Throughout VAULT Festival, we’ll be sharing nominations for our Festival Awards, which recognise exceptional shows and the outstanding contributions of our artists each and every festival. We’ve been presenting and developing the awards since 2015, and they’re assessed by an independent panel of judges. Hear from our Head of Programming, Bec about the nominees for week eight:
“This is it, team. Our last ever week of VAULT Festival in our home for the last decade. It really is bittersweet.
I’ve spent the last week trying to stop and look around from time to time. Up at the peeling walls of the main bar, to the dressing room where artists across genres and styles laugh and prep and flap, into the yard where a couple of staff have popped out to gossip and share a cheeky cigarette. Down to the VOID where a small cluster of audience members jiggle up and down keeping warm, excited to go see something wild in a shipping container. Across the office at my incredible colleagues working tirelessly to bring this insane, baffling, absolutely should-not-work idea to life (and occasionally glancing across to glare at me when they realise the mammoth and ridiculous tasks I have set for them by programming an aerial show with a 15 minute turnaround, a show where fruit is smashed all over the stage, a show with ten foot video projections and another with a real life baby, all at the same time).
Although VAULT Festival has been my work for the past nearly 4 years, I have yet to see a full festival to its end. And now, by the time I finally do, it will be the last festival in this place we have built and nurtured and railed at and fled from and returned to time and time again. It’s a time of high emotion. But as always, it is made worthwhile by the people.
The artists, each and every one bringing their heart and souls to this Festival. The staff, who keep turning up, day in and out, despite every obstacle thrown at them (and there have been MANY), and not only turning up but engaging joyously, wholly, making this place truly magical. The audiences, who brave the weather to support and celebrate the best new work in the country.
I am so proud, and so humbled. Here are the award nominations for Week 8.”
SHOW OF THE WEEK
Awarded to exceptional productions from the Theatre & Performance programme.
Con-version – Rory Thomas-Howes
Good Grief – Ugly Bucket
Hutchy the Hare – Scram & Scrum Theatre
FREAK OUT! – Coin Toss Collective
ORIGINS AWARD
Awarded for outstanding new work from the Theatre & Performance programme. Shows must have not been performed more than twice prior to their run at VAULT Festival to be eligible.
The Messiah Complex – Bag of Beard Theatre
That’s Ace – James Creighton-Goode
You are Going to Die – Adam Scott Rowley
PUBLIC The Musical – Stroud & Notes
