NT Connections Festival: Their Name is Joy / You 2.0

Full Description

East Sussex College and ACT Youth Theatre perform in Day 4 of our 2025 Connections Festival, the National Theatre’s annual, nationwide celebration of new writing. 2025 is the Festival’s 30th year, and Trinity is proud to host 14 young companies in 2025 as part of its festival programme.

Schools and youth theatres across the country perform a new piece of writing developed for the programme at their home venues before visiting a festival theatre.

Each ticket gives you access to an evening of two one act plays, with a short interval in between. For all of our Connections 2025 performances, we are offering an option to buy tickets at a reduced price, full price or, if you are able to, a slightly higher price that helps subsidise our Creative Engagement work.

 

 

East Sussex College – Hastings Theatre Company presents
Their Name is Joy
by May Sumbwanyambe

Set in the summer of 2019, on a spring onion farm in Lincolnshire, Their Name is Joy is a bittersweet coming of age drama that explores a terrifying loss of childhood innocence, as experienced by a group of young British casual labourers when they come face to face with the reality of modern day slavery.

Suggested age suitability: 16+

Content warnings:
• Instances of xenophobia and far right views.
• References to starvation.
• Discussion of trafficking and modern slavery.

 

 

ACT Youth Theatre presents
You 2.0
by Alys Metcalf

Strangers Martha and Isaac find themselves forced into playing YOU 2.0, a new therapy video game designed to help players access their better selves. As they tackle the levels in two player mode, the pair form an unlikely friendship behind the anonymity of their gaming avatars, but their impact on each other’s lives goes much deeper than the game.

Suggested age suitability: 13+

Content warnings:
• Discussion of mental health.
• Allusion to self-harm.
• Mild language.
• Discussion of bereavement.
• References to chronic illness.