Assembly Roxy Theatre Award Winners Announced

Assembly Festival is proud to announce the first winner of the brand-new Assembly Roxy Theatre (ART) Award for developing Scottish performance companies at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Andy Edwards is a playwright and performer based in Glasgow who makes work about language and mental health. His new play Scribble is an attempt to understand the intersections between mental health, disability and the author's own ethnicity, gender and class.

Bran flakes, anxiety and gravity. The smallest moments in history and the largest events in the universe. A thought and a supernova. Blink and you'll miss it. A scribble from the chest. Scribble is a new work about what it means to have mental health.

In 2016 Andy was mentored by Playwright's Studio Scotland to develop a new piece of work, supervised by Rob Drummond. Scribble is the result of that. It was awarded a Small Grant Award from the Tom McGrath Trust and directed by Amy Gilmartin as a rehearsed reading at the Traverse Hothouse showcase in November.

Andy's first play Killing Time was performed at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, receiving four star reviews from FEST, Three Weeks and the Edinburgh Evening News. Since graduating with Distinction in MLitt Playwriting and Dramaturgy at the University of Glasgow, Andy has presented work with galleries, heritage organisations and theatres as a playwright, performer and digital artist.

Amy Gilmartin is a freelance theatre director, who focuses on directing and developing new writing, and Co-Artistic Director of emerging company Urban Fox Theatre. She has directed three productions at the Edinburgh Fringe with Urban Fox Theatre; Globophobia (which was shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Club Award), Safeword and Heartlands (which received six four star reviews). Her freelance directing work includes Warrior, a play exploring modern Sectarian themes, which has extensively toured schools, community centres and theatres, including the Citizens Theatre, since 2014. Amy also assisted Orla O'Loughlin on Milk at the Traverse Theatre in the 2016 Festival, where she is now employed as a script reader and has directed as part of development performances. She is currently the assistant director on Dr Stirlingshire's Discovery, a co-production with Grid Iron, Lung Ha Theatre Company, RZSS Edinburgh Zoo and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.

Andy and Amy will receive up to £5,500 worth of support, including Fringe and Joint Venue Brochure registration fees, rehearsal space, and development and promotional support. Scribble will be presented at Roxy Downstairs as part of Assembly 2017 in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Playwright Andy Edwards and director Amy Gilmartin said, "Andy and I are thrilled and honoured to be selected as the winners of the first ART award! We are so excited that we are able to bring Scribble to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, under the support and guidance of Assembly. Scribble explores mental health in a brave and unique way and I am delighted that Assembly are giving us the opportunity to share the playwith a Fringe audience. As emerging artists in Scotland, without this award, we would not be able to present our work this year. We've got lots of hard work ahead of us and we simply can't wait!"

William Burdett-Coutts, Artistic Director of Assembly said, "We received some really terrific applications for the ART Award and we are excited to have engaged with so many fresh and exciting new creative voices in Scotland. We are delighted to have selected Andy Edwards' new work Scribble directed by Amy Gilmartin to receive the first ART Award and look forward to supporting its development and profile at the Fringe this summer as part of the Assembly Festival programme. Mental health is a key issue for all areas of society, young and old, and theatre is proving itself to be an important forum to openly explore this complex and personal subject. The script is written in a really interesting graphic way which leaps off the page and shows great promise as a production.

"The Fringe offers one of the most challenging but potentially life changing opportunities for emerging theatre makers and we're pleased to offer Andy and Amy an opportunity to make that step within the supporting framework of one of the Fringe's most well-regarded presenters."

A number of new and establishEd Scottish playwrights and theatre companies have made Assembly their home over previous Edinburgh Festival Fringes including Vanishing Point, Stellar Quines, In Your Face, Nonsense Room Productions, Lickety Spit Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland.