Not Black and White: Category B; Seize the Day; Detaining Justice

by Bola Agbaje, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Roy Williams

Overview

Not Black and White comprises of three new plays which examine the state of modern day Britain from the perspective of three leading black contemporary playwrights. Roy Williams, Kwame Kwei-Armah and Bola Agbaje tackle the prison system, the mayoralty and immigration in their respective plays.
Category B: Roy Williams
Saul runs a tip-top wing - the screws love him for it, especially Angela. Prisoners follow his rules, and it's all gravy. But Saul's number two position is vacant, new inmates are flooding in, so everyone's feeling the heat. No-one wants to go to Cat B, but the world on the outside is a different story.
Seize the Day: Kwame Kwei-Armah
Jeremy Charles could be London's first black mayor. He has the face to represent it - a well-spoken, good-looking Londoner, with an appetite for change. He's sold his pitch on reality TV, but can he be the real people's candidate?
Detaining Justice: Bola Agbaje
Justice is locked in a cold dark cell, his asylum application pending. His sister Grace would like to help, but has been told to leave it in God's hands. Crown Prosecutor Mark Cole has an infallible reputation for successful prosecutions - however he has had a change of heart - and job. His first case is for the defence of Justice - but, in his new role, is Cole the man to help?
Published to coincide with the Not Black and White season at the Tricycle, where the three dramas played in rep Oct 8 -Dec 19 2009.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472515490
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/08/2014
Series:	Play Anthologies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Roy Williams is one of the most prolific playwrights of his generation whose recent work includes Days of Significance, The Gift, Clubland and Slow Time. Kwame Kwei-Armah play Elmina's Kitchen won him the 2004 Evening Standard and Charles Wintor Awards for Most Promising Playwright. His subsequent plays for the NT were Fix Up and Statement of Regret. Bola Agbaje's first play, Gone Too Far! (2007), won an Olivier Award for Outstanding achievement and Most Promising Playwright nomination at the Evening Standard Awards 2008.
Bola Agbaje is a playwright who graduated from the young writers programme at the Royal Court in 2007. Her first play Gone Too Far! was selected to be performed as part of the Young Writer Festival and was performed at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) in February 2007. In 2008, the play won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliated Theatre. The play was revived in 2008 and returned for a run in the main Downstairs space at the Court, as well as at the Hackney Empire and Albany Theatre. Agbaje was also nominated for the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright of the Year in 2008. Other plays include Off the Endz and Belong.
Kwame Kwei-Armah won the Peggy Ramsay award for his first play, Bitter Herb (1998), which was subsequently put on by the Bristol Old Vic, where he also became writer-in-residence. He followed this up with the musical Blues Brother, Soul Sister which toured the UK in 2001. He co-wrote the musical Big Nose (an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac) which was performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, in 1999. In 2003 the National Theatre produced the critically acclaimed Elmina's Kitchen for which in 2004 he won the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright, and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play 2003. Elmina's Kitchen has since been produced and aired on Radio 3 and BBC4. His next two plays, Fix Up and Statement of Regret, were produced by the National Theatre in 2004 and 2007. He directed his most recent play, Let There Be Love, when it premiered at the Tricycle Theatre, London, in 2008. He received an honorary doctorate from the Open University in 2008.
Roy Williams, OBE, worked as an actor before turning to writing full-time in 1990. He graduated from Rose Bruford in 1995 with a first class BA Hons degree in Writing and participated in the 1997 Carlton Television screenwriter's course. The No Boys Cricket Club (Theatre Royal, Stratford East, 1996) won him nominations for the TAPS Writer of the Year Award 1996 and for New Writer of the Year Award 1996 by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. He was the first recipient of the Alfred Fagon Award 1997 for Starstruck (Tricycle Theatre, London, 1998), which also won the 31st John Whiting Award and the EMMA Award 1999. Lift Off (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1999) was the joint winner of the George Devine Award 2000. His other plays include: Night and Day (Theatre Venture, 1996); Josie's Boys (Red Ladder Theatre Co., 1996); Souls (Theatre Centre, 1999); Local Boy (Hampstead Theatre, 2000); The Gift (Birmingham Rep/Tricycle Theatre, 2000); Clubland (Royal Court, 2001), winner of the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for the Most Promising Playwright; Fallout (Royal Court Theatre, 2003) which was made for television by Company Pictures/Channel 4; Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (National Theatre, 2002, 2004), Little Sweet Thing (New Wolsey, Ipswich/ Nottingham Playhouse/Birmingham Rep, 2005), Slow Time (National Theatre Education Department tour, 2005), Days of Significance (Swan Theatre, Stratfordupon- Avon, 2007), Absolute Beginners (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 2007), Joe Guy (Tiata Fahodzi/Soho Theatre, 2007), Baby Girl (National Theatre, 2007), Out of the Fog (Almeida Theatre, 2007), There's Only One Wayne Matthews (Polka Theatre, 2007), Category B (Tricycle Theatre, 2009) and Sucker Punch (Royal Court, 2010). He also contributed A Chain Play (Almeida Theatre, 2007) and Sixty Six (Bush Theatre, 2011). His screenplays include Offside, winner of a BAFTA for Best Schools Drama 2002. His radio plays include Tell Tale, Homeboys, Westway, which was broadcast as part of Radio 4 First Bite Young Writers' Festival, To Sir with Love, and The Interrogation. He also wrote Babyfather for BBC TV. He was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama in the 2008 Birthday Honours List.

Table of Contents

Category B; Seize the Day; Detaining Justice

Editorial Reviews

Compelling...sharp-edged clarity...satisfying narrative punch.” —The Independent

“A remarkable collaboration between three of Britain's finest black playwrights.” —The Observer

“Plenty of wit and intelligence.” —The Times (of London)

“Funny and intelligent.” —Evening Standard

From the Publisher