ULSTER AMERICAN Named Best of Edinburgh Festival Fringe by Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation announces the winner of this year's The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honor at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Chosen by Carol Tambor and members of her Foundation, along with The Scotsman Newspaper's Arts Writers Joyce McMillian, Jackie McGlone and Mark Fisher, Ulster American was announced as the winner at the Scotsman Award Ceremony during the closing ceremonies of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Friday, August 24.

Produced by The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Ulster American, written by David Ireland and directed by Gareth Nicholls, played at the Traverse Theatre from August 2-26. The production will receive a $25,000 cash award from the Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation to facilitate a New York run, with dates and venue to be announced.

Jay is the Oscar-winning actor taking the lead in a play that connects with his Irish roots. Leigh is the ambitious director who will do anything to get noticed. And Ruth is the Northern Irish playwright whose voice must be heard. The stage is set for great success but when the three meet, a line is crossed, and the heated discussion quickly escalates to a violent climax. Exploring consent, abuses of power and the confusions of cultural identity, Ulster American by David Ireland (Cyprus Avenue) is confrontational, wildly funny and not for the faint of heart.

"How can a play be both brutal and brutally funny? Ask David Ireland, the Northern Irish writer who's penned a dark work about identity, ignorance, political correctness and the misogyny rampant in the theatre," stated Carol Tambor. "Also rampant is the play's humor which is both laugh out loud hilarious and viciously foul mouthed. Any fan of Martin McDonagh will be at home in this minefield."

David Ireland is from Belfast and trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

His first play, What the Animals Say, was produced at Òran Mór, Glasgow. His other plays include Everything Between Us (Tinderbox); The End of Hope (Òran Mór); Yes So I Said Yes (Ransom); Half a Glass of Water (Field Day); Most Favoured (Traverse Theatre/Òran Mór); Can't Forget About You (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); The Hen Night (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland); and Cyprus Avenue (Royal Court/Abbey Theatre). He was Playwright-in-Residence at Lyric Theatre, Belfast from 2011 to 2012.

Everything Between Us won the Meyer-Whitworth Award and the Stewart Parker Award in 2011. Cyprus Avenue won the Irish Times Award for Best New Play and the James Tait Black Prize for Drama in 2017, and recently ran at The Public Theater in New York. He is currently working on new plays for the Royal Court and the Abbey, and has various screen projects in development.

Gareth Nicholls is Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre. His recent shows include How to Disappear and Letters To Morrissey (Traverse Theatre). The Scottish premiere of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage (Tron Theatre) and the sell-out production of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (Citizens Theatre).

Other directing credits include: Blackbird by David Harrower, Into That Darkness by Gitta Sereny, Vanya by Sam Holcroft (Citizens Theatre); Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (Tron Theatre); A Gambler's Guide to Dying by Gary McNair (Show & Tell); Prom by Oliver Emanuel (Òran Mór); Educating Ronnie by Joe Douglas (Utter); The Tin Forest South West (National Theatre of Scotland); Tis Pity She's a Whore, Coriolanus, The Burial at Thebes (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

Gareth has won three Fringe First Awards and was previously Citizens Theatre's Main Stage Director in Residence (2014-16).

Now in its 15th year, The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award builds a bridge between New York City and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Created by Carol Tambor in 2004, the inaugural award winners were Sister's, Such Devoted Sisters and Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles. Subsequent winners include Andrew Dawson's Absence and Presence; Michael Redhill's Goodness; 1927's Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; Ella Hickson's Eight; Elaine Murphy's Little Gem; Pants on Fire's retelling of Ovid's Metamorphoses; Circle of Eleven's LEO; David Greig's Midsummer and The Events; Yael Farber's Mies Julie; The Object Lesson by Geoff Sobelle; Key Change by Catrina McHugh; Life According to Saki by Katherine Rundell and last year's winners Emma Rice's The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, written by Daniel Jamieson and composed by Ian Ross, and Borders by Henry Naylor.

Carol Tambor is a longtime, professional portrait artist and a theatre aficionado. For over a decade prior to creating the award, she had traveled to Edinburgh to enjoy the Festival offerings. Dismayed that so many fine plays never transferred to NYC, she decided to create an opportunity for New York audiences to get a taste of the Edinburgh magic.

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation was established to bring excellent dramatic work to the New York audience by funding the New York run. The mission to support artists in their desire to be seen and produced is carried out with no financial or commercial involvement in their future success. For more information, visit www.bestofedinburgh.org.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's greatest platform for freedom of expression. In 2018, there are 56,796 performances of 3,548 shows in 317 venues from 55 countries. The festival is open access, which means that anyone with a story to tell and a space to perform can take part. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society is the organisation which underpins the festival and exists to help everyone make the most of the Fringe. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 runs from 03 to 27 August. www.edfringe.com