Youth Theatre News

The Pocket Guide Series

For any who enjoyed Maureen Hughes first book, The Pocket Guide to Musicals, you will be happy to know you can now find her second publication, The Pocket Guide to Plays and Playwrights High Street shops and on line.

1. The Pocket Guide to Musicals: August 2008 – Foreword by Richard Jordan
2. The Pocket Guide to Plays and Playwrights: July 2009- Foreword by Michael Billington
3. The Pocket Guide to Classic Books: March 2010
4. The Pocket Guide to Ballroom Dancing: TBA
5. The Pocket Guide to Pantomimes: TBA

“Maureen Hughes has done a remarkable job. She has packed a vast amount of information into a confined space … I would suggest close study of Maureen Hughes’s invaluable pocket guide which takes you on a roller-coaster ride through over two millennia of theatrical history.” Taken from the foreword for ‘Plays and Playwrights’ written by Michael Billington, drama critic of The Guardian Newspaper and Country Life and a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

“…… a vital, instant reference work to a drama student ……” Review from the Stage newspaper.

MAUREEN HUGHES
Maureen is currently Head of Musical Theatre at Laine Theatre Arts, one of the country’s leading vocational colleges where, amongst others she has had the pleasure of teaching such stars as Victoria Beckham. Along with her husband, she has written no fewer than eight musicals, all of which have been professionally produced, including one at The Dominion Theatre in The West End of London. In addition, she has written original plays as well as adaptations of classical literature both for performance as well as teaching guides; she has also toured the States with two of her musicals, worked in the film industry as a Drama Coach for an American film company and lectured on Musical Theatre at an American college for the performing arts. Yet, despite what some would class as a glamorous and exciting life her heart is, and always has been, in teaching. So to combine the two greatest loves in her life, theatre and teaching, is to her a dream job.

Maureen lives in the South of England with her husband, who is a musician. She has two children, both of whom are writers. Her son is a radio news journalist and a published writer; her daughter had her first musical optioned for the West End when she was just twenty one years old and was declared by Brian May as an evolving genius. So writing is certainly in this family’s blood.