Second Home (NHB Modern Plays)

By Charlotte Chimuanya

Second Home by Charlotte Chimuanya explores the experiences of growing up mixed-race in twenty-first century Ireland. Naomi is trying to mend her broken heart. But will tackling grief and racism in a place she calls home prove to be the final betrayal?
Second Home was first staged at VAULT Festival, London, in 2020, and was selected for publication in Plays from VAULT 5, an anthology of five of the best plays from the festival, published by Nick Hern Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788503174

Charlotte Chimuanya

Charlotte Chimuanya trained with National Youth Theatre on the Epic Stages course, and continued her training with a scholarship to study in America on the Shakespeare Academy REP course. She originally performed Second Home as a solo show. Acting credits include Macbeth (UK tour); Hear Me Now (Tamasha); Imaam Imraan/Twelfth Night (National Youth Theatre); Rockstar (Lyric Hammersmith) and Safari/WTTE (The North Wall).

Book preview

Charlotte Chimuanya

SECOND HOME

art

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Welcome to VAULT Festival

Dedication

Original Production

Thanks

Characters

Second Home

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Welcome to VAULT Festival

Theatre’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Being in a dark room with a bunch of strangers, being asked to give your time and attention to this moment, here, now. And in return asking for a story, a voice, a perspective on the world. Asking to be moved. To be changed. And then we disperse. To the bar to dissect. Back home to our family or friends. Back to the everyday. But for an hour or two, we have all been a part of something. We have, artists and audience alike, been a community. Part of a story that, while it may be told again, will never exist in that exact way. It’s pretty exhilarating. And at VAULT Festival, there is the opportunity to have that experience, that immediacy, that joy and risk, hundreds of times through thousands of artists. That’s pretty fucking incredible.

Now, more than any other time I can think of, we are questioning whose stories we are being presented with. Who has been left out of the narrative? And why? VAULT Festival is one of the increasingly rare places where artists who are traditionally underrepresented on our stages, whether that be race, background, gender, class or ability,