The waiting, the nail biting, the wishing and the hoping is finally over. Following last week’s final pitches, we are very pleased to present the winners of Ideas Fund Edinburgh Award, who will receive £10,000 each for a brand new production, as well as mentoring help from experienced theatre practitioners. Congratulations Square Peg and When I Say Jump…
The panel of IdeasFund Edinburgh judges were pitched some fantastic ideas last week, but in the end, judges Jennifer Fordham, Steve Winter, Ed Bartlam, Elin Morgan, Jack Ayres and Amanda White could only choose two winners. Here, they tell us a little more about their winning shows.
Robyn Keynes, When I Say Jump with their show A Modern Town
I opened the email thinking it would just be a “thanks but no thanks” sort of thing. When I realised that we’d won I screamed and started crying. Then my housemate started crying and then I rang my mum and she burst into tears too.
Winning the fund means that we can get a much bigger, more reputable venue, which will make a massive difference. We’ll also have that IdeasTap stamp of approval, which is amazing. Last year we won the £500 marketing fund, which was great, but I remember looking at RashDash and The Bridge Theatre and thinking that those guys just seemed to be everywhere. Now we can get a really good quality projector, get a good venue, be able to pay everyone’s accommodation and travel costs.
A Modern Town is about a formerly glorious seaside town that has been devastated by a huge fire. Two businessmen come to the town with the idea to regenerate the resort, which leads everyone to start buying things on credit, without really questioning where that money is coming from. It looks at the idea of regeneration, English traditions and what it means to be British.
Now that we’ve won, we’re going to hold some workshop auditions to find the right cast, start applying to venues in Edinburgh and get the ball rolling as we’re hoping to tour A Modern Town after Edinburgh.
Aislinn Grech, Square Peg with their show Rime
It was a lovely moment when I found out. All the company were really busy putting up some rigging and I just got my phone out and read it quietly to myself. Then I showed some people the email and we all had a little private hug.
We’re going to use quite a lot of the money getting hold of equipment. We’re going to have an 8m x 4m rig, which will be gigantic and be used for all our (aerialist) silks and lighting and things.
Flowing between acrobatics, song and story, Rime is a devised circus show, based on Coleridge’s epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
This will be my first time in Edinburgh and I’m just so, so excited. We have just started creating the show and this gives us the chance to show it to a big audience. It’s such a brilliant opportunity to get feedback, watch other people, all that stuff.
Without IdeasTap we wouldn’t have been able to get our show seen by that kind of audience. It’s brilliant, especially for us as a circus show, to be able to go up to Edinburgh.
Do you want to take a show to Edinburgh? Visit the New Voices Edinburgh 2012 brief.