The Royal Theatrical Support Trust and Octagon Theatre Bolton have announced Tanuja Amarasuriya as the 2024 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award Scheme winner. Two joint runners up are Hannah Stone and Jasmine Teo.
Now in its eighth year, the award, in the memory of RTST co-founder Sir Peter Hall, gives the winner a first opportunity to direct a mid-scale production of a play in a British regional theatre and to take it on tour.
Amarasuriya has won the opportunity to create a new production on the main stage at the Octagon Theatre Bolton in a co-production with Mercury Theatre in Colchester and Rose Theatre in Kingston, opening in September 2025 and then touring to the co-producing theatres. The RTST will make a grant of £50,000 to support the costs of the production.
Bristol-based Amarasuriya is co-founder of multi-artform company Sleepdogs and a resident at Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio and is currently staff director on the National Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Previous credits include Julius Caesar (Malcolm X Centre / Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), Absolute Scenes (The Marble Factory / Bristol Old Vic Theatre School) and the 2018 International Playwriting Prize-winning Out of Sorts (Theatre503).
The joint runners-up, Hannah Stone and Jasmine Teo, have won the opportunity to be mentored by the Octagon and the co-producing theatres.
Amarasuriya said, "as someone who who didn't grow up around theatre, who didn't go to drama school and who has never lived in London, it's been a long path for me navigating the industry and building my artistic practice—and the RTST have been amazing allies for me over that journey. This year is the sixth application I made to the prize, but even in those 'unsuccessful' years, the connections that the RTST enabled me to make have helped me grow and brought me work.”