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Musical Scripts

Musical Scripts

"15 very different Peace Child Scripts that highlight the variety of stories it has told"
Peace Child The Musical Performed around the World
INTRODUCTION
Included here are 15 x Peace Child scripts from different periods in Peace Child’s history. They are just a handful of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of different versions of the story that have been performed. Several include the names of the children of the cast: every producer should do this in order to give the young people of the cast a feeling of ownership of the play they are performing.
 
If you choose to write and direct a Peace Child show with young people, you will face the same challenges that every other Peace Child writer / producer has faced. Reading some of the following scripts may help you to see how other Peace Child writers have done it. Good Luck!!
1. The Original Albert Hall Script (1981)
The Original Peace Child Script starring Susannah York
The Original Albert Hall Script (1981) – a copy of the script of the very first Peace Child show starring Susannah York as the Story-teller. It still has the director’s notes all over it.  Also included here is a the very first outline treatment by David Woollcombe that got the whole production moving + a scrapbook of the original flyers, letters, reviews and production notes written at the time.

2. The Original US Study Script (1983)
Original US Study Guide Script
The Original US Study Guide Script  (1983) – Here is the Flyer that promoted the US Premiere performance at the Kennedy Centre Concert Hall in Washington DC, and the basic Cold War script and Study Guide that came out of it. This show was performed over 10,000 times mainly in the USA between 1983 and 1990.  Though now a period piece – as history has moved on massively since it was written, it is still considered by many to be the best Peace Child script: the dialogue in it cuts to the essence of children exposing the insanity of many government defence policies and provides a useful guide to how better Peace Child scripts could be created in the future.

3. The First Soviet - American Tour Script (1986)
The First Soviet - American Tour Script
The First Soviet-American Tour Script (1986)  -  This is the script of the show that is featured in this video.   Because of plane delays, the cast only had 4 days to create and rehearse this show – in Russian for an audition performance before the Soviet Minister of Culture. We then only had a couple of days to translate and re-rehearse the show in English for our 20 x city Tour of North America. That we had a show at all that hung together is one of many Peace Child miracles!

Ludmila Senchina stars as the Story-teller in the US-Soviet Tour of 1986

4. The Bridge
The Bridge – a story of communities at war either side of a river which makes peace between them.


5. The Istanbul Script (1996)
The Istanbul Script (1996) – as performed at the Habitat TWO Conference in Istanbul in June 1995
6. The Peace Child Millennium Script (1999-2000)
The Peace Child Millenium Script
The Peace Child Millennium Script (1999-2000) – as performed at the Hague Appeal for Peace starring Peter Ustinov as the Story-teller in July 1999 and published as part of the Hague follow-up Global Campaign for Peace Education;

7. Kids on Strike (2008)
Kids on Strike (2008): This is the script created under the direction of Rick Staropoli (who also played the US President) – by the Children of Rochester, New York. It was performed there and at the World Youth Congress in Quebec City, Canada.  It was their idea to have a global kids strike – the idea that now forms the backbone of every new Peace Child show.
8. Peace Child 2050 - Creating the Future we want (2013)
UN Office in Geneva Show
Peace Child 2050 – Creating the Future we want (2013) – performed in the Grande Salle at the UN Office in Geneva for the 21st Anniversary of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Green Cross organisation. This was the first Peace Child to focus almost exclusively on Climate Change and sustainability issues;

9. Primary School Peace Child (2018)
Primary School Peace Child
Primary School Peace Child (2018) – set in a UK school, created  for and with 8 to 10 year olds.  It tells the story of a child whose parents are diplomats and has to return with them to an unstable country – which brings war into their classrooms via face-time video calls.

10. Green Peace Child
An early version of the Climate Change Peace Child musical
Green Peace Child
11. The Generic Peace Child Script (2017)
A story written for the Moscow Production which became, eventually, STRIKE.  This became known as the “place-based script” as the names of the characters, the places and the situations are all dictated by the place in which the story is set.  Adapt to your “place”!
12. The 2024 Time-Travel Chat Show (2025)
A 20-minute Assembly presentation about the children of today being brought back from two alternative futures – one peaceful, serene, prosperous and sustainable; the other a dystopian nightmare with people in gas-masks, at permanent war with each other. This short Peace Child show is a simple 2-hander which can be done as a reading and is thus very easy for students of all ages to perform.
13. The UN Centenary Peace Child Show
This Script promotes the Outcomes of the UN’s Summit of the Future and tells a story of how, by the UN’s Centenary in 2045, the young people of today deliver on all the promises the UN has made in the last 80 years
14. Peace Child Platform Performance Script ONE
This script can be done very simply by schools, communities and faith groups with a choir, piano or organ + 3 narrators: a male & female youth and one Elder of either gender. It is designed as a staged reading or a rehearsed performance to mark and celebrate the UN’s 80th Anniversary and chart a course towards the Future we all want.

15. Peace Child Platform Performance Script TWO
The second is almost identical to Script ONE but adds a full orchestra and a newly composed Orchestral Interlude.


These 4 x UN Centenary Peace Child shows (Nos. 12, 13, 14 & 15) are awaiting their Premiere performances – so watch this space for news. Contact davidw@peacechild.org if you want to premiere one of these new shows to mark the UN’s 80th Anniversary year of 2025.
Other Script Outlines
Peace Child scripts written to help young people through tense, specific and unsettling periods of history
1. The Gulf War Peace Child Script (1991)
A script written in response to the war in the Gulf
A Gulf War Peace Child Script
2. The Lockdown Peace Child Script (2021)
A story that brings the young protagonists together via zoom; Devised as an internet movie, it can be done by youth collaborating across the world.
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