For the first time ever, we'll be exhibiting at TheatreCraft – the UK’s largest free careers event for anyone aged 16-30 seeking offstage roles in theatre – which this year takes place on Monday 11 November in central London.

We'll have a stall at the Exhibitor Marketplace at the Royal Opera House, open 10am-4pm, where we'll be offering special event prices on an exciting range of skills and careers guides on different backstage disciplines, as well as dozens of great contemporary plays and musicals.

The day will also feature a selection of fantastic workshops at venues across the West End – and we're delighted to be sponsoring the Writing sessions at this year's event. The programme includes a 'Starting Out' workshop by NHB author Waleed Akhtar (writer of the Olivier Award-winning The P Word) on getting your ideas down on the page, as well as a quick-fire writing workshop, a session getting your work seen and produced, and a musicals masterclass from one of the creators of West End hit Operation Mincemeat.

Registration for TheatreCraft 2024 is now open – see more and book your free ticket via the event website.

Opened in September and created by theatre cooperative and arts education charity SCRUM Theatre, SCRUM Studios is an exciting new arts centre located in Hammersmith, West London (just twenty minutes' walk from the NHB office!).

The building – formerly an administrative and archive space for the local council, and then let as offices – had laid empty for years, but is now a thriving venue containing three rehearsal studios, a co-working space for writers, a designers' workroom, a photography studio, and more. A 250-seat theatre will also be opening at the venue in 2025.

We're excited to be partnering with SCRUM on a range of initiatives, including a playscript library of NHB texts, and an on-site bookshop offering a range of careers and skills guides across different creative disciplines, as well as a selection of our great contemporary plays.

SCRUM are also offering a series of pay-what-you-can workshops, with multiple NHB authors featured amongst their Winter season. These include:

• Alexander Technique: Taking Your Space, led by Penny O'Connor – Thursday 14 November
• The Physical Voice, led by Mel Churcher – Thursday 21 November
• Selling Your Show by Russell Lucas – Saturday 23 November
• Making Your Solo Show, led by Lisa Carroll & Milly Thomas – Wednesday 27 November, 6pm

Tickets for these workshops are available now, with more to be announced soon. To see everything SCRUM are doing – and how you can get involved – head to their website.

Two NHB projects have made the shortlists for the Music & Drama Education Awards 2025, which were announced today (18 October).

The Drama Workshop Leader by Linden-Walcott Burton is in the running for Outstanding Drama Education Resource. Written by a facilitator with over fifteen years' experience running workshops for renowned organisations including the National Youth Theatre, Barbican and The Old Vic, this book is a comprehensive guide to planning and delivering effective drama sessions – no matter what's thrown your way.

Elsewhere, Multiplay Drama: Season 2 is shortlisted for Outstanding Drama Initiative. First introduced in 2019, Multiplay Drama provides fantastic large-cast plays – originally commissioned by some of the UK's top drama schools and youth theatres – specifically written to be performed by and appeal to young people. Season 2 was launched in 2023, and expands the series with ten more plays in an exciting variety of styles, genres and subject matters. (Season 1 of Multiplay Drama was also shortlisted for the same award in 2020.)

The winners of the Music & Drama Education Awards 2025 will be announced in January. Recent NHB winners have included our Platform play series (in partnership with Tonic Theatre), and When This Is Over (in partnership with Company Three).

Azuka Oforka won Best Writer at last night's The Stage Debut Awards for her play The Women of Llanrumney, which was premiered at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, in May this year.

The play, which explores the lives of women on a Welsh-owned slave plantation in Jamaica in 1765, was described as 'a scorching writing debut that marks the arrival of an exhilarating new voice' (The Stage).

The Best Writer award was shared with Sam Grabiner for Boys on the Verge of Tears at Soho Theatre. Their joint victory marks the first time the gong has been won by two writers.

Also on the shortlist for Best Writer were NHB authors Martha Loader for Bindweed (HighTide/New Wolsey Theatre) and Harry McDonald for Foam (Finborough Theatre).

Other winners at this year's Stage Debut Awards, which were held in London on 29 September, included Jack Wolfe, who won the Best West End Debut Performer award for his performance in Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's musical next to normal, and Daniel Bailey, who won the Best Creative West End Debut award for his work as director on Tyrell Williams's play Red Pitch (@sohoplace).