Search results for ""Author Nick"
Nick Hern Books Again
A once close-knit family of four reunite after a long period of estrangement. This time, this time, it must go right. Words never said. Words said that shouldn't be. Contradicting memories. Family history builds like sedimentary rock, layer upon layer. In this warm and touchingly comic new drama, Stephanie Jacob peels away the facades and literally re-sets the clock. As the four characters tussle for what they think they want, we are allowed to peer into the recesses of that unknowable unit which so shapes each of our lives: the family. Moving, funny, infinitely relatable, Again is a brand new play with an ingenious theatrical twist. It premiered at London's Trafalagar Studios in 2018.
£9.99
Nick Hern Books The Voice Exercise Book: A Guide to Healthy and Effective Voice Use
Fall in love with your voice. Get to know how it works. You will soon feel how good it is to sound like you. In The Voice Exercise Book, Jeannette Nelson - Head of Voice at the National Theatre - shares the voice exercises she uses with many of Britain's leading actors to help to keep their voices in shape. Her belief is that all of us, not just actors, can learn to use our voices well. Whether you perform professionally or you just want to be understood clearly and easily, you can improve your voice by knowing how it works and by practising simple exercises. The aim is not to 'fake it' – to try to sound like someone else. It is to find your authentic voice: to be honestly and clearly you in any situation. 'Jeannette’s warm-up sessions are tremendous and this book extends those exercises.' Zoë Wanamaker CBE 'Jeannette’s knowledge is astonishing, and her approach so gentle and effective.' Derren Brown 'She makes voice production endlessly fascinating and fun. There is no one better.' Rory Kinnear 'A must for anyone who is serious about producing a strong, clean noise from their voice box.' Sir Lenny Henry
£12.99
Nick Hern Books The Flick
Annie Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about three cinema attendants - 'Wondrous, devastating, hilarious, and infinitely touching. A play to be treasured' New York Times. In a run-down movie theatre in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35-millimetre film projectors in the state. Their tiny battles and not-so-tiny heartbreaks play out in the empty aisles, becoming more gripping than the lacklustre, second-run movies on screen. With keen insight and a finely tuned ear for comedy, The Flick is a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world. The Flick arrived at the National Theatre, London, in 2016, direct from New York, where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It went on to win Best New Play at the 2016 Critics' Circle Awards.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons
'Let's just talk until it goes.' The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette are about to find out. Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons imagines a world where we're forced to say less. It's about what we say and how we say it; about the things we can only hear in the silence; about dead cats, activism, eye contact and lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons. Sam Steiner's play premiered at Warwick Arts Centre in 2015 and won three Judges' Awards at the National Student Drama Festival, before appearing at Latitude Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Camden People's Theatre, London.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Mermaid
A bold reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen's tale of love, loss and desire, transported to a contemporary setting. Beneath the ocean's waves there is no death or pain or separation. Above, the modern world is beset with war, poverty and desire. On her sixteenth birthday, a mermaid rises up to the surface, leaving her childhood behind for ever when she falls in love with a mortal prince. She knows that she can no longer live at the bottom of the ocean - but must she destroy herself in order to be loved? Polly Teale's Mermaid was first performed by Shared Experience and Nottingham Playhouse on a UK tour in 2015.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books buckets
How to fill what's left of your day. How to fill the rest of your days. Sick buckets, bucket rattling, bucket lists, buckets of love. 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? Across thirty-three interconnected scenes – some just a few lines, others mini-plays in their own right – buckets swings through a kaleidoscopic world of sadness and happiness, illness and health, youth and experience, kissing and crying, singing and dying. Adam Barnard's open-ended text can be performed by any number and composition of actors. buckets premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in May 2015.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books Bird and other monologues for young women
Three hard-hitting, distinctive monologues for young female actors, from one of the country's most exciting young playwrights. Bird is a cutting-edge monologue that throws light on the experience of a teenager in contemporary Britain. It's four in the morning and Leah is waiting for her boyfriend to call. Over the course of a single night she tells us what it's like to be fourteen, fearless and full of love. But everything isn't what it seems, and as the sun comes up, Leah begins to unpick the true nature of her relationship. Bird was first presented by Root Theatre and Echo, on a tour of the UK, in 2014. This edition also includes the monologues Gypsy Girl and Where I'm From.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books The Initiate
A thrilling tale of altruism, greed, and the search for a way to belong. When a British couple are seized by Somali pirates, an East London taxi driver decides to rescue them. Meeting disbelief with determination, he dismisses the fears of his wife and flies out to negotiate their release. Speeding from the banks of the Thames to the now unfamiliar world of his homeland, he confronts the family he left behind and the bravado of the defiant men he once called brothers. Alexandra Wood's play The Initiate premiered at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in a production by Paines Plough, where it won a Fringe First Award, before touring.
