CONNECT Fest Award Winners Announced
4 Outstanding Contributions to CONNECT Festival 2023
CONNECT festival, a new creative festival in York offered opportunities for early career creatives to showcase their work and connect with industry leaders.
8 new plays, accompanied by workshops, masterclasses, and panel discussion across 5 days at Theatre@41, July 19th – 23rd.
The well-attended festival spanned creative disciplines from improvised comedy with Paul Birch to Motion Capture with XR stories and a Virtual Production Panel.
We are pleased to announce the award winners from CONNECT Fest ’23. 4 outstanding productions demonstrating excellent new writing.
These emerging artists are ones to be watched.
The ViridianLAB Innovative Production Award
Awarded to Bee Scott for their production of If You Find This.
If You Find This is a queer interactive travelogue in space. The story changes every night depending on the choices the audience makes, ultimately leading to one of three endings
“The use of audience choice mechanics in If You Find This created a heightened level of engagement with the intimate audience at Theatre@41” Anna Gallon, Festival Co-producer
The Guild of Media Arts York Audience Choice Award
Voted by the audience and awarded to Josh Maughan of Springbok Production House.
“It’s been fantastic supporting an exciting new festival on our doorstep and emerging artists!” Owen Turner, Master of the Guild of Media Arts.
The Guild was formed in 2015 as the lifelong custodian of York’s designation as a UNESCO City of Media Arts. They bring media arts into the lives of York’s residents and project York’s media arts around the globe.
Brew York Boldly Crafted Award
Awarded to Joe Maddalena for outstanding devising work in his production of Self Help.
“Self Help displayed everything we were looking for in terms of ‘Boldy crafted’ work, Joe’s use of audio-visual materials, all of which he had carefully and witfully crafted, accompanied a certain depth of performance that was captivating.” Joly Black, Festival Co-Producer
Brew York, Craft beers inspired by the rich and diverse surroundings of Yorkshire.
FOUR WHEEL DRIVE Producer’s Choice Award
Awarded to Rhia Burston and Emily Susanne Lloyd of Up Yours Theatre Company for WOEBEGONE for outstanding festival contribution.
“WOEBEGONE offered a polished performance at a high level of excellence. Lloyd’s naturalistic approach explored the shocking truths of domestic violence against women in the UK.” Anna Gallon, Festival Co-producer
Thank you to our sponsors, audience, performers, producers, collaborators and fantastic team for all of their support in making CONNECT possible.
