Festivals

Stephen Joseph Theatre, ScarboroughPrior to 2007, New Theatre hadn’t entered NSDF for years, and was pretty much oblivious to its existence. In 2007 two external companies comprised of New Theatre members entered their productions and got selected. In 2008, this success was repeated when two New Theatre Productions were selected for the Festival.

National Student Drama Festival ‘08

Two New Theatre productions travelled to Scarborough for the 2008 Festival. The cast and crews of Disco Pigs and Proof braved the unseasonal sleet, snow, wind and rain for a week in the Yorkshire holiday resort, and the New Theatre tasted significant success:

Awards:

At the Awards Ceremony at the end of the Festival, Proof scooped an incredible five awards, across all the possible categories. The New Theatre itself also won an award.

  • Directors’ Guild Award for Best Director: Guy Unsworth
  • Spotlight Award for Best Actress: Anna Wheatley
  • Judges Award for Acting: Lizzie Bourne
  • Best Sound Design: Nick Breen
  • Best Set Design: Guy Unsworth & Crew
  • Judges Award for Promoting Student Theatre: Nottingham University’s New Theatre

The cast and crew of Proof all deserve significant praise and respect for their fantastic achievements in Scarborough. These awards are a testament to the professionalism and talent that exists within New Theatre. They also provide fantastic ammunition in the New Theatre’s campaign against the University’s plans to demolish our theatre. And we should all take special pride in New Theatre’s gong: recognition from an external source that what we’re doing – and have known all along – is really special.

The Shows

Proof

by David Auburn

Proof

Proof premiered in 2000 and in 2001 it won the Tony Award for Best Play along with twelve other awards in the same year. Proof is a “gripping but witty drama” which explores the unknowability of love as much as it does the mysteries of mathematics. “All four characters ? whether loving, hating, encouraging or impeding one another ? are intensely alive, complex, funny, and human.” John Simon, New York.
Directed by Guy Unsworth





Disco Pigs

by Enda Walsh

Pig and Runt are two 17 yr olds who share everything: birthday, language, world views ? and that moment when pop songs and life changing orgasms flash by and last forever. On the evening of their 17th birthdays we set out with them to celebrate through the nightclubs of Cork, a city lost in pounding rave rhythms.

Directed by David Betz-Heinemann





National Student Drama Festival ‘07

Two plays that were performed in the New Theatre have been selected by the NSDF. The plays, Talking to Terrorists and Cast Aside, will run for a week at the Festival in Scarborough. The NSDF selectors see well over a hundred plays during the course of each year, and only ten have been chosen for the Festival. The fact that two of these ten plays are from The New Theatre is a fantastic achievement.

The plays will be subjected to intense critical scrutiny, and both will be reviewed by The Sunday Times. The New Theatre did not produce the plays, but is proudly sponsoring them both as pretty much every one involved with each production is a member of New Theatre.

Cast Aside was written by the current New Theatre President, Charlie Brafman, and was originally done for The Edinburgh Fringe by his Company, Ankle Productions. It enjoyed a sell-out run and received rave reviews from the Edinburgh press. The NSDF selectors saw the play at its revival early this term in Nottingham.

Talking to Terrorists is a joint production by People at Play and ttproductions.com. Cast from New Theatre members, it went up during the hectic exam season while The New Theatre was hibernating. Although Talking to Terrorists was not a New Theatre production, the Producers are currently considering New Theatre affilliation.

The NSDF Ensemble is a collection of actors and directors who are hand picked from the shows the NSDF selectors see over the year. People invited to join the Ensemble are shown around the Festival by their judge, introduced to people, and mentored for the duration of the Festival. Many people from the two casts and crews have been “Ensembled”, and on top of this, Ben Ford, director of the recent New Theatre production of 4.48 Psychosis, has also been invited.