Nominees for Afife Awards announced

ISTANBUL

Özge Özder is a nominee for the Best Actress Award 18th Afife Theater Awards.

Nominees for the longest-running theater award event in Turkey, the 18th Yapı Kredi Afife Jale Theater Awards, were introduced at a press conference held April 7 at the Rahmi Koç Museum Erdoğan Gönül Gallery.

This year, actor Münir Özkul was deemed worthy of the Muhsin Ertuğrul Special Award while Ahmet Sami Özbudak was presented the Cevat Fehmi Başkul Award and Professor Zehra İpşiroğlu was presented the Yapı Kredi Special Award.

Yapı Kredi Theater Awards Executive Board Chairman Salih Başağa said that in parallel with the changes in Turkish theater, the 18th Yapı Kredi Afife Theater Awards had two changes this year. “The first one is that musical/comedy branch was removed from categories because it was difficult to make a distinction between comedy and black humor, which is common in modern theater. Also, there were not many plays in this category.”

Başağa said another change was to increase the number of nominees in each category from three to five. “The number of successful plays is increasing every other day. This makes the selection of nominees very difficult for us,” Başağa said.

Following the speeches, this year’s nominees were announced by the jury president Tijen Par. The nominees for the best director category are Ümit Aydoğdu, Serdar Biliş, Yeşim Özsoy Gülan, Oğuz Utku Güneş and Işıl Kasapoğlu. The nominees for best actress are Tülay Günal, Melike Güner, Özge Özder, Tilbe Saran and Zerrin Tekindor, while the candidates for best actor include Enis Arıkan, Gökhan Azlağ, Tardu Flordun, Göktay Tosun and Bülent Emin Yarar. The best production award, meanwhile, will go to one of Galata Perform, Oyun Atölyesi, Tiyatro Adam, Tiyatro Kare and Tiyatro Pürtelaş.