The champagne glasses were clinked this week after designer Amanda Stoodley won the prestigious award for Best Design for our production of Jackie Kay’s Manchester Lines at the Theatrical Management Association/Theatre UK Awards ceremony in London on Sunday.
Our second site-specific production, Manchester Lines played to packed houses back in June this year. Set in a lost property office, the production used thousands of items of lost property collected by Transport for London, after which we donated them to the Salvation Army.
” Manchester Lines was such an exciting, collaborative and wonderful journey and I feel incredibly proud to have won the award,” said Amanda. “It is a treat enough to do this job, but to receive recognition like this is very special. I was totally shocked and completely overwhelmed.”
Director Wils Wilson was equally thrilled for Amanda. “It is fantastic for the Manchester Lines design to be recognised in this way,” she said. “Amanda is a wonderfully talented designer, who combines flair and vision with awe-inspiring attention to detail. The design for the production was an environment, an experience, a journey, a drama. The set was the play – as much as the text, the performances or the music – and I think people will remember it for a long time to come.”
Chris Honer, our Artistic Director, was also delighted at the production carrying home the award. “It was great to see Amanda’s wonderfully imaginative work recognised,” he said. “It served Wils Wilson’s excellent production perfectly.”
Meanwhile, plans are well advanced for our third site-specific production – Manchester Sound – The Massacre – planned for summer 2013, which brings together stories of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester of 1819 with life during the Madchester scene of 1988!