Migration Plays: Four large cast ensemble stories for teenagers [Paperback] Chohan, Satinder; Khan, Asif; Srivastav, Sumerah; Chauhan, Sharmila and Kennedy, Fin

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 Tamasha theatre company 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. The plays include:

Nothing to Declare by Sharmila Chauhan follows three precious keepsakes and the stories attached to them as their owners are stopped at a hostile border.
Potato Moon by Satinder Chohan focuses on the potatoes buried in a share allotment. They become people's memories in a magical realist Southall and so when they start to go missing, schoolgirl Mira set out to find out why.
Wilkommen by Asif Khan follows 11 year Ammar on the most dangerous journey of his life, from war-torn country, across sea and land, to take up the offer of a new life in Europe.
Jigsaw by Sumerah Srivstav tells the story of how three angels, horrified by mankind's cruelty, prepare to wipe them out… until they find an unlikely friend who changes their mind.

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.

Sumerah Srivastav is a playwright, librettist and screenwriter with a background in TV, film and radio production.
She is a regular writer on EastEnders and has been identified as a rising star in the BBC's 2017 New Talent Hotlist. She is currently one of fifteen writers selected for a year-long MediaXchange/Creative Skillset Programme on Advanced Writing for TV drama under which she is developing an original television series.
As a playwright she has been a member of the Royal Court's Critical Mass and invited Studio Writers' programmes, Orange Tree Writers Collective, Criterion playwright programme and as a librettist twice taken part in the Stratford East's Musical Theatre Initiative.
Sumerah is a full member of Mercury Musical Developments, the Royal Television Society and the Writers Guild.

Sumerah is a playwright and screenwriter.
As a playwright she has been a member of the Royal Court's Critical Mass and
invited Studio Writers' programmes, Stratford East's Musical Theatre Initiative,Orange Tree Writers Collective and The Criterion playwright programme.
Her plays include Jigsaw, Veiled & Vinegar, The Fairy King, Space Invaders, Downfall and Border Lies. Her work has been performed at Soho, Tristan Bates,Redbridge Drama Centre, Contact, Orange Tree, The Pleasance, The Barbicanand The Criterion. She is currently developing a period play with support fromthe Criterion Theatre Trust and Worthing Theatres. For the screen she has written for EastEnders and her short film Origami
starring Nicholas Pinnock and Pearl Mackie, is currently in post-production. In 2017 she was identified as a rising star in the BBC's New Talent Hotlist. This year she is as a BAFTA Crew participant and has been selected to take part in Vertical Lab, a mentoring programme by the Independent Film Trust.