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Underbelly has emerged as the surprise leader in the nominations for this year’s Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with a total of seven entries.
The venue operator has never topped the nominations before and last year was only recognised in two categories. Regular frontrunners the Traverse and Pleasance follow behind with six and five nominations respectively. Assembly - which received six nods last year - lags behind with three.
Deepcut, produced by Sherman Cymru Theatre at the Traverse, is the leading production with three nominations - Ciaran McIntyre in the Best Actor category and both Rhian Morgan and Rhian Blythe for Best Actress.
Now in their 14th year, the Stage Awards are the only honours for professional theatre presented by a national UK publication at the fringe.
They are adjudicated by the newspaper’s festival reviewing team and aim to recognise outstanding work by individuals in the Best Actor and Actress categories and companies as a whole in Best Ensemble. In addition, for the third time, The Stage has included a category for Best Solo Show, recognising one-person shows as an Edinburgh staple, which require a different style of acting talent to ensemble shows.
Stage Edinburgh team head William McEvoy said: “The presence of verbatim theatre is notable on this year’s shortlist. The Ensemble category is bigger and more varied than usual, provoking debate and deliberation even at the nominations stage. We were also impressed with the variety of work on display in the solo performance category, now in its third year. It should be an exciting week of judging.”
Winners will be announced on Sunday, August 24 at an awards ceremony at Cafe Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh.
The nominees for the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence 2008 are:
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