Competing for recognition

Winning awards can help boost your show from barely noticed to the hit everybody is talking about. Jeremy Austin introduces the Stage Awards and some of the other prizes.

There are so many awards ceremonies during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that someone could probably work out with the aid of science that it is possible to exist solely on a diet of canapes and sparkling wine for the entire three weeks.

Consider, if you have a moment, this list of gongs up for grabs this year: the Fringe First Awards, the If.comeddies, So You Think You’re Funny?, the Carol Tambor Edinburgh to New York Award, the Bank of Scotland Herald Angels Awards, Total Theatre Awards, the Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe Awards, the MTM:UK Musical Theatre Matters Awards. We could go on - there are 21 listed on the Festival Fringe website.

The air hangs heavy with the scent of cheap champagne and crabsticks for most of the three weeks, but win one of these and your show could enjoy that box office advantage that separates the crocodiles from the dodo - the shows that will last for 65 million years from the ones that will be killed and eaten by hungry Spaniards. Or something.

A Fringe First is considered a mark of quality by punters. An If.comeddie can kick-start a comedian’s career. When last year’s winner Phil Nichol was interviewed on television afterwards by fellow comic Ed Byrne, he expressed his delight at winning but said he was also excited by the prospect of being in with a chance of winning a Stage Award too, announced the day after the If.comeddies.

The Stage Awards - handed out on the final weekend of the festival - celebrate acting excellence. Nominated and judged by our crack team of expert reviewers, they are awarded to the best actor, actress, ensemble and, from last year, solo performer.

Reviewing more than 350 professional shows - no amateur or school shows (drama or otherwise) - each reviewer makes their nomination and during the final week of the festival, the team visits all the shows up for an award, before the final decision is thrashed out the evening before the awards, usually over a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine (or a bowl of wine and a glass of pasta, no one can really recall).

As well as being professional shows, nominations must be performed for at least two weeks and must have been listed in the theatre section of the official brochure.

Nichol didn’t win last year (he had the year before), but fellow comic Daniel Kitson scooped Best Solo Performance for his play C-90. Best Actress went to Caroline O’Connor for End of the Rainbow, a play about the last days of Judy Garland. The National Theatre of Scotland won Best Ensemble for its widely praised Black Watch, while Best Actor went to Paul Sparks for Finer Noble Gases.

Our judging team has decades of Edinburgh experience between them. They are Jeremy Austin, Thom Dibdin, Nick Awde, Duska Radosavljevic, Gerry Berkowitz and William McEvoy.

Among them are experts on European theatre, physical theatre, new writing and musical theatre.

The Stage Awards will be handed out at a ceremony on August 26. Perhaps you and your show will be among the privileged few who have been nominated for an award and are able to attend. If not, remember, it’s the taking part that counts.