Over its 12 year life, Off Book has presented a lot of shows. Mostly those shows have been written by one of the people behind Off Book, or by a collaboration between us all. We’ve thought about this for quite some time now and have decided that we’re going to be publishing whatever scripts we can. We need to get all the rights and permissions in place, but co-founder Martin Williams will be making all of his playscripts available to purchase.
What you’ll get
In each show pack, we’ll be giving you ten comb-bound copies of the script in question. In addition you’ll receive a licence to perform the script for up to seven performances.
What Scripts are going to be available?
Initially, we will have:
- Robin Hood
- Sword in the Stone
- The Chimes
- Alice’s Adventures
- Treasure Island
- Heroes and Heroines
We hope to have more to follow, but that will be contingent on securing the rights and establishing agreements with the writers.
How much will it cost?
We appreciate that buying the rights to perform a script can be costly, so we’re hoping to minimise that cost by bundling everything you need into one place. Costs will vary depending on the size and length of the script, but we’re hoping to keep the costs below £100.
Robin Hood as performed in 2017 by us will cost around £60 for schools, amateur dramatics, and other non-professional organisations. This covers our costs of printing and binding 10 copies of the script; allows the writer a £5 royalty per performance; and any profit made beyond that goes to Off Book to help fund future productions. For professionals, or performance for profit-share the show pack will cost £175. In these cases, the writer will receive an enhanced royalty of £20 per performance and Off Book makes a slightly higher profit too.
Can I get PDFs or eBook copies of the scripts?
The answer here is…perhaps. Sadly, while the vast majority of people are honest and will use these digital versions in line with Copyright law…there are people who won’t. We are preparing eBook copies that can be purchased, but we aren’t currently sure if these can be bundled with the show packs yet.
Can I get a perusal copy of the scripts?
Absolutely! However, the perusal copies will come in an entirely different format, and be watermarked. We haven’t yet set up the system to request perusal copies, but that’s in the works as I write this!
When is this all launching?
Soon. We don’t have a definitive date yet, but as soon as we do we’ll post all about it!