Isle of Wight Amateur Theatre Awards 2025

What happens if someone can’t attend? If the relevant nominee is unable to attend, they may nominate someone to attend and collect their award if they win: please let us know who this is for our records.

Will there be a sign in sheet on the night? Yes, for fire regulations we need to have the numbers present, and this will help us keep track of tickets.

What happens on the Awards Evening? Doors open at 6.30pm and you are welcome to purchase a drink from the bar and take the chance to socialize before the award ceremony at 7.30pm in the Northwood House Ballroom. There will also be an interval during the evening to allow more time to chat with your fellow Island thespians.

Will there be entertainment? As this is our first Awards Evening, we have kept the celebration low key this year to keep costs down and assess the enthusiasm for such an event. If there is enough interest, we will look at expanding the event next year to include entertainment.

Why the ticket price? As you will appreciate, we still have the cost of venue hire and certificate production. Caught Red Handed have kindly agreed to sponsor and underwrite the event, but a small ticket price goes some way towards contributing to costs.

What about the youth productions? We have a separate judging process for shows involving young performers and we will be holding a separate awards event to celebrate as many of our talented young people as possible – details will be released a week or so after the adult nominations have been announced.

Who are the judges? What experience do they have? All our judges have a significant amount of experience in community theatre, and some have professional experience and training.

What is the judging process? The judging team has this year seen more than 40 shows and found the standard very high. Two judges attend each show to ensure complete fairness. We have criteria for judges to record their views, and ultimately decide the scores awarded.

Which shows are judged? Each month we email theatre groups with upcoming amateur shows to offer to review and/or judge their show; we can however only offer to judge shows we know about, and we rely on groups to inform us.

Which shows qualify for the awards? All amateur shows produced by a community-based theatre group on the Isle of Wight.

Do you judge professional paid actors? IW Theatre do not include any paid actor appearing in an amateur show as a candidate for the awards.

Do you give awards to professionally paid contributors to shows? Individual paid contributors (eg lighting technicians, musicians) are not judged for the awards; however, if the team they work with includes amateurs, the team may be included.

What happens if the nominee is no longer in contact with the theatre group? Let us know and we will see if we can find contact details for them.

What should I wear? This will be a smart event, so please dress accordingly.

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