Interference - (Modern Plays) by Morna Pearson & Hannah Khalil & Vlad Butucea (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Can you ever really trust a machine?

It is the near future.

A couple are struggling to conceive, but fortunately their company has the perfect solution.

A woman waits in a VR metaverse to do homework with her young daughter.

In a care home staffed by advanced AIs, a woman struggles to make a connection with her android carer.

Interference is a trilogy of near-future plays. Staged in an empty office block transformed with vivid projection and atmospheric soundscapes. It asks the question: will technology interfere with what we really need from each other?

This edition was published to coincide with National Theatre of Scotland's 2019 production.

About the Author

Morna Pearson started her career at the Traverse Young Writers' Group. Her first play for the Traverse, Distracted, won the Meyer Whitworth prize. Her other plays include: Elf Analysis, The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness and Skin; or How To Disappear, along with a variety of work for BBC Radio. Morna has been commissioned by NT Connections 2013 and her play Ailie and the Alien will be staged as part of their 2013 season. Morna was given the inaugural Rod Hall Memorial Award in 2006. Her other plays include; McBeth's McPets (BBC Radio Scotland) and Side Effects (BBC Radio 3/Bona Broadcasting).

Hannah Khalil had her first short play, Ring, selected for the Soho Theatre's Westminster Prize and her first full- length piece, Leaving Home, staged at the King's Head, London. A commission for Rose Bruford at Battersea Arts Centre followed, and she subsequently received support from The Peggy Ramsay Foundation to write Stolen Or Strayed, which received a Special Commendation in the Verity Bargate Award. Further work includes Plan D (published by TCG in their volume Inside/Outside Six plays from Palestine and the Diaspora), which was produced at Tristan Bates Theatre, London, and was nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award. She has worked with the National Theatre Studio, Royal Court Young Writers' Programme and Tinderbox Theatre, Belfast. Most recently, her play Bitterenders won Sandpit Arts' Bulbul 2013 competition and was produced at Z Space, San Francisco, as part of Golden Thread's ReOrient Festival, and was published by . Her monologue The Worst Cook in the West Bank was performed as part of an evening of short plays about Arab women in the Arab Spring at the Old Red Lion and the Unity Theatre as part of the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival. The Scar Test was commissioned by Untold Arts and was performed in a scratch performances at the Arcola Theatre in June 2015 and is going on tour in the UK in June 2017.

Vlad Butucea is a Glasgow based playwright and theatre researcher. He is a former mentee of Playwrights' Studio Scotland and holds a Masters in Playwriting and Dramaturgy from the University of Glasgow. Vlad's writing explores the relationship between technology and society, while his research engages with questions of queerness, gender and technology in theatre. Vlad is currently working towards a PhD in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow.