Nick Hern News

With 18-24 May marking the Mental Health Foundation's Mental Health Awareness Week, the Belgrade Theatre has announced a range of lockdown activities to help people stay connected during our shared isolation.

Theatre publishers Nick Hern Books (NHB) have announced five further writers to join The NHB Playgroup, their ongoing initiative throughout the current theatre shutdown which offers one free play each week to read and discuss, followed by a Q&A with the writer.

Theatre Centre, in collaboration with Theatre503, has commissioned 19 playwrights to write a series of short pieces for the nation, for anyone to read and record a performance.

With the closure of schools, cancellation of exams and the recent extension of lockdown regulations, the coronavirus outbreak has resulted in a period of massive upheaval for teenagers around the world. 

Papatango Theatre Company today announced the ten winning monologues from their Isolated But Open - Voices From Across The Shutdown initiative. Filmed performances of the monologues are available now for free on Papatango's website (https://papatango.co.uk/isolated-but-open/), alongside the publication of each monologue as a free online PDF by Nick Hern Books.

With schools across the world on lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Horsecross Arts, the creative organisation and charity behind Perth Concert Hall and Perth Theatre, is working to battle the impact of isolation and anxiety on teenagers' mental health a?' and providing a space to express what the lockdown is like for them.

Theatre publishers Nick Hern Books have launched The NHB Playgroup, a new initiative offering one free play each week to read and discuss, plus a Q&A with the writer.

The cast for the five monologues written for Love In The Time of Corona, as part of HighTide's Lighthouse Programme, have now been released.

Papatango Theatre Company today announces that Isolated But Open Commissions - Voices From Across The Shutdown will now include two new monologues from award-winning writers Rachel De-Lahay and Anders Lustgarten, alongside ten monologues chosen anonymously from an open call-out.

The UK theatre industry weathers the Covid-19 outbreak. Read updates here:

Brand-new theatre company represent. today announces the full cast for their inaugural season. With the mission to increase access to the industry for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, performing in repertory are Aaron Douglas (Girlboss, Southwark Playhouse; Wonder Boy, Arcola Theatre), Sarel Madziya (this is Sarel's professional stage debut), Nemide May (Brothers With No Game, Close Friends), Bola Okun (Feels, Lyric Hammersmith), Loussin-Torah Pilikian (Foodie, The Hope Theatre) and Adam Rachid Lazaar (this is Adam's professional stage debut). represent. will provide the cast with an acting apprenticeship where they can develop their craft, earning a London living wage.

Following a hit run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Theatre503 in 2018, and the publication of the play by Nick Hern Books in February 2020, Lily Bevan brings her critically acclaimed two-hander Zoo to VAULT Festival. A play about 'climate change' both in the weather and in the discussion of the female experience, our relationships to the natural world, and perceptions of a life well lived, this is a story of two complex, funny, awkward women. Both are in a mire of bosses, exes and hierarchies, both prefer animals to people, and both need to escape.

West End star Louise Dearman will perform in concert at Cadogan Hall on Sunday 31 May at 6.30pm, her biggest solo concert to date.

Outside Edge Theatre Company, which is the UK's only theatre company and participatory arts charity focused on addiction, is pleased to announce that Simon Stephens, Barbara Broccoli OBE, Matt Applewhite and Sonya Hale will join Enda Walsh as judges for the inaugural Phil Fox Award for Playwriting. The Carne Trust will provide support for this year's competition with a generous donation toward the costs of the award's administration.

Brand-new theatre company represent., is today announced with a mission to increase access to the industry for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds*. Inspired by the repertory model, represent. will offer six 18a?"30 year olds an acting apprenticeship where they can develop their craft on the job, earning a London living wage.

In what has become an annual ritual, a total of 40 established and emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists will converge on the Goodspeed campus from mid-January through mid-February 2020 to participate in the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals. The writing teams, representing 15 new musicals, will populate the campus, creating a truly exciting environment for discovery and inspiration.

The USC Libraries named the finalists for the 32nd-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award, which honors the year's most accomplished film and television adaptations, as well as the works on which they are based.

Nick Hern Books have today launched their new Playscript Subscriptions: a new way to keep up to date with the most exciting contemporary plays by today's top writers, from the UK's leading theatre publisher.

The Papatango New Writing Prize, now in its twelfth year, opens for submissions today, Tuesday 3 December 2019, until 9pm on Sunday 2 February 2020.

The King's Head Theatre, Making Productions and RGM Productions have announced the full cast for the return of Kevin Elyot's Coming Clean to Trafalgar Studios 2.