Testimonials
It was a real honour to have won this award among so many fantastic Scottish shows. Being recognised for the award marked TPAA first becoming an award winning show, which gives us so much more opportunity with moving the production forward. Having been an unfunded show initially written in a bedroom, it felt surreal to win and I’m full of gratitude for all the judges for backing the show.
We are so grateful to be honoured by the Scottish Theatre Awards on the Fringe for Nesting, and so proud to be a Glasgow-based theatre company. This play came to the stage through the generosity and talent of organisations and individuals across Scottish communities who supported our work. We are excited to bring Nesting to stages beyond the Fringe, and are so excited to do so with the recognition of the Scottish Arts Club and Scottish Theatre Awards.
Taking a show to the Fringe is a thrilling, arduous, deeply vulnerable process for any independent theatre-maker, especially when your show is an absurd-tragi-comic tale of a jellyfish obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer who causes the extinction of life on earth. We knew we loved this show, but we had no idea if anyone else would! Being recognised by the Scottish Theatre Awards was deeply validating, and we were unbelievably excited that the panel understood and appreciated what we were trying to achieve. Winning the Bright Spark Award gave me the confidence and energy to believe in my work: even the weirdest edges of it. It's definitely opened doors for me, both in terms of future career opportunities, and psychologically with the kind of work I want to make.
Winning the Bright Spark Award in 2024 was such an honour and surprise. Our show was very grassroots with a no budget marketing campaign so everything was spread purely through word of mouth, so for that to lead to us winning this long running award was really wonderful. It gave us such a boost of confidence in the show but also our abilities as creatives to create compelling theatre, and inspired me to continue working as a writer and performer. It also helped the show’s future life as it went on to tour as part of A Play Pie and a Pint in 2025. I can’t thank the team at the Scottish Theatre Awards on the Fringe enough for their support.
The Scottish Theatre Awards helped raise the profile of my writing - it opened new doors and provided exciting conversations to happen linked directly to my development as a theatremaker. The Leading Light Award stands as a huge personal honour, given to what was a huge creative risk of a show about a niche topic that was difficult to market. The range and calibre of plays considered by the judging panel makes these awards unique, given their track record of regularly platforming grassroots or emerging companies and productions made for very little money, making them both loyal patrons and vocal champions of Scottish new writing. In this sense, the Scottish Theatre Awards honour the essential purpose of the Fringe by considering so many, no matter the venue or industry clout. There are teams across decades of now-established Scottish artists who have been helped there by this set of exceptional awards.
Winning the Bright Spark Award in 2023 was a huge honour for all of us here at Reconnect Theatres. Being recognised as an award winning production in our debut EdFringe was paramount to the growth and continued success of our company. Every one of the actors in this production has continued to work in the industry and we believe this award is part of that, showing that hard work and graft are recognised in such a gruelling industry. A massive thank you to the Scottish Theatre Awards for recognising us and this very special show.
Summer of 2022, playing the character of eight year old Sophie in the play ABOUT MONEY, was really exciting. Rehearsals in London, performances for the full run of the festival at Summerhall, capped off with the award of Scottish Theatre Awards. It was extra special to be recognised in this way.
We all worked so hard to get ABOUT MONEY to the Fringe in 2022 - no easy feat, considering our play involved a five-person cast and an amazing child actor, but it was so worth it! We had a fantastic time and its done great things for all our careers. ABOUT MONEY is a Scottish story and was bought to the Fringe by a predominantly Scottish or Scotland-based team. It's so important for the Fringe to have a space that champions Scottish productions and artists, and we were thrilled to be recognised in this way at the Awards in 2022. It felt as though our hard work had paid off and gave us the confidence and industry recognition we needed to keep moving forward, sharing our work and forging careers in in the arts.
Being recognised by the Scottish Theatre Awards, especially coming from a non-traditional theatre background (circus) was a defining moment for my practice and the direction of our company. To have our non-verbal narrative work celebrated alongside more traditional theatre was unexpected and deeply affirming. As a Scottish practitioner that recognition was truly beautiful and I am very grateful for it.
Receiving the 2018 award for Heroine from the Scottish Theatre Awards was a definitive catalyst. The Edinburgh Fringe is a notoriously volatile landscape where exceptional work frequently fails to achieve the visibility it deserves. In our current climate of artistic underfunding, institutional recognition is more than a gesture of validation; it is the essential momentum required to bridge the gap between a local run and global influence.
This award provided the visibility that propelled Heroine to the Kennedy Center, where the production transitioned from a performance into a vital component of the legislative conversation regarding military rape survivors, alongside Congresswoman Jackie Speier. Every significant ripple this project created was seeded at the Fringe. Despite the physical challenges of the run, the Scottish Theatre Award’s support validated the team’s exhaustive efforts and ensured the work reached those with the power to enact change. Now, more than ever, we require the infrastructure these awards provide to ensure that art continues to speak truth to power. I can think of no better or more important time for art to be able to speak to people rather than their governments than right now.
Winning the Bright Spark award in 2018 was a career (and life) changing moment for us. It gave us the confidence to take the leap and back ourselves as artists. We never expected our free fringe show, made with pennies and lit by desk lamps, to get any recognition - and receiving the Scottish Theatre Award was an incredible validation for the entire team. After winning the award, and with the prize money to fuel a writer’s retreat, we redrafted the play and went on to become runners up for the Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award. Laila subsequently won the inaugural St Andrews Award for Playwriting and is now the Creative Director and CEO of Ayr Gaiety, and Emilie won the first North Easy Playwriting award and is now a successful writer for Television including for The Case, Bergerac and War. We needed the vote of confidence that the Scottish Theatre Awards gave us, and are so grateful to have received that push to pursue our creative careers. You can never underestimate the power of this award and where it might lead you.
Magnetic North, although an Edinburgh-based company, has only performed three times at the fringe in its 27 years. A Walk at the Edge of the World was our second time and was performed in the old gymnasium at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art as part of Summerhall's programme in 2014. As well as being in a venue that was out of the main city-centre run of the fringe and had no other shows on in it, the production also required the audience to go for a fifteen minute walk in silence along the Water of Leith at the start of the performance. The initial short-listing of the show for the Scottish Theatre Awards felt like reassurance about the show's unique qualities - a quiet, thoughtful performance that was a little out of character with what might be thought of as a typical fringe show - when we received the third place award, we felt proud to have been recognised within the unique focus of the Awards and still have our golden artichoke print hung on our office wall.