A collection of 20 scenes from 20 international playwrights spanning the Methuen Drama and Oberon Books backlist that respond to the world in crisis.
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).
Sudha Bhuchar is an acclaimed actor/playwright/founder of Bhuchar Boulevard. As co-founder of Tamasha, with Kristine Landon-Smith, their landmark work includes A Fine Balance &the award-winning musical Fourteen Songs Two Weddings and a Funeral. Other plays include Child of the Divide (Winner Asian media awards 2018), My Name is.. (also adapted for Radio 4) & The House of Bilquis Bibi (Lorca's The House of Bernada Alba transposed to Pakistan). Recent commissions are Touchstone Tales (RevolutonArts/Wellcome Collection) and French like Faiza (Radio3 cowritten with Ilana Navaro). Sudha has written and is appearing in her one woman show, Evening Conversations.
Acting credits include Khandan (Royal Court /Birmingham Rep),The Village (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Lions and Tigers (Globe Theatre). TV includes Coronation street, Stella & Noughts and Crosses. Film: Mogul Mowgli, Mary Poppins Returns and Happy New Year Colin Burstead. Sudha was a finalist for BBC Radio 4's Audio drama awards (2019) for My Son the Doctor (co- written with Saleyha Ahsan) and was awarded Eastern Eye's ACTA award for her contribution to the Arts. As dramaturg, Sudha recently worked with Nyla Levy on Does My Bomb Look Big in This? and Tuyen Do on Summer Rolls.
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti writes for stage, screen and radio.
Her first play Behsharam broke box office records at Soho Theatre/Birmingham Rep. Her second play Behzti was sensationally closed after protests at the Birmingham Rep and sparked an international debate about freedom of expression. Behzti won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Other credits include Choir, Chichester Festival Theatre; Marriage Material, Lyric Hammersmith/Birmingham Rep; Scenes From Lost Mothers, Clean Break; A Kind of People, Royal Court Downstairs; Khandan, Royal Court Upstairs/Birmingham Rep; Behud, Soho Theatre/Coventry Belgrade; Silence, Donmar Warehouse; 846, Stratford East; Elephant, Birmingham Rep; Dishoom, Rifco/Watford Palace Theatre; Fourteen, Watford Palace Theatre; the feature film Everywhere And Nowhere; DCI Stone, Radio 4; Londonee, Rich Mix; Dead Meat, Channel 4 and An Enemy Of The People, BBC. She was a core writer on The Archers, part of the team who created the ground-breaking Helen and Rob domestic violence story and has written for EastEnders and Hollyoaks.
She is developing various projects for stage and screen including original series Masala for Hometeam/Universal, as well as Brando's Bride by Sarah Broughton as a feature for Ffilm Cymru and writing her hit show Scenes From Lost Mothers as a film. Baby, a new play for Clean Break, will be produced at Brixton House in 2026.
She is a member of BAFTA, a trustee of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, an ambassador for Birth Companions, a charity that works to improve the lives of women and babies who experience inequality and disadvantage and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Zoe Cooper is a playwright and theatre practitioner. She took the M Phil in Playwrighting at the University of Birmingham and was on the Royal Court Young Writers Programme. She worked as literary assistant at Hampstead Theatre and now works as a freelance dramaturg and theatre education officer. She has written short plays for Nabokov, Theatre503 and the Tristan Bates Theatre. Her play
Nativities was produced at Live Theatre in 2012.
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is an internationally produced playwright whose work has been staged in the United Kingdom at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Trafalgar Studios 2 [West End] and the Unicorn Theatre. In the United States her work has been staged at venues that include the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theater Club and the Goodman Theatre. Frances' plays have been awarded the Wasserstein Prize, the Yale Drama Series Award (selected by David Hare), an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the David A. Callichio Award and the Keene Prize for Literature. Her work has been published by Yale University Press, Glimmer Train, Methuen Drama, Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. Frances was born in Philadelphia, and raised in Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing. She received an MFA in Writing from the James A. Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, a BA in Sociology from Brown University, and a certificate in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre.
