• Author Courttia Newland

Look to the Sky was developed as part of the Exchange for Change programme and was presented on the Festival Day, 24 June 2010. It subsequently went on to tour nationally in 2011 and was nominated for The Alfred Fagon Award.

A Note from the Writer:

When I was a teenager, I took Drama as a GCSE. We saw a great deal of theatre, from Shakespeare to plays set in the Caribbean. None made me want to be a writer. The untold drama in my own life wasn’t articulated until much later, but that feeling has always stayed, one of loving the medium while feeling an ache for all those words unsaid, characters never met and lives without deconstruction, re-examination. I was overjoyed to be asked by Half Moon to write for teenagers. I’d written lots of prose, but the chance to introduce my world to the stage was a fantastic opportunity. Being given the freedom to experiment was the icing on my favourite cake. My Exchange For Change involved fantastic sessions with Half Moon’s Youth Theatre group, led by Debra Baker, where we played around with some ideas, had a great talk about language and even made up new words! Next came a visit to a local school with Angela, watching teenagers during first break. I scribbled in my notebook, went away and bled nervous sweat. To me the language was very important because teenagers are often thought of as visual, yet their verbal and written creativity is hardly acknowledged. I wanted to present them as they might see themselves; flawed, yet beautiful, complex and profound. I wanted to see them, not as teenagers, or youth, but what they actually are – our sensitive, vulnerable children.