London (CNN) -- As Iraq's insurgency was peaking, and American soldiers were dying at a dizzying rate from roadside bombs, a theater director in London was having an epiphany. Plenty of plays about the Iraqi carnage were piling up on his desk, but there were none about the the calamities befalling Afghanistan. It was then that Nicholas Kent, director of the tiny Tricycle Theatre -- far from the glitz and glamour of London's fabled West End playhouses -- decided to act. "I became aware in 2007-2008 how it was all going wrong in Afghanistan," he said. "It wasn't being reported in the media and certainly there was no artistic response to it."
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A London theater company commissions a cycle of plays about Afghanistan
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Britain's top general says seeing it sooner would have made him a better commander there
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He has been instrumental in getting America's top brass to watch it
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The theatre director says the plays have changed his own mind about the conflict too
He is thrilled that both the British and now the American military have taken such a significant interest in the production, saying there can be no better way to grapple with the complexities of @placeholder.