£8.99
Nick Hern Books Burying Your Brother in the Pavement
A play about grief and looking at someone that little bit more closely. Tom's brother Luke is dead. This has upset a lot of people but it hasn't upset Tom. Or, rather, it has upset him, but in ways he can't explain and other people can't understand. You see, Tom and Luke were never friends. In fact, Tom didn't really like Luke at all. So it's an odd decision - to try and bury Luke in the pavement of the Tunstall Estate where he was killed. But to Tom, it sort of makes sense, in a stupid-weird kind of way. As he sleeps out on the pavement, he comes across planning officials, tramps, undertakers, police officers, sisters, mothers, estate agents, ghosts, pavement elephants, sky dragons and a strange lad called Tight who wants to sell him a Travelcard. Written specifically for young people, Burying Your Brother in the Pavement was part of the 2008 National Theatre Connections Festival and was premiered by youth theatres across the UK.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit
A revised and updated edition of Bella Merlin's essential guide to Stanislavsky. The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit collects together for the first time the terms and ideas developed by Stanislavsky throughout his career. It is organised into three sections: Actor-Training, Rehearsal Processes and Performance Practices. Key terms are explained and defined as they naturally occur in this process. They are illustrated with examples from both his own work and that of other practitioners. Each stage of the process is explored with sequences of practical exercises designed to help today's actors and students become thoroughly familiar with the tools in Stanislavsky's toolkit. 'Bella Merlin magically converts her extensive knowledge into real-world practice and on-the-floor technique. This new edition is a necessary and lively resource for any theatre practitioner' David Chambers, Professor of Directing, Yale School of Drama 'One of the essential books about acting for both professionals and students… brings new clarity to unlocking what Stanislavsky means for actors today' Michael Earley, Principal, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance
£12.99
Nick Hern Books Pronoun (NHB Modern Plays)
A love story about transition, testosterone, and James Dean. Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy. Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. Especially written for young actors, the play can be performed by a cast of seven, with some doubling of roles, or a much larger cast.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books So You Want To Be A Corporate Actor?
A practical guide for actors who want to find work in the corporate sector, by a veteran with over 1400 corporate events to his credit. Thousands of actors in the UK make their living not from treading the boards but in the conference centres and training rooms of the nation’s corporate sector. In this, the first book to be published about the increasingly accessible and lucrative business of corporate acting, Paul Clayton shows how this sort of work – training, coaching, role-plays, Forum Theatre and live events – can keep you in paid employment, and your skills sharp, whilst you look for other acting opportunities. He takes you through every aspect of the industry, with a series of practical examples and invaluable tips at every stage, including: What sort of work is available – and how you can get it The various role-play techniques you’ll encounter The dos and don’ts for offering constructive feedback to your clients What Forum Theatre is – and how to do it How to handle live events – and escape with your dignity intact Written with humour and great insight, So You Want To Be A Corporate Actor? encourages you to look at your skills from a business point of view, enabling you to take control over your own career. It is a must-read for any actor wishing to broaden their skills and make themselves more employable at all stages of their career. ‘For actors wishing to utilise their theatrical skills within the corporate world, this book should be their bible. It is crystal clear, informative and irreverent – and lays out in simple terms how actors need to think and present themselves to be employable.’ Janet Rawson, Co-founder of Steps Drama Learning Development
£10.99
Nick Hern Books First Person Shooter
A funny and foreboding play about what happens when gaming and military technology collide. Seventeen-year-old student Adrian has a serious habit - playing military shooters on his computer games console. Single mum Maggie wants him to study Classics at uni and stop locking himself in his room pwning* n00bs**. With the help of computer geek Tom, Maggie deciphers gaming lingo in an attempt to reconnect with Adrian. But when a revolutionary new technology Tom has invented gets picked up by the Ministry of Defence, their lives are rocketed from the virtual to the actual battlefield. Paul Jenkins' play First Person Shooter was first staged at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 2010. *Pwn – (verb) to kill, to annihilate, or to totally dominate your opponent **n00b – (noun) a novice or somebody unskilled at a particular game
£8.99
Nick Hern Books Tribes (NHB Modern Plays)
