The Stage

Edinburgh’s Traverse in driving seat for 15th Stage Awards for Acting Excellence

Published Friday 21 August 2009 at 15:14 by Alistair Smith

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The Traverse Theatre leads the way in this year’s Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with a total of seven nominations.

Meanwhile, four productions have received double nominations - Precious Little Talent, Barflies, Midsummer and Crush.

Now in their 15th 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 fourth time, The Stage has included a category for Best Solo Performance, 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: “This is undoubtedly the strongest set of nominations I have seen since being a reviewer for the paper at Edinburgh. This year’s festival has been exceptional in terms of the range and depth of the acting on display.

“We were particularly impressed by the presence of young companies this year, the emphasis on storytelling, and the definite return of physical, character-based theatre to the Fringe.”

Winners will be announced on Sunday, August 30 at an invitation-only awards ceremony at Dance Base, Grassmarket, Edinburgh.

The nominees for the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence 2009 are:

BEST ACTOR

• Joe Armstrong for Orphans (Traverse)

• Simon Ginty for Precious Little Talent (Bedlam)

• Neil Grainger for Crush (Underbelly)

• Billy Mack for The Sound of My Voice (Assembly)

• Matthew Pidgeon for Midsummer (A Play With Songs) (Traverse)

BEST ACTRESS

• Cora Bissett for Midsummer (A Play With Songs) (Traverse)

• Claire Dargo for Crush (Underbelly)

• Anna Francolini for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Assembly)

• Emma Hiddleston for Precious Little Talent (Bedlam)

• Anita Reeves for Little Gem (Traverse)

• Gail Watson for Barflies (Traverse)

BEST ENSEMBLE

• Camden People’s Theatre for Icarus 2.0 (Pleasance Courtyard)

• DogOrange for Ward No 6 (C)

• Grid Iron for Barflies (Traverse)

• Green Shoot Productions for Chronicles of Long Kesh (Assembly)

• Ontroerend Goed and Richard Jordan Productions Ltd for Internal (Traverse)

• Stellar Quines and Assembly for The Girls of Slender Means (Assembly)

BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE

• Joe Bone for Bane (Pleasance)

• Laurie Brown for Up (The Vault)

• David Calvitto for The Event (Assembly)

• Lucy Ellinson for Land Without Words (Just the Tonic @The Caves)

• Nicola Haydn for Janis (Gilded Balloon)

• Caroline Horton for Almost 10 (Pleasance)

• George Mann for Odyssey (Pleasance)