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Dateline: 15th October, 2009
2009 Whiting Award Winner The 2009 Whiting Award, supported by the Peter Wolff Trust, has been awarded to Alexi Kaye Campbell for his debut play, The Pride. The prestigious national playwriting award – a prize of £6000 presented by Peter Wolff at Birmingham Repertory Theatre tonight (Thursday 15th October) - choose Alexi Kaye Campbell’s play from a total of 45 scripts which were submitted for consideration. The Pride, which examines changing attitudes to sexuality over a period of 50 years, was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 2008 and it has already won Campbell two other awards – the Critics’ Circle Prize for Most Promising Playwright and the Olivier award for Outstanding Achievement. The other plays that made it on to the shortlist for the 2009 award were:
The standard of plays submitted for the award this year were outstanding as Chairman of the judges, Ben Jancovich explained, “It is a cliché for judges to say their decision was a tough one, but this year the quality of the submissions was extraordinary. “It says something about the very healthy state of theatre writing in Britain today, when any of the shortlisted plays this year could have easily won. Because of this we also wanted to make a special commendation to two of the shortlisted writers: Steve Waters’ monumental The Contingency Plan for The Bush and Simon Stephens’ bold and audacious playPornography for Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Traverse.” Commenting on the 2009 winner, Jancovich said, “Alexi Kaye Campbell has an unparalleled eye for character, humanity and wit and it is remarkable that another of his plays, Apologia, also made it onto the shortlist. The judging panel choose The Pride for its bold structure and political resonance.” Alexi Kaye Campbell, who unfortunately was unable to attend the award ceremony as he is currently in the States casting for The Pride which will open in New York in February 2010, said, “I feel very honoured and humbled to win this important award. I would like to thank the judges for their decision - it means a great deal to me that my work has been recognised by such a distinguished panel. I would also like to thank Peter Wolff and Louisa Prodromou of the Peter Wolff Trust for their generosity.” Judging the 2009 award were Ben Jancovich, Bryony Lavery, Jack Bradley, Dawn Walton, Oladipo Agboluage, Janet Steel and Peggy Paterson. This national playwriting award, originally established by the Arts Council in 1965 as the John Whiting Award, gives £6,000 to the writer of a new play that demonstrates an original and distinctive development in dramatic writing. Previous winners include Bryony Lavery, David Edgar, David Greig, Tanika Gupta, Terry Johnson, Joe Penhall, and Tom Stoppard for whom the award was instrumental in launching his writing career.
In 2007, the Peter Wolff Theatre Trust announced that it would be funding the Whiting Award after a consortium of theatres, headed by London’s Hampstead Theatre, claimed ownership of this prestigious award from the Arts Council. Hampstead Theatre set up a consortium of new writing companies and venues, including the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Royal Court, Soho Theatre, Paines Plough, Nottingham Playhouse, Traverse Theatre, The Bush, Nuffield Southampton, and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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