February 2007
Introducing Nick Hern Books 18 Years Late!
Thursday, February 01, 2007 by Tamara Von Werthern

Tamara von Werthern, NHB’s Performing Rights Manager, tells us more about what is fast becoming a formidable player among the Drama Rightsholders.


Nick Hern started NHB in 1989, and from humble beginnings – quite literally from his spare bedroom – the business has grown over the last 18 years into its current form, with a dedicated team working from an office in Shepherd’s Bush, London. The backlist has also grown over the years and continues to grow : we have published almost exactly 650 titles to date, both theatre books and plays, and continue to represent our playwrights for most of the amateur and some of the professional performing rights. 

With over 500 plays on our list, almost all of which are available for licensing to schools and drama groups, we thought we’d explain a bit more about what we do. Nick Hern Books is one of the few places where you can get playscripts and performing rights conveniently under the one roof, and we have special discounts on our scripts for drama groups who are performing our plays! Our extensive list of new and classic drama presents a real alternative if you are looking for something different.

Current Favourites

We have published many plays by Liz Lochhead, amongst them her latest, Good Things, which takes place in a charity shop and has a terrific part for a leading lady in her fifties. Amanda Whittington’s Be My Baby, set in a Mother-and-Baby home in the Sixties, is a heart-wrenching but up-beat piece suitable for an ensemble of younger female performers, with a-cappella songs from the period; and Ladies’ Day by the same author, has just been released after a hugely successful UK tour. It’s a heart-warming comedy with great roles for four female leads (1 aged mid-fifties, 1 mid-fourties, 2 mid-twenties) and one man. Then there are the Conor McPherson plays, most notably The Weir and The Seafarer, if you are looking for something more spine-tingling and have more men than women in your cast. Other popular plays include The Imaginary Body’s smash hit 100, a fast-paced physical theatre piece about life after death, as well as their latest offering, Food, a play about a celebrity chef who commits suicide at the height of his success, which will be released for amateur rights soon.

Free copies

With this great choice and variety, as well as our personal and friendly service, we have come to play an important role for many amateur groups across the UK and abroad. We are always happy to discuss options of plays for performance over the phone or by e-mail, as well as sending out free copies of our plays for perusal to interested drama groups. 

This is particularly useful if you are planning to take on a new writer, for example, Nina Raine’s acclaimed play Rabbit, about thirty-somethings living life in the fast lane, with its great female roles, which has just been released for amateur performance, but you haven’t had a chance to catch it on stage. Alternatively, you might like to compare versions of an adaptation of a novel or a translation of a classic play, such as recent releases, Ian Wooldridge’s version of Animal Farm, or Nick Ormerod and Declan Donnellan’s take on Great Expectations.

So if you are interested in having a look at some of our plays, but aren’t sure if they would be suitable for your group, we offer to send you up to three copies free of charge, you can then decide how many (if any) you would like to keep and pay for and send the ones you don’t require back to us in mint condition, within 30 days.

Website info

Our website at www.nickhernbooks.co.uk provides useful information on the plays for which we hold the performing rights (including an enquiry form which makes the process of making an initial enquiry very easy). Our new free Guide to Plays for Performance, which includes cast information (number of cast, doubling possibilities, gender and age of characters), staging details (set requirements), an extract from the play (to give you an idea of tone, language, accent, etc.), a summary of the play (to give you an idea of the content, theme and storyline) and suggestions for similar plays, is a useful tool for every kind of drama group. It is deliberately kept in loose-leaf form, in a folder, and we are sending out quarterly updates, so that you can update it yourself to suit your requirements. If you are looking for a particular group of plays, i.e. for a majority of female performers, or for Youth Groups, you can contact us with your request and we will send you a customised folder to cover your special interest.

What to do next

Once you have found the play of your dreams, we would always advise you to find out straight away if it is available, either by filling in a website performing rights form, e-mailing us or phoning the office. It is very important to do that before making any commitments, as sometimes plays are revived by professional companies and become restricted again after being available for some time, so even if you have performed a play before, it might suddenly be withdrawn from amateur performance.

The ideal time frame for the initial enquiry to reach us would be at least three months before you plan to open, in case we need to negotiate the release of the rights. We will aim to let you know availability of a play within one week, and will need payment of the fee at least one month before opening night, in order to have enough time to complete the paperwork. If you require an invoice at this stage, we are happy to send you one. We do handle quite a high (and ever-increasing) volume of licences, it is therefore necessary to apply early to avoid disappointment.

The money you pay in order to get the permission to perform the play goes to the author or authors, and in some cases also to the translators and music composers. These royalties contribute a substantial part of the author’s income, alongside script sales.

We are always happy to pass on your details to an author, in case you want to invite them to see your production, and we are always very interested to see local or national reviews about your shows. 

We at Nick Hern Books wish you all the best for 2007 and hope to speak to you soon about staging one of our plays.

To order your free Guide to Plays for Performance please contact tamara@nickhernbooks.demon.co.uk, or call 020 8749 4953

Tamara von Werthern

NICK HERN BOOKS

The Glasshouse 

49a Goldhawk Rd

LONDON W12 8QP

T. 020 8749 4953 

F. 020 8735 0250

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk