When This Is Over (NHB Modern Plays): A Blueprint for Creating Your Own Production, and the Original Playscript

A group of teenagers, their lives shaped by billions of seemingly random events going back to before they were born, come together onstage to share stories about their past, their present, and what might lie ahead.

When This Is Over is a uniquely personal, theatrical celebration of hope, possibility and imagination. It's about how we can work with chaos, and embrace our collective imagination as we prepare for a deeply uncertain future – together.

Originally conceived by Company Three – and developed alongside more than fifty other youth theatres across the UK – When This Is Over is a play designed to be created and performed by teenage casts, drawing directly on their own life experiences and the stories they want to tell. As with Company Three's widely performed youth-theatre play Brainstorm, the script is a blueprint for an amazing theatrical adventure.

This published edition contains a series of exercises and activities for schools, youth-theatre groups and community companies to create and perform their own unique productions, and also features the complete script of Company Three's version, which was performed at The Yard, London, in 2022.

When This Is Over was named Community Project of the Year at The Stage Awards, and Outstanding Drama Initiative at the Music and Drama Education Awards.

Ned Glasier is one of the UK's leading theatre practitioners dedicated to working with young people.

He founded Company Three, a London-based theatre company working with young people, and was the company's Artistic Director until 2024. At Company Three he created more than forty plays with young people, including Brainstorm at the Park Theatre, National Theatre and BBC iPlayer, Boat at Battersea Arts Centre and two major international projects during the COVID pandemic: The Coronavirus Time Capsule and When This Is Over.

Alongside his work making plays with young people, Ned leads training in the practice of co-creation, teaches on university courses, and works as a consultant supporting organisations to listen to, support and enable young people.

Author photograph by Camilla Greenwell

Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey is a freelance performance designer with a background in scenic art and carnival arts.

She is an associate artist at Company Three, where her work includes When This Is Over (Yard Theatre) and #BlackIs… (Pleasance Theatre and New Diorama Theatre).

Other work as co-creator, co-designer and designer includes: The Odyssey Episode 5: The Underworld (National Theatre), The Unforgotten (Young Vic Theatre), Tambo & Bones (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Death of England (including Micheal, Delroy, Closing Time and Face to Face at the National Theatre), If I Were Older (National Theatre New Views), Anansi the Spider (Unicorn Theatre and Regent's Park Open Air Theatre).

Her awards include a Set Design Recognition from the Black British Theatre Awards. She become a Fellow at Rose Bruford College in 2021.

Company Three is a theatre company that aims to create a space in which young people can speak to adults, and in which adults will really listen. Originally formed as Islington Community Theatre in 2008, the company works with an ensemble of young people aged 11–19, all referred or nominated by teachers and youth workers as those most likely to benefit from the company's work. Its plays are part of an ongoing exploration about what it means to be a teenager, created through long-term collaboration between the company's members and professional theatremakers. The company also runs regular training courses in devising theatre with young people for teachers, directors, playwrights and practitioners.