Theatre is a voyage, a journey where actors and audiences alike are transported to a world where anything is possible and the impossible is real. The six plays in this collection span the world as they send us back to the past, flash us forward in time or root us in the present. Step into these imaginative works and you will find yourself in Africa, Cape Breton Island, Vancouver, a Native reserve in Ontario, a developing country and a young girl's bedroom.

When are the seeds of a journey first planted? Why do we set our sights on one destination over another, heading east instead of west, drawn to the north over the south? Sometimes the decision to pick up and go can be spontaneous, unplanned and unexpected. Other trips can take months – even years – of preparation.

Playwriting is no different. The inspiration to write a play can seemingly drop in our laps out of the blue, or brew in the back of our minds for years. The beginnings of Drew Hayden Taylor's Girl Who Loved Her Horses can be traced to a story told to him by a friend whose mother had allowed neighbourhood children to draw on a kitchen wall. One young girl drew the same picture of a horse, over and over again. "The image of that little girl drawing the same image over and over stuck with me," Drew explains. "Several years later I ended up writing a short story based on that image, which I later turned into a play. It haunted me."

Matthew Decter had an altogether different experience creating Cyberteens in Love. "All I can remember about the genesis of the play is that I wanted to write a central character who was desperate to tell her story," he recalls. And so Matthew found himself confronting a faceless character itching to tell a story, even though he didn't yet know what that story was. As he explains, "My logic was simple: if the character was desperate to tell their story, the stakes would be very high, and the audience might be interested in the story. I knew nothing else about the play when I wrote it."

For Gail Nyoka, the desire to write Mella, Mella mirrored her quest to discover her family roots. "The play started from my own search for Africa," she notes. Her search led her to Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, a book of tales from around the world whose story about Mella spawned the idea for Gail's play. Soon after she began writing the script she met a woman from Zimbabwe who introduced her to the role of the N'anga, who would become a central character in Mella, Mella.

"I was enthralled by the idea of great stories which are told in many different cultures in many different ways, but which express fundamental truths about us as humans," says Ned Dickens, author of Beo's Bedroom. The play was inspired by a 10th century poem called Beowulf, and by Ned's own daughter. "I wanted to tell a story in which a little girl found within herself the courage to overcome her greatest fear."

Although sets are usually designed to reflect the world of a play, at times a play is written to adapt to natural surroundings in which the outdoors becomes as much a part of the play as the script and cast. Christine Foster's The Elfin Knight is a case in point. "I wrote it for a specific clearing, with mature trees and dappled light and two fragmentary limestone walls, suggesting a Highland castle," Christine says. That setting lent a natural touch to the world of 19th century Cape Breton settlers she wanted to recreate.

Occasionally, playwrights are invited to take a journey. When Arthur Milner was approached by Patrick McDonald, artistic director of Vancouver's Green Thumb Theatre, to write a play about international development he seized the opportunity to revisit themes he had explored in earlier works. "I was excited about returning to development issues," Arthur recalls. And while he didn't actually travel abroad in order to research Crusader of the World there was a wealth of information at his doorstep in Ottawa, where many international development agencies are based. Books, magazine articles and long conversations with a Canadian woman who had worked in Africa for ten years laid the groundwork for what would become Arthur's play.

Although the source behind each playwright's decision to write a play may differ, they reach common ground when writing a play for young audiences. Traditionally, these plays are staged in school gymnasiums, or ? in larger cities ? students are bussed to theatres. Whatever the venue, playwrights have to keep one eye on the clock, knowing that plays performed for school audiences usually don't run longer than an hour, in order to accommodate teaching schedules, and the questions students want to ask the performers. Limitations on time – and the need to keep school sets to a bare minimum – does not mean sacrificing other touches that help create the mood of the play. The shadow puppets in Mella, Mella, the music in Beo's Bedroom, the costumes in Cyberteens and Crusader of the World, the choreography in The Elfin Knight, the on-stage 'horse' in Girl Who Loved Her Horses – all these tools help build the magic that is theatre. And magical it is, as there is nothing to compare to a group of actors spinning a script into a story that lingers long after a class has left a theatre, or a troupe has packed up their bags and headed for another performance in another school in another town. For many children, plays like those presented here offer a first taste of what we hope will be a lifelong appetite for theatre.

What makes a good play, especially one written for a younger crowd? "When writing for a young audience," says Gail Nyoka, " the first thing I consider is, will the young people be held by the story? Will they enjoy what they are seeing on stage? What will they take from this story, and what will they gain by having seen it?" Christine Foster's recipe for success is straightforward, and can be found in equal measure in all the plays in Prepare to Embark: "A great story, and fully rounded characters. Give them a protagonist worth rooting for, an imaginative quest, and the need to use brains as well as brawn to solve the challenge."

An imaginative quest. That is the theme that binds the plays we have collected for your reading – and performing – pleasure. Every play presents a character who embarks on a quest that leaves them changed by journey's end. They see things differently, in a different light or through a different lens.

Through summoning up the courage to defend her toy friends from the monsters that invade her bedroom, Beo overcomes her fear of the dark. Shelley, the self-proclaimed Crusader of the World, travels to another country determined to make a difference but discovers that her prescription for change may not be the best medicine for the very people she's trying to help. Loyalties overshadow uncertainties when Mella sets forth to confront the Python Healer, a quest in which she discovers she has the courage and skills needed to lead her people. As one of the Cyberteens in Love, Su, having experienced freedom and love with Kon, vows never to return to the work-house world. A host of adventures and encounters in a mystical land of hobgoblins and faeries reshapes Katherine's real-world life in The Elfin Knight. An angry young boy who only draws with black crayons leads Shelley to quit her job at a daycare...only to return to him once she is reminded about the power of creativity as revealed by the Girl Who Loved Her Horses.

The six plays in Prepare to Embark have been selected to reflect a wide range of theatrical journeys that will appeal to students in middle grades. Educators looking for a play that delights in language and could be performed by older students for younger ones need look no further than Beo's Bedroom. Hungering to offer a new perspective on the global village? Step back in time and glimpse another side to Africa in Mella Mella, or travel abroad as a self-proclaimed Crusader of the World leads us to the truths that surface when cultures collide. Or you may choose to lead students to a world where myths and legends bloom by following the footsteps of The Elfin Knight. More mature students are encouraged to explore the futuristic, raw-edged world of Cyberteens in Love or join the Girl Who Loved Her Horses on a journey through the rocky landscape of childhood as adults revisit their past.

The best journeys leave us a little wiser, a little richer than we were before setting off. The best plays do the same. And so it is with great enthusiasm that we invite you to embark on six magical and entertaining journeys where the pleasures of theatre are shown to be boundless.

Shirley Barrie and Emil Sher