Nick Hern Books is delighted to be shortlisted for Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year at the 2023 Independent Publishing Awards.

NHB was shortlisted for the award - one of the most prestigious in publishing - in recognition of the way in which it bounced back from the challenges of Covid and theatre closures during lockdowns in 2022. The company achieved its best ever sales by refining its direct to consumer marketing and establishing new channels, including through partnerships with exam boards.

Judges said: "Nick Hern works in a sector of publishing that has had a more torrid time of it than most. But it's rolled up its sleeves and got the results that its hard work deserves."

Also shortlisted for Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year are Bloomsbury Publishing and David & Charles, with the winners announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday 22 March 2023.

Nick Hern Books' playwrights came away with Best New Play, Most Promising New Playwright and Best Production (Plays) at the 2023 OffWestEnd Awards announced yesterday (12 February 2023) at Alexandra Palace Theatre. The 'Offies', as they're known, are designed to celebrate the achievements of independent, alternative and fringe theatre in London.

Best New Play went to Red Pitch, Tyrell Williams' coming-of-age drama set on a South London council estate, first staged at the Bush Theatre in February 2022. The play has already scooped the George Devine Award, and Williams was named Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, and Best Writer at The Stage Debut Awards.

Waleed Akhtar was named Most Promising New Playwright for his play Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan, which was premiered at Brixton House in 2022, and also for a second play, The P Word, premiered at the Bush Theatre in September 2022.

Best Production (Plays) went to Jack Thorne's The Solid Life of Sugar Water, revived at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond last year.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Prima Facie, Suzie Miller's play exploring patriarchal power in the legal profession, was named Best New Play at the 23rd Annual WhatsOnStage Awards announced at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London last night (12 February 2023).

Miller's play, for a single female performer, was first staged in Sydney, Australia, in 2019, and had its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End in April 2022, in production starring Jodie Comer. It was later screened nationally via NT Live.

Described as 'like a punch to the guts' (Telegraph), 'a play that roars' (Guardian) and 'an unforgettable moment of theatre' (Whatsonstage.com), the play has wowed audiences around the world, and is published by Nick Hern Books.

Jodie Comer also took the award for Best Performer in a Play at last night's awards, for her outstanding performance in Miller's play.

Best Play Revival went to Cock by Mike Bartlett, which is licensed by Nick Hern Books for amateur performance.

Every year, Nick Hern Books licenses thousands of amateur performances of plays from our list. We've done some number-crunching, and can now reveal the most popular plays of 2022, based on the number of licences issued across the year to amateur companies worldwide.

Here's the Top Ten:

1. Ladies' Day by Amanda Whittington
2. Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale
3. Around the World in 80 Days adapted by Laura Eason from the novel by Jules Verne
4. Brainstorm by Ned Glasier, Emily Lim and Company Three
5. Nell Gwynn by Jessica Swale
6. The Hound of the Baskervilles adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson from the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons by Sam Steiner
8. Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
9. Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales adapted by Philip Wilson
10. Wendy & Peter Pan adapted by Ella Hickson from the story by JM Barrie

Tamara von Werthern, Performing Rights Manager at Nick Hern Books, said: 'Nobody loves a Top Ten more than me, but this one is especially exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly it rounds off the first year since the lockdowns of the pandemic and gives us a clear indication that amateur theatre is back and thriving. Secondly, it's such a wonderful selection of plays, which shows off the variety and range that exists in the amateur community.'

To find out more about the Top Ten plays, take a look at the article on our Blog.

A longer list of the 36 most performed plays of 2022 is available on our website here.

It was a clean sweep in the stage categories for Nick Hern Books playwrights last night (16 January) at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2023.

The Best Play award went to Ross Willis for his play Wonder Boy, which premiered at Bristol Old Vic in March 2022, directed by Sally Cookson. A startlingly original drama about the power of finding your own voice, it revolves around a twelve-year-old boy with a stammer whose life is turned upside down when he's cast in a school production of Hamlet.

The Best Play for Young Audiences award went to Vivienne Franzmann for her play The IT, which formed part of the 2021 National Theatre Connections Festivals and was premiered by youth theatres across the UK. A darkly comic state-of-the-nation play exploring adolescent mental health and the rage within, it offers opportunities for a large, flexible cast of any size and mix of genders.

Also honoured at the awards was NHB playwright David Edgar, who was presented with the Outstanding Contribution award for his contribution to British playwriting, his four decades of service to playwrights (at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain and Theatre Writers' Union before that), and the instrumental role he played in the WGGB's crisis response in theatre during the pandemic. He is the author of many acclaimed plays, including Pentecost and Playing with Fire, as well as the seminal book How Plays Work.

Several NHB plays and playwrights featured amongst the award-winners at the 2020 Evening Standard Theatre Awards last night.

Tyrell Williams won the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Red Pitch, which premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in February. A coming-of-age drama about three friends from South London dreaming of success on the football pitch, the play has already won the 2022 George Devine Award, with Williams also being named Best Writer at the 2022 Stage Debut Awards. The Evening Standard's theatre critic said the play was 'pacy and exciting... It's still rare to see a play about young, black, working-class youths on our stages: rarer still to see one in which they are celebrated like this'.

