Winner of Propeller's Jill Fraser Award announced

The winner of this year’s Jill Fraser Award, given by the all-male Propeller Theatre Company in honour of the former artistic director of the Watermill, Newbury, has been named as Lewis Hart.

The award is given to a theatre practitioner under the age of 30 for outstanding work. The winner recevives £5,000 and a contract with Propeller on the company's next tour.

Hart is currently playing Snout in Propeller's production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as Balthazar in The Comedy of Errors. He has previously appeared in Propeller's Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew.

Propeller’s artistic director Edward Hall said: "It was under Jill Fraser's visionary direction of the Watermill Theatre that Propeller was born, and it could not have happened without her. We hope she would be proud of the company that Propeller has become, and that this award can be a fitting tribute to the generosity she showed to us then."

Accepting the award, Hart said: "The only feeling that supersedes the surprise of becoming the recipient of an award in the name of someone who has been so influential upon the company that has influenced my career so profoundly over the last two years, is the sense of pride in the work that I've been part of in this and last season’s ensemble.

"I think that I will be looking to create and fund some of my own work with the award, making my experience of being with Propeller ever more integral to my personal development."