The 2014 Best of Edinburgh Award goes to The Object Lesson, by Geoff Sobelle

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The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation announces the winner of The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honor at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

New York, New York August 21, 2014—The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation is proud to announce the winner of this year’s The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honor at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The winner of The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award was announced at the closing ceremonies of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Thursday, August 21 at 5:15 PM GMT (12:15 PM EST).

The 2014 Best of Edinburgh Award goes to The Object Lesson, by Geoff Sobelle. The production will be presented at BAM as part of the Next Wave Festival, from November 6 – November 8, 2014. The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation will give a monetary grant to Mr. Sobelle to subsidize his preparations for his New York run.

An elaborate immersive installation, Geoff Sobelle explores our relationship to ‘things.’ Breaking, buying, finding, fixing, giving, losing, winning, trading, selling, stealing, storing, collecting, cluttering, clearing, packing up, passing on, buried under…a world of things. Featuring floor to ceiling boxes filled with the stuff of a lifetime, The Object Lesson invites the audience to enter and investigate the trash and treasures within. A meditation on physical baggage, Sobelle uses his possessions to explore the meaning and meaninglessness in the stuff we cling to and the crap we leave behind.

The Object Lesson was called “ingenious” by The Scotsman in its 4-Star review. The Guardian said it was “a hugely enjoyable, highly intelligent, ultra-connected meditation on our attachment to the past.”

Carol Tambor describes the show as “a magical world, created out of thin air with a few props and cardboard boxes. We are invited to enter Geoff Sobelle’s mind and memories, which are filled with humor, gentleness and deft conjuring. Its stillness and nostalgia has stayed with me since I was privileged to be part of his universe.”

To be eligible for The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the show must be an original work, never seen in New York City, and have received a 4-star or 5-star review from The Scotsman, Scotland’s foremost daily newspaper.

Carol Tambor and members of her Foundation, along with The Scotsman Newspaper’s Arts Writers Joyce McMillan, Jackie McGlone and Mark Fisher chose the winning production.

Now in its 11th year, The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award builds a bridge between New York City and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Created by Carol Tambor in 2004, the inaugural award winners were “Sister’s, Such Devoted Sisters” and “Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles”. This showcase resulted in both shows being picked up for productions in the US and Canada.

In 2005, The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation presented the critically acclaimed NYC premiere of Andrew Dawson’s “unbearably beautiful” (NY Times) “Absence and Presence”.

The 2006 winner, Michael Redhill’s “Goodness”, which deals with understanding and forgiveness, performed in Rwanda in 2009 as part of the 15th anniversary commemoration of the genocide there.

2007’s winner “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” a surreal satire that used animation and live performance to tell 10 startling and funny tales, was the recipient of two Drama Desk nominations and toured around the world for two years.

The 2008 winner Ella Hickson’s “Eight” returned to the US after its NY premiere, to the Ringling Festival in Sarasota Florida—curated by Mikhail Baryshnikov and also ran Washington, DC and in London.

Guna Nua’s production of Elaine Murphy’s “Little Gem,” the 2009 winner, had a sold-out London run, and toured the UK, Ireland and Australia. It recently returned to Dublin where it played at the 1150 seat Olympia Theatre.

Pants on Fire’s spectacular retelling of Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” was the 2010 winner. They returned to the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe for an encore performance.

The Foundation presented the US premiere of the 2011 winner, the gravity defying “LEO,” by German company Circle of Eleven. “LEO” has since toured to Montreal, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Iran and the Spoleto Festival in the US.

David Greig’s Midsummer and the international hit Mies Julie shared the 2012 honor. In 2013, the award went to Mr. Greig’s The Events, which is receiving its NY premiere at New York Theatre Workshop for their 2014/2015 Season.

Carol Tambor is a portrait artist by trade and a theatre aficionado. For over a decade prior to creating the award, she had traveled to Edinburgh to enjoy the Festival offerings. Dismayed that so many fine plays never transferred to NYC, she decided to create an opportunity for New York audiences to get a taste of the Edinburgh magic.

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation was established to bring excellent dramatic work to the New York audience by funding the New York run. The mission to support artists in their desire to be seen and produced is carried out with no financial or commercial involvement in their future success. For more information, visit www.bestofedinburgh.org.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world, has been ongoing since 1947. There were 45,464 performances of 2,871 shows during the 2013 Festival, selling nearly 2 million tickets (sailing past the 2011 record of 1.88 million). The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has served as a launching pad for the careers of stars such as Craig Ferguson, Mike Myers, John Cleese, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Jude Law and Eddie Izzard as well as renowned playwrights like Tom Stoppard. For more information, visit www.edfringe.com.