2015 Award

Best New Play of the Year 2015

Rufus Norris, Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre presented the award and cheque for £6,000 to Theresa Ikoko, winner of this year’s Best New Play of the Year at this year’s Alfred Fagon Award supported by The Peggy Ramsay Foundation.

Theresa’s play Girls focuses on the relationship between a group of childhood friends kidnapped in Africa by Boko Haram.

Theresa Ikoko is part of the Talawa Writer’s Programme in partnership with Bush Theatre and Soho Theatre supported by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Her writing credits include:

Visiting Hours, New Black Voices Showcase, Belgrade Theatre, November 2014
Belgrade Unplugged, Belgrade Theatre, July 2014
Scratch That Hackney, Hackney Attic, October 2013
Normal, (Lunchtime Readings, High Tide Theatre, November 2014; Reading, Talawa Firsts, Talawa Theatre, June 2014)
The Race Card, Reading, Tricycle Young Writers, Tricycle Theatre, August 2013

In the first year since winning the award Theresa has won a commission with Soho (Soho Six), won channel 4 playwrights award (an attachment with Hightide) attended the BBC’s TV writers Festival read her blog here and has two TV options with Bandit & Keshet.

Girls was included in the 20th anniversary British Council Edinburgh Showcase in 2017.

Other Awards presented on the day include the top three winners of the inaugural Audience Award for plays staged between September 2014 and August 2015. The winning plays are: Liberian Girl by Diana Nneka Atuona (this play won Best New Play of the Year in 2013); the revival of Play Mas by Mustapha Matura (who won the Alfred Fagon Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing last year); and Matilda Ibini’s Muscovado

Actor, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, recently on stage at the Barbican as Laertes in Hamlet and also a co-founder of Act for Change announced the winners and presented the award to Matilda Ibini. Unfortunately Mustapha Matura and Diana Nneka Atuona were unable to attend the ceremony so the organisers will present the award to them at a later date.

Also presented at the Awards was the first Roland Rees Bursary, named in honour of the co-founder of the Alfred Fagon Award and leading theatre director from the 1970s and 1980s who died in September.

Shortlist

David Judge Skipping Rope
Deidan Williams Manhattan Out to Sea
Eva Edo Looked After Children
Theresa Ikoko Girls
Tolula Dada Carrot or Stick

Longlist

Andrew Rajan Afghanistan
Beverley Andrews Circles
Chantal Campbell Playing Tom
David Judge Skipping Rope
Deidan Williams Manhattan Out to Sea
Dianna Hunt Mona’s Room
Edson Burton Icarus in Love
Eva Edo Looked After Children
Matilda Ibini Elector8
Max Kolaru Not Cricket
May Sumbanyambe After Independence
Rayna Campbell Manchester Divided
Rex Obano The Moors of England
Roy Williams The Fear
Simon Michael Brett White House
Theresa Ikoko Girls
Tolula Dada Carrot or Stick
Trevor Williams Killing Time
Yasmin Joseph Pinch

Audience Award

Liberian Girl by Diana Nneka Atuona (this play won Best New Play of the Year in 2013); the revival of Play Mas by Mustapha Matura (who won the Alfred Fagon Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing last year); and Matilda Ibini’s Muscovado.

Later we caught up with Mustapha Matura who was unable to make it on the day. He receives his award from trustee Sheelagh Killeen-Rees.

The top three plays won with 487 votes (58.84% of the total) with the remaining plays sharing 340 votes (41.18% of the total).

The Alfred Fagon Audience Award recognizes and celebrates the depth of talented Black British playwrights of Caribbean and African descent writing in Britain today.

More Writers – More Recognition

In the inaugural year (2015) the top three plays voted for by the public in an online poll won the award.

Thanks to the Writers Guild of Britain (WGGB), UK Theatre and the National Theatre Black Plays Archive (BPA) who helped us to publicize the Award.