theatre feature
Award winners: Ontroerend Goed
Lifting the Trophy
In anticipation of the announcement of the 2008 ThreeWeeks Editors’ Awards at the Roman Eagle Lodge on Sunday 24 Aug we invited one of last year’s victors, the theatre company Ontroerend Goed, to provide our Award Winners column for Week Three. The group pretty much swept the board in 2007 and are having another award winning Fringe this year, having already received a Herald Angel for their new show ‘Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen’. The company’s General Manager, David Bauwens, tells us just what it feels like to be a winner.
As a representative of Ontroerend Goed, the Belgian theatre company that has won awards at both the 2007 & 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, I can make one statement before all others: Winning an award makes you feel great! Awards are like good reviews you can actually touch. Being officially awarded, especially at a big festival, gives your crew the strongest feeling of being repaid for all the hard work they have put in. The Edinburgh Festival can be stressful to say the least, but amazingly that can be seen as a good thing as soon as you’re on that stage thanking the people who made it all somehow possible.
Aside from being emotionally lifted, which will last you approximately until your next première or the next festival where you have no idea how things will turn out, there are, of course, wonderful practical consequences to winning awards. Some of them will hit you before you even know it. You’re back from the Fringe First ceremony and magically your show has sold out while you were walking to the venue. Your worries are now limited to the luxurious problems of fitting all the people in, considering extra shows or simply prolonging your stay.
The most important consequences are felt during the next season though. I can only speak for Ontroerend Goed, but we got invited to Traverse, spent about a month in Australia, got a much better playlist in Belgium and the show we put on last year, ‘The Smile off Your Face’, is still selling. This year we are talking to promoters all over the world and of course that is partly why we are here; Edinburgh might very well be the best festival to launch an international profile. If you get noticed that is, and that’s exactly what winning an award does for you.
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Ontroerend Goed's 'Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen' was performed at the Traverse Theatre.
published: Oct-2008
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