Edinburgh nominees in UK Theatre Awards

Sep 26 2013 | By More

Lyceum and Festival Theatres in running

Sally Reid, nominated in the Best Supporting Performance category, for her performance as Madge in the Royal Lyceum's co-production of Time and the Conways with Dundee Rep. Photo © Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Sally Reid, nominated in the Best Supporting Performance category, for her performance as Madge in the Royal Lyceum’s co-production of Time and the Conways with Dundee Rep. Photo © Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

By Thom Dibdin

Cerin Richardson, the Learning and Participation Manager at the Festival City Theatres Trust, has been nominated in the Theatre Employee/Manager of the Year category in the UK Theatre Awards.

Also included in the shortlists is Sally Reid, who is nominated in the Best Supporting Performance category, for her performance as Madge in the Royal Lyceum’s co-production of Time and the Conways with Dundee Rep.

According to the Theatrical Management Association, which runs the awards: “The UK Theatre Awards are the only nation-wide awards to honour creative excellence and the outstanding achievement seen on and off stage throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

Cerin Richardson has been in post at FCTT, which runs the Festival and King’s theatre, since January 2012. In that time, she has overseen an increase of 247% in participants and 262% in outreach activities over the preceding year, according to the theatre’s 2012/13 annual report.

“I don’t do things by halves,” Richardson told Æ, by way of explaining these extraordinary increases. “It is all about he development of our outreach work. I might be a department of one, but this is all about working with an extraordinary team. My work has been enhanced by the fabulous staff and the support of my managers.”

Among her many innovations, Richardson has instigated two three year programmes of outreach work, for dance and first-time theatre goers. She was responsible for setting up the first “relaxed” performance in Scotland, with a showing of The Snowman specifically adapted to make it suitable for children with profound and complex learning needs.

Theatre design
Cerin Richardson on the red carpet before Dame Edna's personal appearance at the Festival Theatre in March this year.

Cerin Richardson on the red carpet before Dame Edna’s personal appearance at the Festival Theatre in March this year. Photo © Aly Wight

Richardson, who is a teacher by profession, trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She is also an amateur theatre designer, designed the sets for Edinburgh Music Theatre’s productions of Footloose, Hair, Rent, Sweeney Todd and How to Succeed in Business.

Also nominated in the  Theatre Employee/Manager of the Year category are James Haddrell at Greenwich Theatre and Brenda Walliss at the Princess Theatre, Torquay.

Sally Reid’s nomination is for her performance as Madge in Time and the Conways (reviewed here) directed by Jemima Levick, which played the Royal Lyceum in February and March this year, before transferring to Dundee Rep.

Madge is the radical one of the three Conway sisters, whose love for the solicitor, Gerald, is dashed by her mother in a moment of unthinking vitriol. Reid’s performance found a plummy Englishness in the character. She finessed the twist which her character must carry with a real understanding of the hurt involved.

Also nominated for best Best Supporting Performance are Jessica Bastick-Vines for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, a Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and Rose Theatre Kingston production, and Siân Phillips for This Is My Family a Sheffield Theatres production.

The National Theatre of Scotland is involved in productions nominated in two categories. The co-production of Glasgow Girls, directed by Cora Bissett and premiering at the Glasgow Citizens, is in the Best Musical Production category. While Christine Jones and Chahine Yavroyan are up for the best design award for the co-production of Let The Right One In, which premiered at Dundee Rep.

Rachel O’Riordan, Artistic Director of Perth Theatre, is nominated in the best director category for The Seafarer. She won the award in the same category at the CATS this summer, with her cast taking the ensemble prize and was only pipped to best production winner by Stellar Quines’ The List.

Scottish Opera is nominated for The Renee Stepham Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre. The nomination is for the company’s 50 venues for 50 years tour and comes in the same week that its new touring production of Rodelinda opens in Greenock.

Voting on the My Theatre Matters! UK’s Most Welcoming Theatre Award is  by the public for the first time.  All TMA Members are entered automatically but any other theatre that offers legal and fair terms to all performers and stage management, in line with or better than the Equity Fringe Agreement, was also able to register.

Online voting for the Most Welcoming Theatre Award is via the Classic FM website www.classicfm.com/theatre until midnight on Monday 30 September and the shortlist will be announced on Thursday 3 October.

The Awards will be presented on Sunday 20 October at a lunchtime ceremony at London’s  Guildhall.

The full list of nominations is carried in the Stage: www.thestage.co.uk.

The press release announcing the shortlist is on the TMA website: www.tmauk.org

ENDS

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