Making Scenes 3: Short Plays for Young Actors: Indian Summer; Almost Grown; The Ice Palace; The Dark Tower

Four short plays for young actors

Making Scenes 3 is an exciting selection of plays commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT National Connections festival for young actors in 1995. Indian Summer by Harwant Bains; Kulwant returns to India and becomes fascinated with an ice-cream seller and the Holy Man who has sat for years with a sword through his mouth. When Kulwant pulls out the sword and offers the man a tutti-frutti ice-cream, a remarkable friendship is established. Almost Grown by Richard Cameron; set in Yorkshire this is the story of how a tragic accident has affected the lives of three friends. The Ice Palace by Lucinda Coxon; in this magical rites of passage tale Siss and Unn are best friends at school, but when Siss goes to visit her one day they set out on an adventure into a magnificent frozen waterfall from which Unn will never return. The Dark Tower by Louis MacNeice; Roland must follow his ancestors’ and brothers’ footsteps on a journey through time, by ship across the sea of doubt, past ghost towns of history and through ‘deserts of dried-up hopes’, until he reaches the Dark Tower.

Each play includes Production Notes, dealing with setting and staging, costume, lighting and casting. Also included are a set of questions and exercises for workshop classes.