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Dateline: 9th November, 2006
The Empty Space... The Peter Brook Awards, 2006 Winner of the 17th (and sadly final) Empty Space...Peter Brook Award is the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, for its consistently high quality of production and performance and for its training and showcasing the work of young directors. The Awards ceremony took place in the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, on 7th November, when dozens of leading theatre practitioners and critics applauded artistic director Sam Walters as he collected the main cash prize of £2,000 as well as a nominee award of £350. The two other nominees, also receiving £350 cheques, were The Arches, which has provided a home for the development of theatre arts in Glasgow for the last fifteen years, and The Tricycle in Kilburn, for its achievements in political theatre and docu-drama, as well as this year’s West End transfer of 39 Steps. The annual awards, founded by theatre critic and publisher Blanche Marvin, have been presented annually by her magazine London Theatre Reviews and the Theatre Museum. With judges including theatre critics and producers, they are designed to “recognise the work, pioneering concepts and innovations in the spirit of Peter Brook, achieved by venues performing in smaller theatre spaces and which receive little or no public funding.” A second category, with a £1,500 cash prize and nominee awards of £350, is for up-and-coming studio theatres. It was won this year by The Scoop under the direction of Phil Wilmot, a recently founded open-air venue in the shadow of City Hall which has specialised in vibrant productions of the Greek classics. Runners-up were Sheffield Studio Theatre and The Unicorn children’s theatre in London which each received nominee cash awards. Less publicised but equally important are the Dan Crawford Pub Theatre Award of £2,000, funded by Brian Daniels and the Cameron Mackintosh Foundation, which this year went to the Old Red Lion in Islington; and the £2,000 Peter Wolff Theatre Trust Award, which Peter Wolff presented to Shapeshifters for its forthcoming staging of Keith Dewhurst’s King Arthur at the Arcola. Finally Verb Theatre won the Mark Marvin Rent Subsidy Award which will enable the company to produce its inspirational Limbo: Stories from 7/7 at the Tristan Bates Theatre at the Actors’ Centre in London. Despite the lively triumphalism of the event, this was a sad occasion because the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden is scheduled to be closed by the V&A on 7th January, 2007, leaving London as almost the only world city without a theatre museum. But Blanche Marvin hopes the Awards will continue elsewhere, albeit without the support of the museum staff. But gaiety was restored with a wonderfully witty tribute to Blanche, an hilariously affectionate send-up in diary format by the Independent drama critic Paul Taylor, which left the entire audience convulsed with laughter — not least the glamorous 80-year old Blanche, doyenne of the London critical fraternity, at the centre of the photograph taken by BTG critic John Thaxter. Report and Photographs: John Thaxter Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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