Nina Raine's clever and subtle new play. Billy's family, like every other, is a club, with its own private language, jokes and rules. You can be as rude as you like, as possessive as you like, as critical as you like. Arguments are an expression of love, and after all, you love each other more than anyone in the world. Don't you? But Billy, who is deaf, is the only one who actually listens. When he meets Sylvia, he decides he finally wants to be heard.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Cockroach
A dark and compelling vision of a world infected by violence. A seemingly normal detention in a seemingly normal modern-day comprehensive school. A teacher valiantly battles on with biology revision. She believes only education will set her pupils free. For outside the classroom, the world is in the middle of a long and bloody war. Despite her best efforts, the tide of conflict is soon lapping at the school gates and, one by one, pupils and teacher are pulled under as their hopes and dreams float away from them. 'Sam Holcroft is uncompromising in her ideas and deeply ambitious for the power of theatre. It's a long time since a young writer has thrilled me this much' Vicky Featherstone, director of the National Theatre of Scotland's production of Cockroach
£9.99
Nick Hern Books Mrs Klein
Nicholas Wright's play about the controversial psychoanalyst Melanie Klein is a haunting and poignant study of mother-daughter relationships. In 1934 the son of Melanie Klein, Britain's most admired psychoanalyst, was reported killed in a climbing accident. There were no witnesses. Nicholas Wright's play shows the effect of this shattering and unexpected death on Mrs Klein, on her daughter and on her new assistant Paula, a young refugee from Hitler's Berlin. Melanie Klein had herself come to Britain from Berlin with a controversial mission to extend psychoanalysis to infants. But her analysis of her own children has damaged her relationship with them almost beyond repair, and the news of her son's death provokes a bitter confrontation with her daughter. Nicholas Wright's Mrs Klein was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 1988. This edition was published alongside the revival at the Almeida Theatre in 2009.
£10.93
Nick Hern Books This Wide Night
A tender portrayal of two women trying to start again after serving their time in prison. On her release from prison, Lorraine heads straight to Marie's. On the inside they used to share everything, but the friendship that once protected them now threatens to smother the fragile freedom they have found. Chloë Moss's play This Wide Night was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in August 2008, in a production by Clean Break, the theatre, education and new writing company that works with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system. It was revived, in this revised version, at Soho Theatre in November 2009. This Wide Night won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2009.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books The Hills of California
'This house. It's called "Sea View". It's just I've looked out of every window, and you can't. You can't see the sea.' Blackpool, 1976. The driest summer in two hundred years. The beaches are packed. The hotels are heaving. In the sweltering backstreets, far from the choc ices and donkey rides, the Webb Sisters are returning to their mother's run-down guest house, as she lies dying upstairs. Jez Butterworth's play The Hills of California was first performed at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in 2024, directed by Sam Mendes, and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Neal Street.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Red Pitch
'The way they're changing endz is nuts.' Red Pitch. South London. Three lifelong friends Omz, Bilal and Joey are playing football. Like they always have. Living out dreams of football stardom. Beyond their football pitch, local shops are closing, old flats are being demolished as new flats shoot up, some residents struggle to stay while others rush to leave. A coming-of-age story about what it means to belong somewhere, Tyrell Williams' fast-paced and sharp-edged play tells a powerful story about gentrification, regeneration and the impact of this relentless change on London's communities. Red Pitch received an ecstatic critical and audience response when it was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in February 2022, directed by Associate Artistic Director Daniel Bailey. The production was revived at the Bush in September 2023, with this definitive version of the text. For Red Pitch, Tyrell Williams won the Evening Standard Theatre Award and the Critics' Circle Theatre Award both for Most Promising Playwright, The Stage Debut Award for Best Writer, the George Devine Award, as well as the Off West End Award for Best New Play. An earlier version of the play was presented in June 2019, as part of the Untold Season at Ovalhouse, London.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Grenfell: in the words of survivors
