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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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So Here We Are

A play about what can happen when nothing happens, a compassionate look at young lives cut short and a touching portrait of childhood friendships under strain in adult life.

After the Dance

Rattigan's brilliant attack on the hedonistic lifestyle of the ‘bright young things’ of the 1920s and 30s.

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.

The Girl's Guide to Saving the World

A frank and funny new play about friendship, feminism and what it means to be successful.

Great Expectations (RSC stage version)

A gritty adaptation of Dickens' least sentimental love story with a cast of some of his most unforgettable characters.

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.

Wish List

A sensitive, delicate and powerful play that asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you. Winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

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.

buckets

Wry, emotive, funny and heartfelt, buckets is a play with a unique perspective on a universal dilemma: how do you deal with the fact that time always runs out?

Contractions

An ink-black comedy about the boundaries between work and play.

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.

Forever House

A darkly comic drama of buried secrets and new beginnings, with three linked scenes all set in the same terraced house.

How to Date a Feminist

A hilarious new spin on the Hollywood romcom featuring two proposals, two weddings, an elopement and a cast of unforgettable characters.

The Last of the Haussmans

A funny, touching and at times savage portrait of a family loosing its grip, examining the fate of the revolutionary generation.

Medea (Headlong version)

By Euripides Adapted by Mike Bartlett

A bold new version of the classic tragedy by one of Britain's hottest playwrights.

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.

Scuttlers

A thrillingly fast-paced play about youthful disaffection, protest and violence, drawing on the history of the Scuttlers, the youth gangs of nineteenth-century Manchester.

Secret Life of Humans

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

A Tender Thing

Another Romeo and another Juliet in a strikingly different love story.

Under the Blue Sky

A triptych of love stories in a play about unrequited affection, obsession, sex, and the possibility of being happy.

The Female of the Species

A deliciously wicked comedy that proves that the female of the species is not only deadlier, but funnier than the male.

Honour

An unsettling play about infidelity seen from the perspective of the three women involved: the wife, the lover and the daughter.

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.

Arabian Nights (RSC stage version)

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights.

Eight

Eight compelling monologues offering a state-of-the-nation group portrait for the stage.

100

A strikingly original play combining traditional storytelling with physical theatre, created by The Imaginary Body. Winner of a Fringe First Award at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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.