The annual Awards took place at The Dorfman, National Theatre on Friday 15 November 2019.
Joint Artistic Director of Royal Exchange Theatre, Roy Alexander Weise, presented the award and cheque for £6,000 to Jasmine Lee-Jones, winner of Best New Play of the Year for seven methods of killing kylie jenner at this year’s Alfred Fagon Award supported by The Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
I also have to say the intergenerational support for this play and me – typified by this award – has been truly moving. I’ve felt embraced by a community of theatre-makers and artists that I grew up looking up to and I’m well and truly feeling the love! I want to take this moment to honour my fellow nominees and also the generations that have come before us whose tireless work, bravery and commitment to authenticity and excellence have shone through even in the face of structures that sought to silence their voices. They are the reason I continue to dream big.” Jasmine Lee-Jones.
“It’s truly an honour that the judging panel have given me this award. I’ve always wanted to write plays and grew up following the Alfred Fagon Award and its recipients, as well as Alfred Fagon’s legacy, so to be in a lineage of an award that has honoured the likes of Michaela Coel, Charlene James, Theresa Ikoko, and other artists whose work I truly respect and adore, is awe-inspiring.
I also have to say the intergenerational support for this play and me – typified by this award – has been truly moving. I’ve felt embraced by a community of theatre-makers and artists that I grew up looking up to and I’m well and truly feeling the love! I want to take this moment to honour my fellow nominees and also the generations that have come before us whose tireless work, bravery and commitment to authenticity and excellence have shone through even in the face of structures that sought to silence their voices. They are the reason I continue to dream big.” Jasmine Lee-Jones.
Chair of the Judges, Mimi Findlay says, “This play, ridiculously bold in its method of storytelling, portrays a world in which we know is on the brink, dangerous, outspoken and desperate to cure the sickness of cultural appropriation that has been inflicted upon our world. Our judges had never quite seen anything like this before.”
The recipient of this year’s Roland Rees Bursary, named in honour of the co-founder of the Alfred Fagon Award and leading theatre director from the 1970s and 1980s, is Juliet Gilkes Romero. Juliet was presented with a cheque of £3,000 by last year’s recipient Rex Obano. The bursary is awarded annually and enables writers to devote more time to their writing.
The shortlisted plays for Best New Play of the Year were:
Comrades, Mugabe, My Dad and Me by Tonderai Munyevu
Foreign by Carmen Harris
Retrograde by Ryan Cameron
seven methods of killing kylie jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones
Superhoe by Nicôle Lecky
The Dark by Nick Makoha
The trustees of The Alfred Fagon Award are Yvonne Brewster OBE; Sheelagh Killeen Rees; Olusola Oyeleye; James St. Ville and Brian Walters.
The founders of the Award are Yvonne Brewster OBE; Mustapha Matura; Oscar James; Sheelagh Killeen Rees; Roland Rees and Paul Stephenson OBE
