie (CTC and tour) and A History of Falling Things (CTC and the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff). Previous to this she was Associate Director of the Finborough Theatre, London, where she directed The Man (which also toured nationally), Sons of York and Little Madam, all by James Graham, and The Representative, I Wish to Die Singing and The New Morality. Other directing includes The Knowledge/1hr45minutes (Royal Court), Mirror Teeth (Finborough Theatre), 2007 Schools Festival (Young Vic), Switzerland (Hightide Festival), Doing Lines (Pleasance), Blue Velvet (Gilded Balloon) and The Firebird (Exeter Phoenix). As an Assistant Director she has worked at the Barbican, the Abbey Theatre Dublin, the Young Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe and the Theatre Royal Bath.