The Irish Students Drama Association (ISDA) awards ceremony took place last week with Trinity’s drama society, DU Players, winning three prizes.
DU Players was nominated in 8 out of 16 categories including Best New Writing, Judges’ Discretionary Award 1 and 2, Best Ensemble, Best Sound Design, Best Lighting Design and Best Supporting Actor.
Matt Armitage won Best New Writing for Castaway Stan, while Sam Killian and Henry Connolly won a Judges’ Discretionary Award for their composing in Mr Burns. Morag Dine won the final award for Movement Direction with Castaway Stan and Swing.
Speaking to Trinity News, the society said: “Players’ successes at this year’s ISDA awards go lengths to show the moves the society has made towards creating both ambitious shows whilst maintaining an inclusive atmosphere. The large amount of nominations we received this year goes to show the high standard of work we produced. We’re absolutely chuffed with our successes this year and we can only hope these wonderful shows, as well as the rest of the madness we’ve seen at players this year will go on to inspire the new generation of hard-working, crazy thespians to continue to make best friends and national-standard theatre!”
Matt Armitage, winner of the Best New Writing category said he was “extremely happy with the results on Wednesday. To be honest I never thought I’d receive an award for my writing, I always was absolutely rubbish at that kind of thing, so was over the moon to receive it, I want to thank the amazingly talented cast and crew that I had, we created Stan together and so this award was a win for everyone involved. The awards we came out with demonstrates what DU Players is all about; originality and bravery and that is why I love the work we do. During the night we had so many people coming up and saying how much they loved Castaway Stan, there definitely was this amazing buzz going around about the show, so for me that was the greatest award”.
Hosted by University College Dublin (UCD) and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), the awards finished the ISDA Festival 2017. All ISDA member societies displayed their shows during the week-long event. The awards ceremony was held in The Complex on Little Green Street, in Dublin’s city centre.
The ISDA’s festival and award ceremony is hosted by a different university each year, with NUIG hosting last year. ISDA is the umbrella organisation of Ireland’s third-level drama societies.
Additional reporting by Sarah Meehan.