'It was a tower block, but it was home.' The early hours of Wednesday 14 June 2017. The north-west corner of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. A twenty-four-storey residential tower. The scene of a national tragedy. This powerful verbatim play is drawn from the testimony of residents – a group of survivors and bereaved – at the heart of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It reveals the impact of the multiple failures that led to the most devastating residential fire in the UK since the Second World War, and asks: how do we stop this ever happening again? Startling, urgent and deeply moving, Grenfell: in the words of survivors explores the courage and resilience of an ill-treated community and their continued campaign for justice. Created from interviews by Gillian Slovo, the play was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in July 2023, co-directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike. 10% of the net proceeds from sales of this book will be donated by the publisher to the Grenfell Foundation, who support the bereaved and survivors in the aftermath of the fire, as well as help them ensure Grenfell is remembered long into the future.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play
'We could stop here. We could stay here. It's not so bad, is it?' Kim is having one of those days. A terrible, very bad, no-good kind of day, and the worst part is… it all feels so familiar. Caught up in a never-ending cycle of events, she looks for the exit but the harder she tries, the worse it gets and she begins to wonder: who's writing this story? She makes a break for it, smashing through a hundred years of bloody narratives that all end the same way. Can she find a way out before it's too late? With breathless hilarity, Kimber Lee's untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play jumps through time, wriggling inside of and then exploding lifetimes of repeating Asian stereotypes, wrestling with history for the right to control your own narrative in a world that thinks it can tell you who you are. Winner of the International Award for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019, the play was co-produced in 2023 by the Royal Exchange, Factory International for Manchester International Festival, the Young Vic Theatre and Headlong, and directed by Roy Alexander Weise. It was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, as part of Manchester International Festival, before transferring to the Young Vic Theatre, London.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man
Arriving from his East Midlands beginnings into a London thick with the grime of industrialisation, Joseph Merrick is an anomaly. In a city of factories that churn out uniformity, there is no place for someone like him. But Merrick and the city are evolving into something new. We follow him through the workhouse, the freak show and the hospital, as he searches for acceptance in a society that just wants to stare at him. Powerful, angry and surprising, Tom Wright's acclaimed play imagines an alternative history of the person who came to be known as 'the Elephant Man'. It restores Joseph Merrick to the centre of his own story: a man fighting for his right to be and to belong. The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man was first performed at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre, before receiving its European premiere at Nottingham Playhouse in 2023, directed by Stephen Bailey, and supported by a grant from The Royal Theatrical Support Trust.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books When Winston Went to War with the Wireless
In May 1926, Britain grinds to a halt, as workers down tools for the General Strike. With the printing presses shut down, the only sources of news are the government's British Gazette, edited by Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill, and the independent, fledgling British Broadcasting Company, led by John Reith. The stage is set for a fierce battle over control of the news and who gets to define the truth. Jack Thorne's When Winston Went To War With The Wireless is a gripping play about the birth of a great British institution and its efforts to stay impartial. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in June 2023, directed by Katy Rudd, with Stephen Campbell Moore as Reith, Adrian Scarborough as Churchill, and Haydn Gwynne as Stanley Baldwin. 'Jack Thorne never ceases to stimulate and entertain' Evening Standard
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Blackout Songs
'You told me you loved me, once. You said you carried me. You remember that? You still carry me? Or did you drop me, somewhere along the line?' A chance encounter at an AA meeting and they're drawn to one another. Then later, once they're drinking again, they both have this almost-feeling that they might have met before – could even have been together, sometime in the past... They should really get sober together and figure it all out: that would be a worthwhile project. Maybe they will. Just after one last drink... A compassionate and unflinching study of love, addiction and memory, Joe White's play Blackout Songs was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in November 2022, directed by Guy Jones.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books Bangers (NHB Modern Plays)
It’s club night and the tracks are spinning. Set against a backdrop of precarious lives in urban London, two headliners crossfade between stories of love, sex, and losing their creative spark. Bangers follows the highs and lows of two strangers as they struggle with their own pasts, while hurtling towards each other’s futures. All the while, the DJ continues to play, dropping samples and words of wisdom. In the end, it’s not the last track that counts, but the one coming up next... Featuring original music inspired by early noughties and present-day R&B and Garage, Danusia Samal’s exhilarating play was first co-produced by Cardboard Citizens and Soho Theatre. It toured community venues across London, before a run at Soho Theatre, London, in 2022.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Happy Meal
