Bøger udgivet af Nick Hern Books

Summer, 1827. In a red barn in Suffolk, Maria Marten awaits her lover. A year later, hidden in a grain sack under the floor of the barn, Maria's body is found, barely identifiable - and the manhunt begins. First performed by an all-female cast, Beth Flintoff's thrilling play rediscovers Maria's story, bringing it back to vivid, urgent life.

A tie-in edition of the smash-hit stage adaptation - with a twist - of the Jane Austen classic. Published alongside the West End production at the Criterion Theatre.

An unflinching look at race in the twenty-first century.Thirty-somethings Leo, Misha, Ralph and Dawn have been inseparable since college. Their connection with each other is stronger than anything else - until Leo is assaulted by the police in a racially motivated incident, and he brings to the group an extreme proposition...

A young Jewish physicist and an activist poet meet at a party and fall in love. As society splinters around them, the couple's struggle to survive erupts into violence.Cordelia Lynn's play Love and Other Acts of Violence is a subversive and intimate love story about inheritance and the cycles of politics and history. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in October 2021, directed by Elayce Ismail.

Larry Kramer's passionate, polemical drama is set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. It follows the efforts of one man, while his friends are dying around him, to break through a conspiracy of silence, indifference and hostility from public officials and the gay community, and gain recognition for a disease that threatens to change everything. This definitive edition, with a revised text and new introductory material, was published twenty-five years after the play's 1986 British premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London. A quarter of a century after that premiere, the play's prescience and its searing emotional power are beyond doubt. The play's 2011 Broadway revival opened to an etatic critical reception, and won the Tony Award for Best Revival. It was adapted for screen in 2014, first broadcast on HBO starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. 'burning, argumentative, witty and contentious play about the political and emotional consequences of the AIDS crisis' Observer 'informative, heart-rending, witty, revelatory, poleaxing, a work of utter topicality and transcendent power' The Listener

Nobody knows where the fish went, and nobody knows why the fish went - but ever since they did, things just haven't been the same. In a committee room on Capitol Hill, three senators have a job to do: they must question a man on charges of trading rare marine commodities, and they must find out what he knows.Politics and the planet collide in a fiercely original play about the limits of science, the power of myths, and the things we can't control. Marek Horn's Yellowfin was premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in October 2021, directed by Ed Madden.

Jeremy Sams' stage play, based on the hugely popular sitcom by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, reunites the well-loved characters as they get themselves into and out of scrapes - some old, some new, all hilarious. Tapping into issues that resonate now more than ever, The Good Life is a witty reimagining of a television classic.

Sisters Dolly and Esther grow up in ultra-conservative Harrogate in the 1960s. Fifty years later, following the death of their mother, Dolly comes to stay with Esther - now a successful novelist and living in Little Venice with her younger, inscrutable lodger, Jude.The three go to Norway to meet the rock-star grandfather Jude has only ever heard about. Instead, he meets Anila who changes his world. To make a new future, these four people will have to be honest, heal old wounds - and two sisters learn to laugh together again.The Lodger by Robert Holman is an enlightening, cathartic and acerbic play about identity, maturity and reconciliation. It premiered at The Coronet Theatre, London, in September 2021.'Great riches A story of sisters and midlife reckonings, [Robert Holman's play] puts two older women centre stage and comes with a seismic sibling betrayal stuffed full of wise statements about life, love and death' - Guardian'Robert Holman [is] the most instinctive and humane of British playwrights' - Evening Standard

1943. Four months into the Nazi occupation of Tunisia. You're imprisoned in a labour camp. You're buried up to your neck in earth. You're dying of thirst, you miss your wife, and your best friend just pissed on your face. How could things possibly get any worse?Josh Azouz's Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia is a brutally comic play about home and identity, marriage and survival, blood and feathers. It was first produced at the Almeida Theatre, London, in August 2021, directed by Eleanor Rhode.

"e;I'd watch you eat. I'd eat you up. You're not like them, are you? You're real."e;Lori is a professional chef. Bex waits tables to make ends meet. One night together in a walk-in fridge and the rest is history.Lori has big plans, but Bex is struggling. If we are what we eat, then Bex is in real trouble. It's not her fault though - the system is rigged. No-one on minimum wage and zero hours has the headspace to make their own yoghurt.Chris Bush's Hungry is a play about food, love, class and grief in a world where there's little left to savour.It was premiered by Paines Plough on a UK tour in July 2021.

