Shows at the Traverse theatre – which this year celebrates its 50th birthday – have dominated the first batch of awards at this year’s fringe festival, with four receiving a Fringe First.

The Scotsman’s awards, which are being presented for the 40th consecutive year, celebrate outstanding new writing at the fringe.

The theatre’s winning shows included plays by two Scottish writers: David Greig, whose The Events considers the effect of a mass shooting on a community choir, and David Harrower’s one-woman play, Ciara, about the daughter of a Glasgow crime baron. The other two awards went to George Brant’s Grounded, a monologue looking at drone warfare, and Owen McCafferty’s Quietly, which explores the aftermath of a Belfast bombing.

Winners from around the festival include the young Scottish company Tortoise in a Nutshell, whose work, Feral, uses puppetry to examine the riots. Also, for the second year running, director Yael Farber, whose Nirbhaya responds to the Delhi gang rape of December 2012, and death of the victim, a 23-year-old woman. The final two Fringe Firsts were presented to a story about two Shirley Bassey fans, Kiss Me Honey, Honey! and to Donal O’Kelly’s Brace – Fionnuala, in which he plays a Shell PR manager, at the Hill Street theatre.

Ciara and Nirbhaya also picked up prestigious Herald Angel awards at the end of the festival’s first week. Two other Herald Angels went to the Czech physical theatre company Spitfire, for their Muhammad Ali-inspired piece, One Step Before the Fall and to Boneyard Theatre’s spoken-word play, Sandpits Avenue. The comedian Sean Hughes was also honoured for his show, Penguins.