Social Impact Theatre
The 2019 SIT-UP Award has been awarded to LUNG and The Lowry in partnership with Gaddum for its production Who Cares currently moving audiences at Summerhall.
Who Cares is a gripping verbatim theatre production based on a year of interviews that offers a rare insight into the lives of young carers from Salford. The play aims to help identify 'hidden' young carers in society and signpost them to support available through local young carers services.
Helen Monks Co-Artistic Director of LUNG said ‘We are delighted to have received the Sit-Up Award for Who Cares. In the UK, 1 in 12 young people care for someone. The youngest registered young carer in Salford at the moment is 4. But the local support for these young people across England varies drastically and can sometimes be almost nonexistent. We believe they deserve more.'
Matt Woodhead-Co-Artistic Director of LUNG added: ‘None of this would have been possible without the 4 young carers and their families who so bravely shared their stories for this verbatim play, supported by Salford Young Carers Service (Gaddum). Thanks to The Sit Up Award, their message can now be spread far and wide: if you are a young carer, you are not on your own.’
Download the Full Press Release: SIT-UP Awards Winner 2019.
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the £1,000 SIT-UP Audience Engagement Award at EdFringe 2019 is New York based Children’s Theatre for Henry Box Brown which was performed at Gilded Balloon.
This annual award is given to a company that engages with its audiences in an innovative way. The company used QR codes linked to a very effective website to gain audience feedback and to get the audience to comment on “When I leave the theatre I will think differently about“ and to pledge “One thing I can do in my own community“. The combination of QR code, feedback and a pledge provides strong engagement and re-inforcement of the message for audiences and allows them to take a positive message forward.
Nearly 40% of all theatre productions at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe looked at serious social issues and there is a large percentage of the audience that are going to these shows not just to be entertained but with a real thirst to be better informed on the issues as well as a desire for greater engagement. Henry Box Brown did just that and demonstrated how audience engagement should work in the digital age. The QR code was held up on stage at the end of the show and was also on display in the foyer after-wards – those filling in the forms were given a chance to download the music from the show.
Download the Full Press Release: Audience Engagement Award_2019.