Lola is sixteen years old, sharp-witted and has her whole life ahead of her - until she's diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Now her brilliant mind is rapidly turning into useless mush.So she's promised herself two things before she dies:1. She's going to get All The Sex and2. She'll definitively discover the Meaning of Life.Stuart Slade's play Glee & Me is an unexpectedly optimistic portrayal of love and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. It won the Judges Award in the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in September 2021.

This anthology brings together six plays, all written or performed since 2017, by six brilliant Black British writers - Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali, Natasha Gordon, debbie tucker green, Arinze Kene and Chinonyerem Odimba. The plays explore themes including politics and protest, grief and colonisation, relationships and gender.

Jenny and Sam have moved into their new home. But something feels frightening and wrong. Very wrong. Over the baby monitor, at 2:22 every night, Jenny hears footsteps around her daughter's cot. Could the house be haunted? Spine-chilling, funny and scary, Danny Robins' play premiered in London's West End in August 2021.

In How Plays Work, distinguished playwright David Edgar examines the mechanisms and techniques which dramatists throughout the ages have employed to structure their plays and to express their meaning.Written for playwrights and playgoers alike, Edgar's analysis starts with the building blocks of whole plays - plot, character-creation, genre and structure - and moves on to scenes and devices. He shows how plays share a common architecture without which the uniqueness of their authors' vision would be invisible.How Plays Work is both a masterclass for playwrights and playmakers and a fascinating guide to the anatomy of drama. In this revised edition, Edgar brings the book right up to date with analyses of many recent plays, as well as explorations of emerging genres and new innovations in playwriting practice.'A brilliantly illuminating, bang-up-to-date, unmissable read' April De Angelis'A book of real theoretical heft written by a major working playwright' Steve Waters'An essential accompaniment for anyone fascinated by the craft of dramatic storytelling' John Yorke'Every theatremaker should read this book' Pippa Hill, Literary Manager, Royal Shakespeare Company'Even if you've read the book before, it demands to be reread' Simon Callow'Combines theoretical acumen with the assured know-how of a working dramatist' Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement

Your partner's died, could things have been different?Caryl Churchill's short play What If If Only premiered in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2021, directed by James Macdonald.This edition also includes the resonant and surreal short piece, Air.'Caryl Churchill has remade the landscape of contemporary drama - and earned herself a place among the greats' - Guardian'A truly uncompromising theatrical voice at the top of her game... [Churchill] packs more into this 20-minute piece about death, grief and the multiverse than many writers manage at seven times the length... it has a crystalline beauty, sly humour and boundless imagination' - Evening Standard'Quietly astonishing... a taut distillation and a gripping realisation of a giddying idea that resonates long after the curtain falls' - The Stage'Trust Caryl Churchill to pack more meaty matter into 20 minutes than most playwrights manage in two hours. Her surreal new short covers nothing less than bereavement, time and the universe - and does so with dizzying complexity... [She demonstrates] absolute mastery of her form. Like Picasso in his late sketches, she has become the essence of herself, still challenging, thoughtful and heading in directions no one else dares... a rocket of thought to propel you into the night' - Whatsonstage'There is nobody like Caryl Churchill and it's hard to think of any writer in history so completely on top of their game at her age. [What If If Only is] just 20 minutes, but it contains whole worlds' - Time Out

'Folk say you can trick a brain. Placebo power. I'm going to stand up and it'll feel better.'Across Edinburgh, five souls stagger towards each other, hoping to be transformed.Gaynor's got to leave the house if she wants to meet her newborn granddaughter. Stillness has been the only way to deal with her chronic pain but now it's time to move.Gilly's not sure what her dying dad's feeling but the one thing she knows from experience is that it's best not to Google it.Dougie and Ciara have spent their last NCT class preparing for the labour pains ahead, but now it's time for one last night on the dance floor.And then there's Mick, who wakes up on Portobello Beach in the early hours of the morning with two gold rings in his pocket. He can't remember what they're for but he knows it's something important. He'll work out what if only his old pal, Pat, will stop buying him drinksFull of tenderness and humour, Frances Poet's play Still is a cathartic story of life, loss and joy.It was premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2021.

Tunde's thirtieth birthday is fast approaching. So he's started therapy because he hasn't been able to get to the gym for weeks, and a recent one-night stand ended in tears - his.Interrogating the challenge of opening up and accepting our own vulnerabilities, Ifeyinwa Frederick's Sessions is a raw, funny, bittersweet deep-dive into the complexities of masculinity, depression and therapy. It was first produced in 2021 on tour of the UK, before a run at Soho Theatre, London, co-produced by Paines Plough and Soho, and directed by Philip Morris.

