The shortlists for the Music & Drama Education Awards 2022 were announced today (Thursday 9 December), with NHB named as finalists in two categories.

Drama Menu at a Distance: 80 Socially Distanced or Online Theatre Games by Glyn Trefor-Jones is up for Outstanding Drama Education Resource. Based on the author's highly popular, revolutionary 'menu' concept for planning and delivering drama lessons, this new book – created specifically to help anyone teaching drama during the COVID-19 pandemic – offers dozens of dynamic, brand-new exercises to energise, excite and inspire any drama group, all of which are designed to be played within the constraints of socially distanced teaching and online learning.

When This is Over is a finalist for Outstanding Drama Initiative. Created by acclaimed youth-theatre organisation Company Three in partnership with NHB, When This Is Over is a mass-participatory cultural project which has seen over 40 youth-drama groups around the world create their own unique version of a brand-new play developed directly from the stories of the young people taking part. The project runs alongside crucial climate conference COP26, which took place this November in Glasgow, and gives teenagers the chance to express their hopes and fears about the rest of their lives at a time when crucial decisions are being made about their future.

Founded in 2017, the Music and Drama Education Awardsc elebrate the extraordinary contribution made by individuals, companies, charities, schools and other organisations to the lives of others through the medium of these two key performing arts. NHB is the current holder of the award for Outstanding Drama Initiative, having scooped the 2021 prize jointly with Tonic Theatre for large-cast youth-drama play series Platform.

The 2022 winners will be revealed at a ceremony in March 2022. To see more information, including the full shortlists, visit the Awards website.

We're bringing our first-ever pop-up bookshop to our ace neighbours the Bush Theatre for two days only this month!

Come along from 12 noon to 7.30pm on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 November to browse and choose from a massive range of playscripts and books all at amazing, one-off bargain prices, with hundreds available for just £2.

Pick up playscripts by some of today’s most renowned writers, as well as exciting emerging voices. There’ll also be a wide selection of inspiring, practical books – to help you learn new skills, brush up on existing ones, and support your own work and career – as well as fascinating autobiographies, interview collections, criticism and more.

Come on down to look through what's on offer, get recommendations from the NHB team, and take home some theatrical gems at unbeatable prices. Plus, 25% of the proceeds from all books sold will go to theatrical charity Acting for Others, to help provide financial and emotional support to theatre workers in times of need.

Check out the full information on the Bush Theatre website, and see you there on 19 and 20 November!

The winners of the 2021 South Bank Sky Arts Awards were announced last night (Monday 19 July), with Samuel Bailey, and Conor McPherson's new version of Chekhov classic Uncle Vanya, amongst those honoured.

Samuel Bailey was named as the recipient of the Times Breakthrough Award for his acclaimed debut play Shook. This tender and honest drama, set in a young-offender institution, won the Papatango New Writing Prize in 2019, and was premiered by Papatango at Southwark Playhouse in October 2019, followed by a UK tour. Its planned West End transfer in 2020 was cancelled by the COVID pandemic. However, Shook was subsequently filmed in collaboration with BAFTA-winning filmmaker James Bobin, with the filmed version currently available to watch online here until 31 July.

Elsewhere, Conor McPherson's acclaimed new version of Anton Chekhov's classic play Uncle Vanya took home the Theatre Award. Praised by WhatsOnStage as 'a feat of magical reinvention', the production opened at the Harold Pinter Theatre, in London's West End, in January 2020, before being forced to close due to the pandemic. A film of the production was later shot on the Harold Pinter stage, before being released in cinemas and broadcast on BBC Four. It is currently available to view on BBC iPlayer.

Marking 25 years in 2021, the South Bank Sky Arts Awards is the only Awards ceremony in the world to celebrate every genre of the Arts, including Dance, Theatre, Pop, TV Drama, Film, Classical Music, Literature, Opera, Comedy and Visual Art. The winners of the 2021 Awards were announced at a ceremony at the Savoy Hotel, London, which will be broadcast on Sky Arts at 9pm on Thursday 22 July.

As world leaders prepare to gather in Glasgow for the International Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November 2021, acclaimed youth-theatre organisation Company Three and Nick Hern Books are inviting youth theatres, schools, and community groups everywhere to come together and share the stories of the young people whose futures depend on the Conference's outcome.

Participating groups will join youth-theatre companies from across the UK to create their own, unique version of a brand-new play, called When This Is Over, and perform it between September 2021 and February 2022. This exciting, mass-participatory cultural event builds on collaborative development of the play earlier in 2021, involving 16 youth theatres from across the UK.

When This Is Over is a play in which young people tell the stories of their lives. It is about what has happened to them in the past, who they are right now, and who they want to be in the future. It’s not directly a play about COVID or the climate crisis, but about the young people who will live through and negotiate the impacts of both. It’s a chance to amplify the voices of a pivotal generation at a pivotal time, so that their stories can inform the decisions we take about the future.

To help them create their own version of When This Is Over, participating groups will receive extensive resources and support. These include a ‘Blueprint’ of ideas, activities and exercises based on Company Three’s work on the play so far, as well as access to a community of practice, connecting all of the groups who are also creating their own production of When This Is Over – attending workshops, sharing their discoveries, and forming links which will sustain beyond the project. Participating groups will also have the opportunity for their young people’s stories to be recorded in an interactive online archive.

All interested groups are invited to sign up now to create their own production of When This Is Over, for a participation fee of £100 (plus VAT where applicable) per company. For full information, and to sign up to create your own production, head to the When This Is Over page on our website.

The winners of this year's Music & Drama Education Awards were announced yesterday (24 March), with Platform, Nick Hern Books' partnership with Tonic Theatre, taking home the prize for Outstanding Drama Initiative.

Commissioned by Tonic Theatre and published and licensed by NHB, Platform is a new series of plays for young people to read, study and perform. Responding to the current lack of roles for girls in writing for young actors, all the plays in the Platform series offer flexible, majority- or all-female casts, and put young women and their stories at the heart of the action.

Since Platform first launched in 2015, the plays have been performed hundreds of times by schools, colleges, youth-theatre groups and others across the UK, as well as internationally in countries including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand and the USA. These productions have offered meaningful and enriching performance opportunities to thousands of young people, with all the benefits participating in youth drama provides.

Seven Platform plays are currently available to read and perform – see more about them here.

The winners of the Music & Drama Education Awards 2021 were announced in an online ceremony on 24 March. To see more information, including the full list of winners and shortlists, visit the Awards' website.

Our office is now closed until Monday 4 January. Any orders placed via our website will now not be processed until after that date. If you require your print books or CDs more urgently, please try an alternative retailer.

Ebook orders will continue to be fufilled as normal, though support will be limited between Thursday 23 December and Monday 4 January.

Our info@nickhernbooks.co.uk email account will be checked intermittently, but our phone lines are closed. Thanks, and Merry Christmas.