from foreword by Kit Brennan Things that Go Bump, Volume 2 : Plays for Young Audiences is a collection of recent Canadian plays for elementary school age audiences; it is a companion volume to Things that Go Bump, Volume 1: Plays for Young Adults. These six plays are road and audience-tested, seasoned by professional and touring productions covering most of Canada’s provinces and into the United States. Through humour and great characters, the scripts explore large issues with an entertaining verve. Three of the plays (Lig & Bittle, Bluenose and Under the Big Top) employ the art of clowningâ��in various ingenious manifestationsâ��to explore large themes of longing and belonging. Two of the plays (The Secret Life of the Octopus and The Incredible Speediness of Jamie Cavanaugh) take place in the child’s real-life world of school and home, but follow them beyond and into the world of imagination and exploration. A Giraffe in Paris is based on a real event in the early nineteenth century, and whisks the audience into a travel adventure. Cast size for the plays varies from two to four actors. The playwrights reside in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver; as well as writing for young audiences, they also write for film and television, they are directors and actors, they teach at universities and other professional training schools. The theatre companies which workshopped, commissioned and/or produced and toured the plays are based across Canada; these fine companies include Black Theatre Workshop (Montreal), Carousel Players (St. Catharines), Citadel Theatre (Edmonton), Concrete Theatre (Edmonton), Geordie Productions (Montreal), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Neptune Theatre (Halifax), Persephone Theatre (Saskatoon), Quest Theatre (Calgary), Roseneath Theatre (Toronto), and Theatre New Brunswick (Fredericton). Everyone involved in theatre for young audiences will speak of the wonderful sense of fun it generatesâ��and also of the exciting honesty of the audience. If they love it, they’ll tell you so; if they’re bored, you’ll know it. I asked each writer to talk about their experience writing this play, why and how it came about, what happened in the play’s evolution, and how it has been received by the young people for whom it was created. These notes by the writers can be found at the end of each script.