Breach, This Egg and Nouveau Riche win New Diorama and Underbelly Untapped Edinburgh awards

The three winners of the Untapped Edinburgh competition, run by Underbelly and New Diorama Theatre, have been announced.

The winning companies are Nouveau Riche, Breach Theatre and This Egg, who will now be able to take their shows up to the Edinburgh Fringe for full-length runs with theatre venue Underbelly.

Nouveau Riche will be making their Fringe debut with Queen of Sheba, a piece exploring a group of black women's day-to-day experiences with men (especially white men). Using language, music, movement and true stories, the south London company moved into theatre after having performed predominantly spoken word pieces.

The second winning group is Breach, known for previous shows including Beanfield, Tank and The Drill (which recently debuted at Battersea Arts Centre). Their Edinburgh show is titled It's True It's True It's True, and is inspired by the transcript of a rape trial from 1612. It explores how little gender power dynamics have changed in the last four centuries.

The third winning group is This Egg, who had an award-winning Edinburgh Fringe hit last year with Me & My Bee. This year they will present their new show entitled dressed and is about someone losing control over their life.

New Diorama's artistic director David Byrne said: "Edinburgh becomes increasingly more challenging and expensive every year, especially for the type of ensemble companies New Diorama supports. The three winners of this prize blew us away with their passion, ideas and performances."

The three winning shows were picked from over 316 entries by a panel of judges from all over the country. The pieces will have a showcase performance at the New Diorama Theatre after the Fringe.

Underbelly's head of programming Marina Dixon said: "We're particularly pleased to be supporting three works led by female strong casts, all looking to address the hugely important and relevant issue of female empowerment – hopefully setting the agenda for this year's festival."