It has just been announced that the winner of this year’s JMK Award is Indiana Lown-Collins with her proposed production of THE SOLID LIFE OF SUGAR WATER by Jack Thorne, designed by Ica Niemz.
The JMK award was established in memory of James Menzies-Kitchin, who was a young theatre director who died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 28, to encourage others to fulfil their potential as he had promised to do. The award does this by providing funding for a production selected by an emerging director. In the last few years, the Trust has teamed with the Orange Tree Theatre to provide a home for these productions, to great acclaim.
The winning production will be playing at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond from 15th October.
Congratulations to all involved!
For more information about the JMK Trust and the JMK Award, click here
Great news for anyone who missed this show in-person or online, or who fancies trying some acclaimed drama from the comfort of their own home this holiday season. All four casts of Michael Longhurst’s Olivier Award-winning revival of Nick Payne’s CONSTELLATIONS are once again available to watch online until 25 May 2022.
Home viewers can now watch one, or all, of the four star casts of this show on demand via the Donmar’s dedicated platform ondemand.donmarwarehouse.com
Four different casts take turns to journey through the multiverse and the infinite possibilities of a relationship; each refracting the play in their own unique way. The four casts are: Sheila Atim & Ivanno Jeremiah, Peter Capaldi & Zoë Wanamaker, Omari Douglas & Russell Tovey, and Anna Maxwell Martin & Chris O’Dowd.
Each production is now £7.50 to rent and households can watch the show for 24 hours from the time of purchase; or choose the multi buy of all 4 for £20, available for 14 days. Captioned and audio described versions are available in partnership with Stagetext and VocalEyes.
A special mention was given to the Award’s 25 Black Champions of Theatre.
Adebayo said, in a statement, :
“I am so deeply honoured and moved to be the recipient of the 2021, 25th anniversary, Alfred Fagon Award for Family Tree. Family Tree was a painful pregnancy. The process of researching the different ways in which Black women’s bodies have been extracted from was at times more than I thought I could cope with. And the task of writing something beautiful out of the brutal sometimes felt impossible – but we did it! So being gifted with the Alfred Fagon Award means the world to me. It is a hugely respected prize and I am both humbled and delighted to follow in the footsteps of writers and friends for whom I have a huge admiration, from Oladipo Agboluaje to Winsome Pinnock and many more. There is no greater honour for me than being recognised and applauded by and amongst your own Black British theatre family, so thank you so much to all the judges, organisers and sponsors.
Receiving the Alfred Fagon Award feels almost like I’ve birthed a baby, the pain is gone now and there is light and hope and warmth in my heart and peace in my mind and spirit. Like a baby, the play is not mine, I just carried it inside my mind and out onto the page. Family Tree is enriched by the creative DNA of so many artists, actors and supporters. Thank you all. Inside the body of this play text, and all around it and all of us, are the cells of the extraordinarily wonderous, Henrietta Lacks. My award is dedicated to her. All we need now is a stage on which Family Tree can grow and play.”
You can find further information, as well as the shortlists and longlists, at the Alfred Fagon Award website which you can find here
The winner of the 2021 Society for Theatre Research’s Theatre Book Prize (for books published in 2020) is Nicola Abram for BLACK BRITISH WOMEN’S THEATRE, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
The Theatre Book Prize was established in 1998 to celebrate the Society’s Golden Jubilee. The aim of the Book Prize is to encourage the writing and publication of books on British-related theatre history and practice, both those which present the theatre of the past and those which record contemporary theatre for the future. It was first awarded for books published in 1997.
Nicola’s forensically-researched book draws on private archives and previously unseen material to document the achievements of Black British women in theatre, throwing a much-overdue and welcome spotlight onto some of the previously unsung pioneers of theatre making in the UK.
The award has an independent panel of three judges, drawn from the ranks of theatre practitioners, theatre critics, senior academics concerned with theatre, and theatre archivists, together with a member of the committee of the Society for Theatre Research as chair.considers to be the best published during the previous year.
All new works of original research first published in English are eligible for the Prize, except for play texts and studies of drama as literature.
For more information about the Prize, visit the STR website here
Budding women playwrights resident in the UK and Ireland will be cheered to know that the Women’s Prize for Playwriting opens for submissions on April 7th.
The award, the first of its kind, has celebrated and supported much female talent, and last year announced joint winners. One of the two 2020 winners, Amy Trigg’s REASONS WHY YOU SHOULDNT LOVE ME has been chosen to be the play which reopens the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, in May.
To find out more information, visit their website here
