Criteria

MTM:UK Organisers will select musical theatre productions for assessment which satisfy the following criteria.

All Work
(Best New Musical, Best Musical Production, Best Book, Best Music and Best Lyrics)

• Presented by professional or aspiring professional groups. This can include university or student groups where it is demonstrated that the intent of the key participants is to develop careers in the Musical Theatre business professionally.
• Must be playing in Wk 2 of the Festival, and must be playing across at least 2 weeks of the Festival for a minimum of 4 performances in each week.
• Must be registered with the Fringe Office as a bone-fide company.
• MTM will check the eligibility of all shows displayed in the Fringe programme in the Musicals and Opera section. Outside of this, MTM can only make its best efforts to find other eligible shows within the programme. It is the responsibility of groups which this affects to ensure that MTM:UK organisers are aware, by July 15th, that the show could be eligible for assessment.
• The work must be considered a “musico-dramatic work”  by the Organisers. This will be a subjective opinion and will probably exclude plays with songs, or revues without dramatic plot. It will assess the work in terms of our subjective view that the work is destined for development into a professional Musical Theatre market (not necessarily the West End).
• Tickets must be made available to the assessors at no cost to allow up to 3 people to attend in the preliminary round before the shortlisting, and a further 3 people to attend during Week 3.

Additional Requirements for New Work
(Best New Musical, Best Book, Best Music and Best Lyrics)

• The work must not have been performed in front of a paying audience more than 15 times anywhere in the world.
• The work must be, in the opinion of MTM:UK, intended and appropriate for further productions in other parts of the UK.

NOTES

Amateur Companies
The organisers reserve the right to include a work in the assessment list, even if it is not presented by a professional company, where it is clear that the presenters are championing a new aspiring writer.

Best Musical Production
Works eligible just for the Best Musical Production can be from the existing canon of works, or be a work which has had more than 15 performances, however once again MTM:UK sees its role as celebrating innovation and exciting new creativity, and so the assessor scoring will favour new work over existing work.