How long have you been here, John?- I don't know.And what brought you here?- That's difficult to answer.John Kane is sitting on a hospital gurney, and very shortly a jazz percussionist, two women called Mary, a very old man and a giant lobster will arrive. Then everything will start.Enda Walsh's new play Medicine is a dark and frequently absurdist work that shatters the boundary between cast and audience. It is a devastatingly funny and moving meditation on how, for decades, we have treated those we call mentally ill.It was premiered by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2021 prior to its opening at the Galway International Arts Festival in September. Medicine is published here alongside Enda Walsh's 2017 play The Same.

Love freely. Love freedom. Love.Meet Aurora and Orion: Sister and Brother. Constellations in time. More than blood. More than just fam.They look after each other in their small London flat, filled with the memories of their parents' Black Love.When that love is threatened, they have to find their way back to each other and to what it means to love whilst Black. Using real-life stories, imagined worlds and new songs inspired by an R&B heritage, they begin a journey to confronting their own worst fears.Chinonyerem Odimba's Black Love is an explosion of form-busting storytelling, an ode to Black music, and those real stories we rarely hear.It was premiered by Paines Plough on a UK tour in July 2021.

The myths of Metamorphoses have inspired generations of writers, including Shakespeare. Over two thousand years later, they are reimagined for our world by three leading British playwrights, and feature anarchy, shape-shifting and a burning chariot of fire.

Johann Sebastian Bach, irascible and turbulent, writes music of sensuous delight and deep religious fervour. He's touchy, he's fabulously rude, he has impossibly high standards (he stabs a bassoonist for playing badly), and he's constantly in trouble with his patrons.Music is the family business - but the burden of their father's genius weighs heavily on his sons. Wilhelm is brilliant but self-destructive. Tense, industrious Carl is more successful than his father, but knows he is less talented. As the years pass, their rivalry provokes furious arguments about love, God and above all music. What is it for - to give pleasure, like a cup of coffee in the sun, or to reveal the divine order that gives life its meaning?Beautiful, profound and funny, Nina Raine's play Bach & Sons is a gripping family drama and an anthem to the art that draws us together and sings of our common humanity. It premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, in June 2021, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with Simon Russell Beale playing J. S. Bach.

A psychological drama that asks if the cycle of generational trauma can ever be broken. Can queer, Black femmes find love and belonging when the soil beneath them - and the climate around them - is hostile?

A heart-warming and belly-achingly funny story about falling in love for the very first time.

The Alexander Technique has revolutionised the physicality, presence, stature and professional lives of generations of actors. By first asking you to identify your own acquired habits, the technique enables you to find new and beneficial ways of moving, thinking, breathing and performing, freely and without unnecessary tension.Written by an experienced teacher of the Alexander Technique, this book takes you step by step through a series of eleven guided lessons, and dozens of exercises and assignments. Each explores different elements and principles of the technique, including:- Training your mind to stay present, and mindful of your environment- Thinking (but not overthinking!) in new ways- Observing and developing your natural poise- Sitting, standing and walking easily and effortlessly- Breathing and speaking with release and relaxation- Applying all of your work to characterisation and performance

Kilnsea, East Yorkshire. Angie and Lauren are closing up the cafe for another winter; the birds have gone south and taken the tourists with them. The last visitor is Dennis, stopping by for his pasty and beans. But there's another arrival - one that's unforeseen and life-changing for them all.Big Big Sky is a beautifully tender play by Tom Wells, who was originally from Kilnsea. The play explores nature's influence on love, friendship and family - the belief that anyone who's lost can be found, even in the remotest of places. It was premiered at Hampstead Theatre in July 2021, directed by Tessa Walker.

A clear, supportive and comprehensive guide to writing a play - based on the author's long-running playwriting masterclasses, as taught at the UK's National Theatre.

When a woman receives an unexpected letter from the British Passport Office, she is forced to confront an old mystery: why does her South African passport not carry her first name? Armed with the wisdom of favourite '90s TV shows, she sets out on a journey that will take her back to the turmoil of Mobutu's Congo, growing up in post-Apartheid South Africa, moving to Ireland, and finding love in a hostile England.As her journey becomes inextricably linked with the tides of global history, how far will she go to unravel the truth? By turns wickedly funny and strikingly lyrical, Benedict Lombe's Lava is an explosive debut play that will turn the way you see the world on its axis.It premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in July 2021, performed by Ronke Adekoluejo and directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike.