Theatre Critics of Wales Awards now the Wales Theatre Awards
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The awards scheme will now be run by an independent, not for profit company and there will continue to be an annual awards ceremony. For 2015 the date and venue have been agreed for January 31^st at Sherman Cymru, Cardiff. For work to be eligible for nomination, it must have been created and presented in Wales in the celebrated year. For the 2015 awards, this will be between 1^st January and 30^th November 2014. In subsequent years the period will change to the start of December to the end of November the following year.
We plan to have individual critics announcing the shortlists and the winners. As we are committed to the awards being increasingly bilingual, we plan to have a Welsh speaking and English speaking presenter alternating during the awards ceremony. We intend both widening the number of critics taking part in the nomination process and also contributing more effectively in the selection of winners.
We will create the longlist by asking more professional reviewers to nominate a winner and Highly Commended shows/individuals for each award and, importantly, give a short written reason for their choices. Unlike previous years, we will stress they DO NOT have to nominate in any category they do not wish to.
Each genre covered will have a panel of jurors, who will be reviewers themselves. They will look at all of the submitted nominations and accompanying comments (to which they will also have contributed) for their genres, and decide on the winners and those that are Highly Commended. For the non-language based awards and overall Director winner, the genre panels will come together and select winners. The panels for each genre and overall panel is then expected to write down WHY the winner has won and a sentence on the Highly Commended, ensuring feedback and openness.
We will apply the National Union of Journalists’ code of conduct and social media guidelines to the way the Awards are conducted. We will ensure the strong link with the Young Critics scheme is maintained as in the past and we will continue to include Young Critics on all of the panels.
The generous sponsorship of the award categories by arts organisations and venues will now also contribute to the establishment of a Development of Critical Writing Fund (DCWF). To emphasise the awards’ independence, they will not be category sponsors. The DCWF will be used to fulfil the following: Enable travel, accommodation etc. for critics to see more performances across Wales – something that is sorely needed – working alongside the Young and Third Age Critics. Act as a network to ensure critics are aware of shows and that reviewing opportunities exist. Work with the venues, individual companies and independent artists on ensuring critics get access to tickets. Work alongside any other organisation that is working to increase capacity and skills across Wales. (We will not directly take the mantle of trainers or pay for reviews etc. as we feel this is the role of professional training organisations, the media itself, and possibly an area for ACW to consider.) Work with venues and organisations to help them build links with their media and with critics.
The awards scheme has enjoyed generous sponsorship from a diverse range of organisations that are not directly arts organisations or venues, such as colleges, agencies, and the media. We are asking those sponsors to continue sponsoring.
Please contact Mike Smith: mike@mediasmith.co.uk or Harriet Hopkins: harriet.g.hopkins@gmail.com with any queries about the awards, how to nominate and sponsorship.