There’s no need for me to state the obvious. The best I can say about our current situation is that it keeps revealing new sides of ourselves as individuals and as communities. So much in the world of entertainment currently seems impossible and that has many ramifications, both financially and mentally. Yet the possibilities are also revealing themselves.
So for the mental and creative health of our community we have decided to work our socks off to make sure the 2020 Funny Women Awards go ahead. We are known in the industry for finding incredible comedy talent, and this year will be no different. We’ve restructured the Awards process and yes, it will be challenging, but we’re gonna do it anyway.
The 2020 Stage Award will require video submissions as per last year. Following the most recent guidelines and preparing for the next few months means that this year the regional heats stage will involve industry panels viewing these videos in virtual screening rooms. As ever, there will be the same emphasis on having the highest calibre of regional, national and culturally diverse industry judges to make up these new virtual panels.
At the moment our plans are still in place for the live semi-finals to go ahead in July and August, but with a back up strategy in place should this not be possible. We’ve got some pretty interesting and innovative options in the works.
The Comedy Shorts and The Comedy Writing Awards will all be conducted online and the winners will be decided in a virtual meeting as usual!
Entry for Comedy Shorts, Comedy Writing and Stage Awards registration will be open from Wednesday 1st April 2020. Details about registration, terms and conditions for all Award categories will be available on funnywomenawards.com from next week.
The Funny Women Team will be reaching out more than ever to the community through regular newsletters and social media. Our new regional network producer Emily Kennedy-Barnes will be testing ‘virtual playtimes’ with our local producers for participants of Time Of The Month Nights; website editor Kate Stone will be overseeing an increase of our editorial output and Mariana Feijo, our web and social media manager, will be encouraging more discussion and support across our social platforms and online forums. Our founder Lynne Parker will be using innovative new online platforms to deliver her workplace initiatives to business and secure the sponsorship that will keep the Awards and our community going.
I personally have been struck by how radically different and challenging things are in our performance and comedy worlds right now so I have set up a website where, for the next few months, comedy performers can have their existing work showcased online or test out new comedy work. It will be free to participate and with the purpose of giving another platform for comics to get their work seen by the industry. Give it a visit at www.Irl2url.uk.
It’s interesting times for sure. But people will always need comedy.
