The Sit-Up Awards champion and support theatre-makers who are driving social change

The Sit-Up Awards help harness the power of theatre to achieve greater social impact by supporting companies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before, during and after their productions. Launched in 2018 by Changing Ideas, we aim to encourage audiences to do something if they are affected by work they have seen on stage.

We believe in the power of theatre to achieve change both in audiences and wider society. So often momentum ends when the curtain comes down – our mission is to get audiences to sit up and do something.

In 2024, Sit-Up Awards partnered with New York’s SoHo Playhouse to award this year’s winner FAMEHUNGRY a coveted slot in New York at the International Fringe Encore Series in January 2025.

Previous Winners

  • FAMEHUNGRY (2024)

    Louise Orwin presents FAMEHUNGRY - a production exploring the idea of an increasingly digitised world of screens and social media. It asks what happens to art, to childhood, and to our sense of self and others in a world where social media rules.

  • Woodhill (2023)

    By LUNG Theatre in Association with North Wall, Woodhill is a multi-faceted community project responding to deteriorating living conditions, cuts to mental health support and suicide in prisons.

  • The Beatles Were a Boyband (2022)

    An urgent and unapologetically feminine response to misogyny by Rachel O’Regan. The play directly calls on the audience to take action against everyday misogyny and the company provided links to resources for anyone affected by the issues.

  • Who Cares (2019)

    A gripping verbatim theatre production based on a year of interviews that offers a rare insight into the lives of young carers from Salford. The play aims to help identify 'hidden' young carers in society and signpost them to support available through local young carers services.

  • Dangerous Giant Animals (2018)

    Dangerous Giant Animals tells the story of Christina’s relationship with her younger sister who has severe disabilities and the impact it has had, and still has, on her life.