Our most popular plays for amateur performance, based on the number of licenses issued in 2023.
The 40 titles listed below were our most popular titles licensed for performance by amateur groups worldwide.
Read more about the Top Ten most performed plays of 2023, over on our Blog>>
After Life
A surreal and powerfully human look at the way we view our lives, and a haunting meditation on what it is to live – and to die.
Around the World in 80 Days (stage version)
By Laura Eason Original author Jules VerneLaura Eason's celebrated adaptation of Jules Verne's classic novel, a dazzling escapade that packs in more than fifty unforgettable characters.
The Ballad of Maria Marten
A thrilling play based on the nineteenth-century Red Barn Murder in Suffolk, rediscovering the lost story of the murder victim, Maria Marten.
Be My Baby
A poignant drama about attitudes to teenage pregnancy in 1960s Britain.
Bleak Expectations
By Mark EvansA hilarious, chaotic, Dickensian caper for the stage, based on the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series.
Blue Stockings
A moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women’s suffrage.
Brainstorm: The Original Playscript
And a Blueprint for Creating Your Own Production
A unique theatrical investigation into how teenagers' brains work, and why they’re designed by evolution to be the way they are.
Bright. Young. Things.
A funny, fast-paced play about identity, truth and the challenge of finding out who you really are. Part of Platform, an initiative from Tonic Theatre in partnership with Nick Hern Books, aimed at achieving greater gender equality in theatre.
Chaos
By Laura LomasA symphony of characters searching for meaning in a complicated and unstable world. Part of the 2019 National Theatre Connections Festival.
The Children
Two ageing nuclear scientists in an isolated cottage on the coast, as the world around them crumbles. Then an old friend arrives with a frightening request.
Consent
By Nina RaineA powerful, painful, funny play about the meaning of justice and consent when two friends take opposing briefs in a rape case.
Di and Viv and Rose
A warm and funny play about female friendship, crackling with wit and poignant observation.
Education, Education, Education
A theatrical love letter to the schools of the 1990s, asking big questions about a country in special measures, exploring what we are taught and why, and where responsibility lies. Full of inventive theatricality and irreverent humour.
Emilia
A riotous, witty reclaiming of the life of Emilia Bassano, poet, mistress, mother, and exceptional woman – widely considered the 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets.
The Good Life
A witty reimagining of a television classic for the stage, with a wellyful of laughs that's sure to delight audiences everywhere.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (stage version)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most celebrated Sherlock Holmes story gets a gloriously funny makeover.
The Incident Room
By Olivia Hirst and David ByrneA play about the manhunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, going behind the scenes to investigate the case that nearly broke the British police force.
The IT
A darkly comic state-of-the-nation play exploring adolescent mental health and the rage within. Winner of the Best Play for Young Audiences Award at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2023.
Jeeves & Wooster in 'Perfect Nonsense'
By The Goodale Brothers Original author P.G. WodehouseAn inventive, fast-paced comedy based featuring P.G. Wodehouse’s iconic double act.
Jekyll & Hyde (National Youth Theatre version)
By Evan Placey Original author Robert Louis StevensonA radical re-imagining by playwright Evan Placey of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale, written for the National Youth Theatre.
Kindertransport
A modern classic about one woman's struggle to come to terms with her past - brutally separated from her German Jewish parents at the age of 9 and brought to England with the promise of a new life...
Ladies Down Under
The funny, heart-warming sequel to the enormously successful Ladies' Day, following the lasses from Hull on their adventures down under.
Ladies' Day
Work, love and life are just one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when Linda finds tickets to Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot the year it relocated to York.
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons
By Sam SteinerA play about what we say and how we say it; about the things we can only hear in the silence; about dead cats, activism, eye contact and lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons.
Lilies on the Land
A revealing, funny and wonderfully moving portrait of four women who sign up to join the Women's Land Army during World War II.
Machinal
A powerful expressionist drama from the 1920s about the dependent status of women in an increasingly mechanised society, based on the true story of Ruth Snyder.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (stage version)
By Mary Shelley and Rona MunroA brilliant adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece that places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now.
Nell Gwynn
Jessica Swale's play Nell Gwynn charts the rise of an unlikely heroine, from her roots in Coal Yard Alley to her success as Britain’s most celebrated actress, and her hard-won place in the heart of the king.
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Amateur Productions
On Now & Coming SoonMoira Buffinithe Lions partJohn Nicholson & Le Navet BeteThe Wardrobe EnsembleAmanda WhittingtonPolly Teale