Multiplaycation

In 2018, Nick Hern Books (NHB) celebrated 30 years of theatrical publishing and performing rights licensing. The publisher has a long-held and close relationship with the drama education community, as was evidenced by the constant stream of teachers I had to negotiate in order to catch up with Marketing Manager Jon Barton by the NHB stand at the Music & Drama Education Expo.

‘We're talking to lots of people today who are looking for plays with unassigned dialogue so that it's more flexible for different cast sizes,’ says Barton, ‘We're always on the lookout for plays that we can publish alongside professional premieres at big theatres around the UK and in Ireland, but because we also license for performance, we always have that in mind when we're thinking what to acquire: we're not just thinking ‘we love this play’ we're also thinking ‘are people still going to be performing this in five, ten years’ time?’ Because we're really invested in the long life of our plays – and schools and youth groups are a big part of our thinking when we're looking for that. So we always have the end user in mind when we're reading the scripts – how is this going to work for teachers and for their students?’