'Maybe gender is like life? And like time too? In that it doesn't actually exist, and yet our world revolves around the expectations we put on it.' Starting in the quaint days of dial-up and MSN, Happy Meal is a funny, moving and nostalgic story of transition, following two initial strangers on their journeys from teen to adult; from MySpace to TikTok; from cis to trans... Tabby Lamb's joyful trans rom-com was directed by Jamie Fletcher and produced by Roots and Theatre Royal Plymouth, with ETT and Oxford Playhouse, on a UK tour in 2022, including a run at the Traverse Theatre during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First Award.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books A-Typical Rainbow
'I can change colours of objects by looking at them, hear the symphonies of household simplicities, taste the emotions in a room like sweet or bitter wine, and feel life's every heartbeat breaking through my ribcage in glorious technicolour. Just don't ask me to make eye contact.' An imaginative child's glorious fantasies – of dolphins and dragonflies, gingerbread houses and chocolate rivers – offer him an escape from hostile reality. When reality dictates he has to conform to the 'real world', he has to make a choice. Should he live authentically and risk stigma, or can he continue to hide? Based on real events from the perspective of the writer and the autistic community, JJ Green's A-Typical Rainbow is an uplifting play about the experience of growing up neurodivergent and queer in early 2000s Britain. It premiered at London's Turbine Theatre in June 2022, produced by Aria Entertainment, directed by Bronagh Lagan, and starring playwright JJ Green, who is a passionate advocate for autistic artists like himself. This edition includes the full text of the play along with contributions from the largely – and proudly – neurodivergent cast and creative team.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books The Taxidermist's Daughter
'The world is stacked against women like me. But things are different now.' 1912. In an isolated house on the Sussex salt marshes, Connie Gifford lives with her father. Robbed of her childhood memories by a mysterious accident, she is haunted by fitful glimpses of her past – whilst her father has become a broken man, taking refuge in the bottle, since the closure of his once-legendary Museum of Avian Taxidermy. A strange woman has been seen in the graveyard – and a few miles away, two patients have, inexplicably, disappeared from the local asylum. As a major storm hits the coastline, old wounds are about to be opened as one woman, intent on revenge, attempts to liberate another from the horrifying crimes of the past. The Taxidermist's Daughter is a thrilling Gothic story of violence, retribution and justice, adapted for the stage by Kate Mosse from her own internationally best-selling novel, and first performed at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2022, directed by Róisín McBrinn. 'A superb, atmospheric thriller, its Gothic overtones commanding attention' Daily Mail on Kate Mosse's novel
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan
'Today in Afghanistan there are many important issues that we are facing in our country, and I want us to look at some of these issues. So I am asking you, the audience, to help answer a very important question. Britney or Shakira?' Afghanistan. It's 2004. Farook and Samia broadcast live every day to the whole of Kabul, delivering ninety minutes of musical bliss: Britney, Backstreet Boys and Enrique Iglesias. But when their show starts to make waves, the two young friends must take on repressive forces to build a new Afghanistan. Inspired by the true story of Afghanistan's first youth music programme, Waleed Akhtar's play Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan explores a world following the US invasion that is complex, contradictory and shocking – all to a soundtrack of early noughties' pop. The play premiered at Brixton House, London, in 2022, directed by Anna Himali Howard, before touring the UK. It was presented with HighTide, in association with Mercury Theatre Colchester. Waleed Akhtar was later named Most Promising New Playwright at the 2023 OffWestEnd Awards, for Kabul Goes Pop and The P Word.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Prima Facie (NHB Modern Plays)
Tessa is a young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from working-class origins to the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and winning. But an unexpected event forces her to confront the patriarchal power of the law, where the burden of proof and morality diverge. Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is an award-winning play for a solo actor, taking us deep into a world where emotion and integrity are in conflict with the rules of the game. After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in April 2022. It starred Jodie Comer, the Emmy and Bafta Award-winning star of TV's Killing Eve, making her West End debut.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Sorry, You're Not a Winner
Liam and Fletch grew up together. Born on the same street. Best mates since primary. Inseparable. The only difference was while Fletch was getting suspended from school, Liam was studying. And now he's going to Oxford. But with Liam gone, who's going to keep Fletch out of trouble? Sorry, You're Not a Winner explores aspiration, social mobility and getting caught between classes. It asks: if 'making it' means leaving everything you know and everyone you love behind – what's the point? This powerful and striking play by Samuel Bailey was first produced in 2022 by Paines Plough and Theatre Royal Plymouth, in association with the University of Plymouth's School of Society and Culture, before touring nationally.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books The Normal Heart
Larry Kramer's passionate, polemical drama, set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The Normal Heart traces the story of one man who, while his friends are dying around him, strives to break through a conspiracy of silence, indifference and hostility from public officials and the gay community, and gain recognition for a virus that threatens to change everything. The play received its British premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1986. Thirty-five years after that premiere, the play's prescience and its searing emotional power are beyond doubt. It was revived on Broadway in 2011 (winning the Tony Award for Best Revival) and adapted for television in 2014 (receiving the Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie). This new edition of the play is published alongside a major revival at the National Theatre, London, in 2021, directed by Dominic Cooke. It features the definitive text of the play, extensive supplementary material including a new introduction by critic and broadcaster David Benedict, and tributes to Larry Kramer by Russell T Davies, Tony Kushner and Matthew López, all of whom have also contributed to the canon of dramatic work about HIV/AIDS – with, respectively, It's A Sin, Angels in America and The Inheritance.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books truth and reconciliation
Rwanda to Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe to Bosnia, answers are demanded, reconciliation hard to hear and the truth reluctant to be told. 'I will not stay standing to have you accuse me. And I will not sit there and be accused.' debbie tucker green's play truth and reconciliation was first performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London, in September 2011.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books SAUCE and All honey: Two Plays
Two sweet and saucy comedies from an award-winning Irish playwright. In SAUCE, Mella is a compulsive liar, Maura is a kleptomaniac – and neither has any friends. Recently out of controlling relationships, they are thrust into uneasy freedom. Can they overcome their flaws together to avoid dying alone? Or will their compulsions engulf them in the end? A play about death and rebirth, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's SAUCE was first staged at Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, in 2019 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, and revived there in 2022. In All honey, Ru and Luke are throwing a house-warming party. But their guests are more interested in whispering in the box room than joining the festivities. Explosive characters and unfolding secrets mean the hosts will have to clean up more than red-wine stains and glitter. Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's debut play, All honey is about sex, secrets and suspicion. It premiered at the New Theatre in 2017 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, winning the 2017 Fishamble New Writing Award. It was revived at Bewley's in 2018 and Project Arts Centre in 2020.
£11.69
Nick Hern Books How To Be A Kid
Warning: Contains dancing, chocolate cake and an epic car chase. Molly cooks. Molly does the dishes. Molly gets her little brother Joe ready for school. Molly is only twelve, but she doesn't feel much like a kid any more. Now her mum is feeling better, maybe things will get back to normal. Maybe Molly can learn to be a kid again. A touching and funny story of family, friends and fitting in, Sarah McDonald-Hughes' play How To Be A Kid is ideal for seven- to eleven-year-olds to watch, read and perform. It was first produced in 2017 by Paines Plough in their pop-up theatre, Roundabout, in a co-production with Theatr Clywd and the Orange Tree Theatre. How To Be A Kid was named Best Play for Young Audiences at the 2018 Writers' Guild Awards.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books Oslo
A darkly funny political thriller, winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1993, in front of the world’s press, the leaders of Israel and Palestine shook hands on the lawn of the White House. Few watching would have guessed that the negotiations leading up to this iconic moment started secretly in a grand manor house in the middle of a forest outside Oslo. J.T. Rogers' play Oslo tells the true story of two maverick Norwegian diplomats who coordinated top-secret talks and inspired seemingly impossible friendships. Their quiet heroics helped lead to the groundbreaking Oslo Accords. The play had a sell-out run in New York in 2016, and received its UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in September 2017, prior to a West End transfer.
