Publications
Life Raft by Fin Kennedy
Newly published ensemble play for 11-14 year olds, written by Applied Stories' artistic director Fin Kennedy, an award-winning playwright.
In a mysterious dystopia, against a backdrop of war, a life raft filled with children is adrift at sea – their passenger liner sunk by an unknown and unseen enemy. As darkness falls and their rations dwindle, it becomes clear that not all of them will make it back to dry land alive...
This definitive edition of the play is accompanied by a series of interactive games specially created by award-winning games designer Tassos Stevens, allowing young people a deeper exploration of the play’s themes, and the opportunity to create their own new stories inspired by the scenario.
Amateur rights are now available, and online workshops with Fin Kennedy can be booked for those performing or studying the play.
'Kennedy's agile and sensitive writing brilliantly captures the moment-to-moment urgency of the dilemmas the children face and their varying responses'
Total Theatre
The Domino Effect and other plays for teenagers
This second volume of plays from award-winning playwright Fin Kennedy features three ensemble plays for large casts of young people aged 13-19, each developed via a long-term, collaborative process with the target age group.
With their flexible, mixed casts, the plays are particularly suited to performance by young people’s groups, who will enjoy the demands and challenges of playing roles specifically created for teenage actors.
'A cracking classroom text... the language is achingly good, the roles varied, meaty and attractive'
Teaching Drama on The Domino Effect
The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping and other plays
Four plays from award-winning playwright Fin Kennedy, created in partnership with Mulberry School in East London - ideal for performance by schools and youth groups.
Tender, uncompromising, haunting and lyrical, these four plays together comprise a contemporary chronicle of the lives of East London's young women.
These plays are the result of a unique four-year partnership between Fin Kennedy and Mulberry School in East London. Originally performed by the school at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, they are written in an ensemble storytelling style that will suit younger performance groups around the country, especially those looking for predominantly female roles.
'To say Fin Kennedy and Mulberry School for Girls are one of the best writer/education partnerships there is doesn't do them justice. To say they're one of the best companies at the Fringe comes closer'
Scotsman
How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found
The award-winning play that follows one man's desperate attempts to buck the system, and asks what really makes us who we are in the 21st century.
When a young executive reaches breaking point and decides to disappear, he pays a visit to a master of the craft in the form of a seafront fortune teller in Southend. Haunted by visitations from a pathologist who swears he is already lying flat out on her slab, he begins a nightmarish journey to the edge of existence that sees him stripped of everything that made him who he was.
Fin Kennedy's play How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found won the 2005 Arts Council’s John Whiting Award and was subsequently staged at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield, in March 2007.
It has since been produced around the world, and remains one of Nick Hern Books' most licensed plays for students and amateur groups.
'An unsettling, dangerous play that makes you want to run away from yourself'
Guardian
'The sort of thrilling new work that completely restores your faith in theatre'
Sheffield Star
Hear Me Now: Audition Monologues for Actors of Colour
A new collection of original audition pieces written by and for actors of colour, commissioned by Tamasha Theatre Company and edited by Titilola Dawudu and Fin Kennedy, with a foreword by Noma Dumezweni.
Hear Me Now is a unique collection of over eighty original audition monologues, expressly created by a range of award-winning writers brought together by producer Titilola Dawudu and Tamasha Theatre Company under then artistic director Fin Kennedy. They're ideal for actors of colour searching for speeches for auditions or training, writers, teachers, and theatre-makers who are passionate about improving diversity.
"Full of exciting, unpredictable, fresh material, Hear Me Now is the collection we've been waiting for."
Hannah Miller, Casting Director, Royal Shakespeare Company
Protection by Fin Kennedy
A tough but vulnerable play about our crumbling social fabric - and the people who have to pick up the pieces. Protection is a behind-the-scenes look at a team of social workers and their 'clients' in Britain's most misunderstood public service.
Angela breaks the rules to get things done - her way. Shirley misses the old days, when protection came without a price. Their manager, Gordon, is screwing Angela whilst busy claiming on expenses. And for newcomer Grace, it's a struggle simply not to piss anyone off.
Fin Kennedy's play was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in 2003.
'Real excitement lies in discovering a young writer who is more concerned with major political issues than minor domestic upsets'
Guardian
Migration Plays
Featuring four new plays written and devised in collaboration with groups of secondary school children, this collection examines immigration to and emigration from the UK.
A theatre-in-education project coordinated by Fin Kennedy and The Migration Museum, children worked on exercises designed to develop their understanding of, and feelings about, migration. Their reactions were then incorporated into a piece of theatre by a professional playwright that the students then performed. This collection brings together these plays along with the unique exercises that inspired them.
This is an invaluable collection that gives both teachers the resources to address the sometimes tricky issues surrounding migration and students the opportunity to create and in doing so counteract and humanize the narratives hear in the media and society as a whole.
Six Ensemble Play for Young Actors
Six Ensemble Plays for Young Actors is an anthology of work written for actors aged 11-25.
Ideal for youth theatre groups, schools and amateur dramatic companies, it contains a diverse selection of plays suited to large casts and ensemble performance.
Varying in style and subject matter, the plays offer performers, directors and designers a range of exciting challenges. From the innocent and imaginative world of a school playground to issues of racism, peer pressure, crime and communication in a mobile phone obsessed culture, this is a wide-ranging anthology that will enrich the repertoire of youth theatre groups and the curriculum in schools.
The volume is introduced by Paul Roseby, artistic director of the National Youth Theatre.