Artistic differences: Brian Ferguson and Suzanne Donald in The Dark Things, the CATS Best Production of 2010. Pic: Richard Campbell
The Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and Dundee Rep won six of the ten available awards at the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland yesterday with two shows winning multiple awards.
A new play by Irish writer Ursula Rani Sama called The Dark Things which premiered at the Traverse in Edinburgh, was voted Best Overall production as well as being the W&P Longreach Best New Play.
Meanwhile Jemima Levick’s production of Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man in Dundee won awards for her as best director, for Kevin Lennon, who played the John Merrick, the horribly deformed man of the title, without a trace of make-up, as best male actor, sponsored by the Guy Robertson Partnership, and for best design.
The winning designers, Alex Lowde (set) and Colin Grenfell (lighting), have now won the award two years in a row for their work at Dundee. And Dundee Rep has won the best design award for years in a row.
The Traverse, appropriately for Scotland’s leading producer of new work, has now won the award for Best New Play three years in a row. It also picked up the award for best female actor, now sponsored by STV, for Sian Thomas’s performance in The Goat or Who is Sylvia.
Dominic Hill, the director of the Traverse, thanked the Traverse staff for gettig through what he called "a tricky year" and keeping the art good. James Brining, the director of Dundee Rep, paid tribute to the invesment by the city in thepermanet company at teh Rep and by the actors who lived and wroked in the city. "It's about the heart of the theatre being the actors, it's about trusting each other, it's about invetsing in people's energy and creativiity", he said.
Other winners were Perth Theatre for the Technical Excellence award, sponsored by Northern Light, and Communicado Theatre for the best Use of Music in their production of The Government Inspector. The best ensemble went to the co-production of Huxley’s Lab by Grid Iron and Lung Ha’s, featuring a cast of over 30.
The National Theatre of Scotland only won one award this year, for Mr Write, in the Children and Young Person’s category.
The awards were presented by Jonathan Mills, the director of the Edinburgh International Festival and Karen Dunbar, the popular comedian and actor. Joyce McMillan, co-convenor of the awards, said "This is a great day of celebration of all the fantastic work that gets done through the year in Scotland There are undoubtedly tough times coming but theatre will be there to entertain, to understand, to explain maybe even to do something about it.
The awards are chosen annually by the professional theatre critics working in Scotland, They cover the Scottish theatrical year which runs from May to April.
