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We're currently inviting applications to license Nick Hern Books plays for amateur online performance.

As we all navigate these unprecedented times, an online performance is the perfect way to bring your members or students together to keep sharing your passion, experience great new plays by today's most exciting writers, and stay active and connected. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting, ever-changing restrictions, means it can be difficult to plan productions with confidence right now – and so online performances can offer certainty and peace of mind, freeing you up to focus on making fantastic theatre. 

Whether you're looking to share a play you've always been passionate about (maybe even getting a former cast together for a revival!), test out a show you've had your eye on for a future, fully staged production, or try something completely different, we're here to support you in making that happen.

Online performance licences are available for both livestreamed performances and broadcasts of recorded productions. If you're able to perform your show to a physically present audience, we can also discuss options to present it online, allowing you to reduce the impact of social distancing on your audience capacity.

For more information on how the whole process works, check out:

We know there's lots to think about at the moment when planning your production – so if you have any further questions, please email our friendly Performing Rights team at rights@nickhernbooks.co.uk.

See below for some suggestions of great plays to consider for online performance. This is just a starting point, however – you can also use the Play Finder on this website to search through our full list of plays by lots of different criteria (genre, cast size, length etc.), or get in touch so we can help find the right show for you. 

Please note that, as usual, you'll need to secure approval and a licence for your production. Just because a play is included in the suggestions list below doesn't mean it's automatically available, and all applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Once you're ready to apply for your performance licence, you can do so here.

We want to say a huge thanks to all of the brilliant authors and agents who've worked hard with us to make these online performances possible. 

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Di and Viv and Rose

A warm and funny play about female friendship, crackling with wit and poignant observation.

Heavy Weather

A powerful, timely play featuring songs, about one girl taking control of her destiny in a world teetering on the brink. Part of Platform, an initiative aimed at achieving greater gender equality in theatre.

Nora : A Doll's House

By Stef Smith Original author Henrik Ibsen

A bold new version of Ibsen's brutal portrayal of womanhood.

Flights

A haunting and funny play about bereavement, brotherhood and breaking away from your past.

When They Go Low

A play about everyday feminism, consent and the changing face of teenage sexuality in an online world. Written for the National Theatre Connections Festival.

Out of Sorts

A drama about clashing cultural values and the struggle to hold it all together. Winner of the 2018 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award.

For All I Care

A fast-moving, touchingly funny play about two very different women, both having a very bad day.

The Changing Room

A play about being a teenager, written specifically for young people, part of the 2018 National Theatre Connections Festival.

1972: The Future of Sex

A devised play about three couples having sex for the first time – and a country on the brink of a sexual awakening.

The Nightingales

A funny, touching and thought-provoking comedy drama about the members of a village choir.

CLASS

Funny, heartbreaking and beautifully observed, CLASS is an award-winning play about learning difficulties: in school, in life, wherever.

The Fall

A funny, moving and candid look at young people's relationships to older people, confronting the frightening prospect of ageing in a country undergoing crises of housing and care.

Secret Life of Humans

A thrilling play about Dr Jacob Bronowski, buried secrets, and six million years of human history.

Cornermen

An exhilarating play about human triumph, ambition, self-doubt, and pride, set in the world of boxing.

Red

An unflinching and bold exploration of the internal lives of young women. Part of Platform, an initiative aimed at addressing gender imbalance in theatre.

The Glove Thief

A play about the intersecting lives of four women, and their power to change the course of English history. Part of Platform, an initiative aimed at addressing gender imbalance in theatre.

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.

The Retreat

A comedy about getting away from it all - the debut play from the BAFTA Award-winning co-writer and co-creator of Peep Show, Fresh Meat and Four Lions.

Trestle

A tender but truthful exploration of love and ageing, asking how we choose to live in the face of soaring life expectancies. Winner of the 2017 Papatango New Writing Prize.

The White Bike

An affecting play, based on a true story, about what happens when our world is turned upside down.

Boudica

A brand-new ancient-history play in verse that tells the story of one of Britain's most iconic women: a queen, a warrior and a rebel.

Angel

Inspired by the extraordinary true story of the Angel of Kobane, Angel is part of Henry Naylor's Arabian Nightmares trilogy.

Consent

A powerful, painful, funny play about the meaning of justice and consent when two friends take opposing briefs in a rape case.

All the Little Lights

A poignant, moving and darkly funny play about young girls slipping through the cracks in society. Joint winner of the 2016 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright.

Us/Them

An extraordinary, award-winning account of the Beslan School Siege, exploring the entirely individual way children cope with traumatic situations.

BU21

Six young people are caught in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in the heart of London. By turns terrifying, inspiring, brutal, heartbreaking and hilarious, BU21 is verbatim theatre from the very near future.

Here I Belong

A moving, funny and charming play that takes you through decades of history seen through the eyes of one village resident.

New Labour

A comedy drama about being young, working in a shit job, living in debt, and all the funny and sad things you do to cope.