Tuesday 30 August 2022

Brook For Nothing Wins National Play Award

Brook For Nothing cast and crew collecting their NDFA award
Brook For Nothing winning the NDFA Youth Award, July 2022

On July 20th Brook For Nothing won the NDFA Youth Trophy along with a Best Youth Actor award and two nominations for Best Youth Actor. 

The National Drama Festivals Association (NDFA) is a yearly national competition where festival winning plays from across the country are invited to take part in a week long competition. Awards are handed out to the best productions for one-act and full length plays, as well as a number of individual awards for actors and directors.

After Brook For Nothing’s successful festival tour in 2022, we were invited to take part in the NDFA festival after our win at the Welwyn Drama Youth Festival. I wrote the play specifically for Limitless Academy of Performing Arts who had won best youth one-act play two years in a row at the NDFA festival, and the cast and team were very keen to make it a hat-trick. This did make me a nervous as Brook For Nothing is a little... different. It’s a comedy half set in a virtual lobby of a computer game and half set in the main protagonist’s danky flat. We had some feedback from some older adjudicators that they often felt confused by what was going on. But I was confident the base subject matter was universal, regardless of how familiar an audience was with gaming culture. 

So I was very pleased for Limitless that my niche script didn’t hamper them from getting their much deserved record of three wins in a row. They are an exceptionally talented group of youth actors and deserved their win which highlights the fact that Limitless Academy is one of the best drama schools in the country. 


Full list of NDFA 2022 awards for Brook For Nothing

NDFA Youth Trophy: Youth One-Act Winner

Buxton Trophy: Best Youth Actor - Kyle Gould as Fraginator_69 

Best Youth Actor Nomination: William Muir as Brook

Best Youth Actor Nomination: Theo Brignall as Querous/Willis