127 × 203mm, 43 pages, Black & white printing, Perfect bound, Softcover, 2024

Phone Plays is the first publication in Scores, a new imprint co-commissioned by Montez Press and London Performance Studios that publishes scripts and performance texts by artists, theatre-makers and performance-makers working between the visual and theatrical arts.

Intended to be performed live over the phone, Sam Cottington’s Phone Plays invite readers and audience members alike to engage with a series of unclear relationships and scenarios, invoked and mediated by contemporary communication technology.

This collection of plays explore what critic Sianne Ngai has called the ‘gimmicks of production’: those moments when an object or person performs too much or too little; when it’s too easy, undeserving of praise or overly produced, trying too hard, camp; and how in those moments, the sublimated labour in everyday judgements of taste or aesthetic value are revealed. Channelling conventions of soap opera and sci-fi, these plays explore the experiences of desire, subjugation and alienation inherent in communication.

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