I’ve been to Edinburgh about 13 or 14 times, managing and producing.

This year, going for NSDF, was the most enjoyable festival I’ve ever had. I was up there for two weeks and saw 46 shows. There was a team of selectors who did a bit of shortlisting for me, but I was still watching six or seven hours of theatre a day. You can get a little disorientated. 

Within two minutes of watching Kiss Me and You Will See How Important I Am (the winner of the NSDF Edinburgh Emerging Artists competition, pictured below) I knew this was very interesting. The girl who wrote it – Eva O’Connor – is at the end of her second year at University and this is her third play. It’s a four-hander and starts with her doing a long, very still monologue to the audience; she is transfixing as a performer. It was also really deftly written throughout, had a really good cast and was on an interesting subject.

At NSDF we want to see true ownership over the piece. Whether it’s somebody doing Shakespeare, Chekhov or a completely devised piece, we want to see them achieve their ambition. 

One of the big advantages of the NSDF Edinburgh award is being able to transfer your show to London and perform it in a different theatre. You have a little gap where you can go back over and tweak the things that need working on.

Also, potentially more important in terms of your development, are the classes and workshops that we put together for the winning company in London. This week we have director Tamara Harvey working on monologues, the RSC’s Michael Corbidge doing a voice workshop, Carolina Valdes (Co-Artistic Director of Theatre O) trained at Le Coq and is doing a movement workshop, actress Julia Ford is doing a career Q&A and giving feedback on the show and Douglas Rintoul (Artistic Director of Transport Theatre) will do a workshop too. And I get to take them all to lunch here at Ideas Tap and talk with them about the company's future development and producing. Unless you go to theatre school, you don’t necessarily get the grounding in those basics, so it’ll be a bit like a week of intensive training.

Tickets for NSDF13 are on sale now. There is a ticket offer until Wednesday 10 October for subscription tickets and group bookings. We’ve never done group bookings before and I’m very excited about getting more school groups coming along and building the festival audience for the future. 

At NSDF we present work, we have discussions, workshops and masterclasses. There are the live events; you try to describe it all in words, but until you get there and feel the energy oif it, it’s hard to imagine.

I want to do more music and singing in the festival next year. There’s a massive amount to be gained by participating in a big ensemble choir. Three shows at Sheffield ISDF included live bands – I think if we encouraged people to bring along instruments we’d have one hell of a jam session.

It’s not my festival. It’s not the board’s festival. It’s the attendees’ festival. We serve them up the opportunities and they make it what it is.

To book your tickets for NSDF13 in Scarborough, from Saturday 23 - Friday 29 March, visit the NSDF website.

To get special £10 tickets to Kiss Me and You Will See How Important I Am then visit our Discounts page. 

Book now for Michael Brazier's Edinburgh 2013: Start planning now spa session, live Q&A and online forum.

Photo of Michael by Andrea Hanzlikova.