£13.99
Nick Hern Books BLACK SUPERHERO
'No one. No dark knight in shinin armour. Not even someone I'd let fiddle with me on a regular basis. Went through all my twenties thinkin don't worry he'll come. Well, I'm almost forty now, and he still hasn't, has he?' David is in love with King. But King is a superhero. After an unexpected encounter, David plunges himself into a world of sex, drugs and hero worship in the hope of being rescued, until fantasy and reality merge with devastating consequences. Danny Lee Wynter's play BLACK SUPERHERO is a brutal, unflinching, funny portrait of one man's life spiralling out of control, in an age where our idols are Kings and our superheroes Gods. It was premiered at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London, in March 2023, directed by Daniel Evans and with a cast including Dyllón Burnside and the playwright Danny Lee Wynter.
£10.99
Nick Hern Books Dorian (NHB Modern Plays)
Dorian Gray – handsome, hedonistic, narcissistic – sells his soul for eternal beauty. Basil and Henry join him for the ride until it all goes too far, and the hangovers become murderous... Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was a succès de scandale on its publication in 1891, accused of violating the laws of public morality. It immediately captured the minds of its readers, the spirit of the age, and the soul of a man with nothing to declare but his genius. This thrilling stage adaptation by Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley follows one man's descent from glorious debauchery to epic self-destruction, intertwined with Wilde's own life story, his tragic persecution, and ultimate imprisonment in Reading Gaol.
£9.99
Nick Hern Books Stage Lighting Design: The Art, The Craft, The Life
The definitive text for today's and tomorrow's lighting designers, covering the complete history, theory and practice of lighting design. With over four hundred illustrations and nearly sixty colour photographs, as well as interviews with many well-known professionals, Stage Lighting Design is a comprehensive, insightful and inspiring book that every designer and would-be designer should own. It is arranged in four sections: Design: the basic principles, illustrated with reference to specific productions History: a brief survey of the historical development of stage lighting The Life: interviews with 14 other lighting designers, plus notes on Pilbrow's own career Mechanics: a comprehensive section dealing with all the technical data today's designer will need.
£24.29
Nick Hern Books Freeing the Natural Voice
The classic voice-training book for actors, teachers of voice and speech and anyone interested in vocal expression – by a pre-eminent voice teacher, actor and director. Fully revised and expanded edition. Linklater's approach is to liberate the voice you have rather than apply vocal techniques from the outside. Her basic assumption is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing whatever emotion, mood or thought he/she experiences. This edition incorporates vocal exercises developed over three decades to help the voice connect viscerally with language – a key element in the actors' craft. 'a radical breakaway from the old formal methods... an invaluable new resource... essential' Educational Theatre Journal 'the best and only work of its kind for vocal training' Educational Theatre News
£14.99
Nick Hern Books The Improvisation Book: How to Conduct Successful Improvisation Sessions
A practical guide to conducting improvisation sessions, for teachers, directors and workshop leaders. ***Comes with a full set of improvisation cards to use in any improvisation session The Improvisation Book takes you step-by-step, session-by-session through a graded series of improvisation exercises. Starting with the very first class, it adds a new element at each stage until even the most inhibited students have gained a full vocabulary of improvisational techniques.
£29.00
Nick Hern Books Through The Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre
A step-by-step guide to Physical Theatre in both theory and practice - full of detailed exercises and inspiring ideas. In Through the Body, based on twelve years of teaching physical theatre, Dymphna Callery introduces the reader to the principles behind the work of certain key 20th-century theatre practitioners (Artaud, Grotowski, Meyerhold, Brook and Lecoq, among others) and offers exercises by which their theories can be turned into practice and their principles explored in action. The book takes the form of a series of workshops starting with the preparation of the body through Awareness, Articulation, Energy and Neutrality. A section on Mask-work is followed by further work on the body, investigating Presence, Complicité, Play, Audience, Rhythm, Sound and E-motion. The book - and the work - culminates in sections on Devising and on the Physical Text. There is also a thorough bibliography and a contact list of training courses in the UK and abroad. 'This book offers everything you have ever wanted to know about Physical Theatre. It is very detailed but at the same time very easy to understand. It breaks down every topic to short paragraphs which are informative and simple. A must for any theatre student or lecturer for that matter!' Amazon readers review
£14.99
Nick Hern Books The Complete Brecht Toolkit
A practical, hands-on guide - for actors, directors, teachers and students - to Brecht's theory and practice of theatre, with a full set of exercises to help put theory into practice. The Complete Brecht Toolkit examines, one by one, Brecht's many, sometimes contradictory ideas about theatre - and how he put them into practice. Here are explanations of all the famous key terms, such as Alienation Effect, Epic Theatre and Gestus, as well as many others which go to make up what we think of as 'Brechtian theatre'. The book also explores the practical application of these theories in Acting, Language, Music, Design and Direction. Also included are fifty exercises contributed by Julian Jones, to help student actors investigate Brecht's ideas for themselves, becoming thoroughly familiar with the tools in the Brecht toolkit.