Williams beat off stiff competition from two other NHB playwrights: Waleed Akhtar, nominated for The P Word (Bush Theatre); and Igor Memic, nominated for Old Bridge (also at the Bush Theatre).

Other winners included Isobel McArthur, who took the Emerging Talent Award for her performance in her own play, Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), and Jodie Comer, who was named Best Actress for her performance in Suzie Miller's play Prima Facie.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Tyrell Williams has won this year's George Devine Award for his play Red Pitch, published by Nick Hern Books. 

The play, a coming-of-age drama set on a South London council estate, was first staged at the Bush Theatre, London, in February 2022. Williams was named Best Writer at the Stage Debut Awards earlier this year.

Founded in 1966 in memory of the Royal Court Theatre in London's artistic director George Devine, the award celebrates new writing.

Amongst the other dramas shortlisted for this year's George Devine Award were NHB-published plays The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs by Iman Qureshi, All of Us by Francesca Martinez and No Particular Order by Joel Tan.

The 66th Evening Standard Theatre Awards nominations were announced this week (17 October), with a host of Nick Hern Books-published talent in the running.

Up for the Best Play award are Tyrell Williams' Red Pitch, which premiered at the Bush Theatre in February, and Anupama Chandrasekhar's The Father and the Assassin, first seen at the National Theatre in May.

Also nominated in the Best Play category are Paula Vogel's Indecent, which had its UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2021 and is available from Nick Hern Books in an edition published by our US associates, Theatre Communications Group; and the stage version of the late Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, adapted by the author with Ben Miles, premiered in the West End in 2021 and co-published by Nick Hern Books with 4th Estate.

Nominated for Best Musical is Spring Awakening by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, which was revived at the Almeida Theatre in 2021.

Meanwhile, in the Most Promising Playwright category, no fewer than three of the five nominations go to NHB-published playwrights: Tyrell Williams for Red Pitch, Waleed Akhtar for The P Word (Bush Theatre) and Igor Memic for Old Bridge (also at the Bush Theatre).

Congratulations also to NHB authors Isobel McArthur, nominated in the Emerging Talent category for her performance in her own play, Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), in the West End last year and currently touring the UK; Arinzé Kene, nominated for Best Musical Performance in Get Up Stand Up!; and Giles Terera, nominated for Best Actor for his performance in Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky at the National Theatre.

And finally, a shout out to Jodie Comer, nominated for Best Actress for her performance in Suzie Miller's play Prima Facie, which premiered in the West End in April. In case you're wondering, that's Jodie on the cover of the NHB edition of the play.

The winners are set to be announced in November.

We're proud to share the news that two NHB-published plays – Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock and Princess & The Hustler by Chinonyerem Odimba have been selected as new set-text options for AQA's GCSE English Literature specification.

This is one of the most-studied qualifications in the UK, with almost 450,000 people in England completing it in the academic year 2020/21. We're delighted that our authors' work has been recognised in this way, and excited that students will have the opportunity to study and enjoy these fantastic plays, thereby increasing the diversity of their options for the UK's most-popular English Literature qualification.

We've also announced new GCSE Student Guides for each play, to help teachers and pupils looking to study Leave Taking and Princess & The Hustler. These will be available for first teaching of the texts in September 2023. See more about these – plus a round-up of other resources – here.

Pauline McPartlan, AQA’s Head of Curriculum for English, said:

'As the largest awarding body for English, we have the greatest influence on what's taught in the classroom. We want to make the right changes, so we’ve listened to teachers, consulted with external experts and academics, and worked with our senior examiners to inform the decisions we’ve made.

'We're making these changes because it matters that current and future generations of young people have an opportunity to experience a diverse, balanced, inclusive English literature curriculum that resonates with their lives and better reflects modern Britain.'

Three NHB-published plays – Age is a Feeling by Haley McGee, Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen by Marcelo Dos Santos, and Happy Meal by Tabby Lamb – have been named amongst the winners of this year's prestigious Fringe First Awards, awarded by The Scotsman newspaper in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, to shows premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

A gripping story that wrestles with the glorious and melancholy uncertainties of human life, Age is a Feeling by Haley McGee was described by The Scotsman as 'a sensitive, smartly structured piece of writing, full of wit and an astonishing amount of wisdom'. Directed by Adam Brace and produced by Soho Theatre, it is performed by Haley McGee herself at Summerhall during Edinburgh Fringe, before transferring for an already sold-out run at Soho in September.

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen by Marcelo Dos Santos was praised for being 'clever and compassionate, [with] razor-sharp observations [which] hurtle out at nineteen to the dozen'. Directed by Matthew Xia and produced by Francesca Moody Productions, this dark and biting one-man show about vulnerability, intimacy, ego and truth is being performed at Paines Plough's Roundabout at Summerhall.

Tabby Lamb's joyful trans rom-com Happy Meal was described as 'a simple one-hour tale of young love made complicated by society's attitudes to shifting gender'. A funny, moving and nostalgic story of transition, it is directed by Jamie Fletcher and produced by Roots and Theatre Royal Plymouth, with ETT and Oxford Playhouse. It plays at the Traverse Theatre during the Fringe, before embarking on a UK tour.