Goodness, a play by Canadian Michael Redhill, has won the Best of Edinburgh award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The prize means the play by the Toronto-based experimental theatre company Volcano will be produced in New York.

Redhill's play, which examines genocide and morality, premiered in Toronto last year as a co-production of Volcano and Tarragon Theatre.

It drew good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, which saw more than 1,800 plays mounted from Aug. 6 to 28.

The Scotsman called the play "flawed, risky, but fascinatingly honest" and the Herald named it the best play at the Fringe well before the award was announced.

"The question posed in Goodness has been asked many times… but Michael Redhill's knotty play is compelling, particularly in Ross Manson's disarmingly simple and beautifully acted production, which is threaded through with laments from around the globe," a reviewer in the Guardian said.

Goodness, with a cast of six, won a Fringe First writing award earlier in the festival and now has taken the Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation award, the Best of Edinburgh, which ensures the top shows from the festival go on to New York.

It will appear in New York at Performance Space 122 from March 1 to 11.

"Goodness is a remarkably well-written play," Tambor said in a statement.

"It reminds us that we cannot forget past evils, yet we cannot be quick to judge."