£12.99
Nick Hern Books Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches
Part One of the two-part Angels in America, Tony Kushner's epic drama set during the Reagan years in America - now recognised as one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century. Prior, visited by ghosts of his ancestors and abandoned by his lover after his diagnosis with AIDS, is wondering if he is still sane when the angels select him to be their prophet. Powerbroker Roy Cohn also has the virus - but he believes that only the powerless can have that particular illness, and so kicks back against his diagnosis. In the 'melting pot where nothing melted' of modern America, the nation's reaction to the sickness – and its sufferers – is laid bare. Millennium Approaches was premiered in May 1991 by the Eureka Theatre Company, San Francisco, directed by David Esbjornson. In London it was premiered in January 1992 in a National Theatre production at the Cottesloe Theatre, directed by Declan Donnellan. The play received many awards, including Best Play at the 1992 Evening Standard Awards, Best New Play at the 1992 Critics' Circle Awards, Best Play at the 1993 Tony Awards and the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
£11.99
Nick Hern Books Ah! Wilderness
An affectionate and witty comedy of recollection from one of the twentieth century's most significant writers. Eugene O'Neill's only well-known comedy, Ah! Wilderness is a family-based saga set in the years just before the First World War. Richard Miller is deeply enamoured with his 'best girl', the pretty and pure Muriel. But when her cantankerous father finds out about their plans to spend Independence Day together, he demands that she write to him breaking off the whole thing. Richard is distraught, heartbroken, and seems about ready to knuckle under to strong liquor and fast women... Can his father Nat reach across the generation gap and bring his son back to the family – and Muriel? Eugene O'Neill's play Ah! Wilderness was premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre in October 1933. It was first staged in the UK at Westminster Theatre, London, in 1936. This edition includes a full introduction, biographical sketch and chronology.
£12.99
Nick Hern Books A Table Tennis Play
‘When does it happen?’ A long summer weekend, two strangers, and a full-size table tennis table. Sam Steiner's A Table Tennis Play is a play about how everything and nothing changes as people bat a ball. It premiered at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in a production by Walrus in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth.
£9.99
Nick Hern Books Wilderness
‘We can do better – can’t we?’ Having both been deeply scarred by their own parents' separations, Joe and Anne never imagined they'd find themselves, years later, in the same position. Determined to place the interests of their son Alistair at the centre of their lives apart, they split with the firm objective of maintaining amicable relations at all costs. But a sudden change in circumstance triggers a chain of events that pushes their best intentions to the limit… Before they know it, they are both teetering dangerously close to the edge of an abyss. Kellie Smith's play Wilderness is a searing exploration of unconditional love and of the personal sacrifices it demands. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London, in March 2019.
£8.99
Nick Hern Books Original Death Rabbit
‘I was a thing, you see. I was a pretty bloody big bloody thing. I was briefly – very briefly – a meme. A craze. One of the first.’ We all have our comfort blankets and coping mechanisms. And if yours happens to be wearing a full-sized rabbit onesie (with ears), what's the problem? You're not bothering anyone. At least, not until you're photographed at the back of a child's funeral. Dressed as a rabbit. And the photo goes viral. Rose Heiney's Original Death Rabbit is a painfully funny play, shining a light on one woman's struggle with the dark side of the internet. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the play received its stage premiere at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in January 2019.
£9.99