Indian phone sex and a Nigerian visitor

FREE OUTGOING, by Indian playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar, will open in
the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court on 1 July.

The play premiered at the Royal Court in 2007, as part of the theatr's autumn International Playwrights season. Directed by Indhu Rubasingham, with design by Rosa Maggiora, lighting by Mark Jonathan and sound by Christopher Shutt. The cast will include Lolita Chakrabarti, who will reprise the lead role of Malini.

When a well-behaved Indian girl is filmed with a boy in her classroom, the video clip spreads like a virus. Transmitted from person to person it infects firstly the local community and then seemingly the entire country with a burning moral outrage.

Set in the fiercely conservative Tamil region of southern India, Free Outgoing sets the rampant technology of the modern world against the conservatism of a traditional society.

Indhu Rubasinghams previous work at the Royal Court Theatre includes Sugar Mummies, Lift Off and Clubland. She also directed Tanika Gupta's Waiting Room (National Theatre), Fabulations (Tricycle) and Yellowman (Liverpool Everyman/Hampstead Theatre).

Anupama Chandrasekhar is a Chennai-based playwright. She attended the Royal Court Theatre International Residency for Young Playwrights on a British Council-Charles Wallace Trust of India fellowship in 2000. Her play, Acid, developed at a workshop conducted by the Royal Court, British Council and RAGE theatre group in Mumbai, premiered at the Writers' Bloc Festival of New
Writing at Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai in 2004. A short commissioned play Kabaddi-Kabaddi was presented at the Royal Courts International Season and at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in 2004. Another short play, Whiteout, commissioned as part of the Royal Court's 50th anniversary celebrations, was given a staged reading in 2006 and aired on the BBC World Service.

Other plays include: Closer Apart (Chennai, 2003) and Anytime, Anywhere (Bangalore, 2004).

International Playwrights: A Genesis Project

The Olivier-award nominated GONE TOO FAR! by Bola Agbaje will be revived in
the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court, in association with ATC,
following its hugely successful run as part of the Royal Court Young Writers
Festival in February 2007. The production will again be directed by the double
Olivier Award-nominated Bijan Sheibani.

Yemi and Ikudayisi are brothers, but they've grown up in different worlds: Yemi on a South London estate, and Ikudayisi in Nigeria. But when Ikudayisi comes to stay, those two worlds overlap and Yemi is forced to re-think his place in the world. What starts as a simple shopping trip explodes into an exploration of a disunited nation where everyone wants to be an individual, but no one wants to stand out from the crowd.

Bola Agbaje's comic, vibrant new play about identity, history and culture depicts a world where respect is always demanded but rarely freely given. Gone Too Far! is Bola Agbaje's first play. It was chosen from 400 other entrants
as one of two centrepiece productions for the Royal Court's Young Writers
Festival 2007. She is currently under commission to write her next play for the
Royal Court.

Bijan Sheibani is Artistic Director of ATC. The two productions he directed last
year - Gone Too Far! and The Brothers Size (Young Vic) - have both been
nominated for Olivier Awards. His other credits as director include Fixer (Almeida), Other Hands (Soho), Breath (BAC) and Flush (Soho). In 2003 he won
the James Menzies-Kitchin Memorial Trust Award for Party Time and One For
The Road, which were subsequently produced at BAC.

Following its run at the Royal Court, Gone Too Far! will be presented at The
Albany in Deptford from 14-16 August

The Young Writers Festival at the Royal Court is supported by John Lyon's
Charity, Columbia Foundation and The Foyle Foundation.