The production won in seven categories at the ceremony, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday for the first time in three years and was presented by comedian Jason Manford. Covid forced the cancellation of the last two annual awards, although a pre-recorded virtual ceremony served as a stopover in the fall of 2020. Cabaret won all four actor’s awards in a musical: Eddie Redmayne (as the grotesque leader of Kit Kat, Emcee) and Jessie Buckley (as singer Sally Bowles) for their starring roles, and Elliot Levey and Liza Sadovy as supporting characters. whose romance is endangered by the rise of Nazism. Rebecca Frecknall was named Best Director and Cabaret also received awards for Best Musical Revival and Best Sound Design (for Nick Lidster). Redmayne, who previously starred in Emcee in a Edinburgh co-production of the 2001 John Kander and Fred Ebb musical, returned to the West End for the first time in 10 years to reprise the role. Brings him his second Olivier Award: he won in 2010 playing the painter Mark Rothko’s assistant in Red. Redmayne paid tribute to Buckley, saying he “would never have gone on this ride” without her. When Buckley took to the stage to receive her award, she joked that it was “like my worst nightmare and my biggest dream at the same time.” The winners of the Olivier Prizes, under the auspices of the Society of London Theater, are selected by a group of industry personalities, stage decorators and theatrical audiences. The Oliviers honor London productions, but the second biggest winner this year, Life of Pi, is a success story that began in Sheffield. The puppet adaptation of Lolita Chakrabarti’s beloved Yann Martel novel opened at the city’s Crucible Theater in 2019 and its transfer to the West End was delayed, like many productions, largely due to the pandemic. Hiran Abeysekera as Pi with Tom Larkin (Tiger Head) in Life of Pi. Photo: Johan Persson Life of Pi won five awards, including Best New Work, Best Lighting Design (Tim Lutkin and Andrzej Goulding) and Best Set (Tim Hatley for the design and Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell for the dolls). Hiran Abeysekera was named best actor for his role as the shipwrecked teen Pi, and the Best Supporting Actor award went to seven actors who played the tiger in the play: one giving the creature a voice and three pairs of performers representing his head. , heart and back. Manford presided over a joyous ceremony with many ggs. Referring to Will Smith’s slap in the face to presenter Chris Rock at the Oscars after a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, Manford said: a night for back slap not slap! ». He later joked with Andrew Lloyd Webber that he would be arrested for opening his theater during the shutdown, calling the composer “West End Che Guevara”. Many speeches were marked by a sense of joy in a community that came together again after the prolonged instability and unrest caused by Covid. Actress Lesley Manville also performed a special show in solidarity with the people of Ukraine during what she called an era of “unbearable suffering” after the Russian invasion. Ukrainian mezzo soprano Kseniia Nikolaieva, whose family is still in her homeland, sang the country’s national anthem. In his speech, Elliot Levey paid tribute to his late Ukrainian grandfather, who left Kyiv many years ago after the death of his brothers in a pogrom, and Levey criticized the “incompetence and hostility” of his current plan. Of the United Kingdom for the hospitality of Ukrainians. Jason Manford hosted the ceremony. Photo: Jeff Spicer / Getty Images for SOLT The Best Entertainment or Comedy Award went to Pride and Prejudice * (* Sort Of), a noisy, all-female riff in Jane Austen’s novel that premiered at Glasgow’s Tron Theater in 2018. Despite rave reviews , its turn in the West End was cut short in February after Covid restrictions led to a drop in audience numbers and losses estimated at 25 25,000 a week. Back to the Future: The Musical, whose 2020 screening in Manchester ended early due to Covid before being moved to London’s Adelphi Theater, has emerged as the best new musical. The award for best play revival was given to a clever two-handed production of Nick Payne’s two-star constellations, in which four pairs of actors took turns playing a couple whose relationship takes place against the background of quantum theory of multiverse. Directed by Michael Longhurst, the production of Donmar Warehouse was presented at the Vaudeville Theater while Donmar underwent renovations. For her performance in Constellations, Sheila Atim won Best Actress. This is her second Olivier Award. also got Best Actress in a Leading Role in a musical for Girl from the North Country in 2018. Atim said the play was about “fighting adversity together” and that “we all did it” during pandemic. She thanked co-star Ivanno Jeremiah and also enjoyed the fact that, in Donmar’s varied approach to casting for the Constellations, she was later played by a man, Omari Douglas, when she appeared next to Russell Tovey later in the run. Arinzé Kene, center, at Get Up, Stand Up! Bob Marley’s musical. Photo: Tristram Kenton / The Guardian The National Theater’s production of Larry Kramer’s autobiography The Normal Heart, about the 1980s AIDS crisis in New York, was nominated for Best Revival and four of its actors. Liz Carr won for her performance as a character based on Dr Linda Laubenstein, a physician and pioneer HIV / Aids researcher. Carr thanked the National Theater for giving the opportunity to an actor with a disability to play the role, while stressing that “it should not be an opportunity, it should be a right”. She wore a dress embellished with some of the lines of her character from the play and said that The Normal Heart combined her twin interests in art and activism and that his story resonated in the midst of a global health crisis and the response of a ” apathetic “government. The award for Outstanding Achievement in a Affiliate Theater went to the Bush Theater’s Old Bridge, a play by Igor Memic set in his hometown of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a difficult year for escapist music spectacles, a luxury production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes – which broke a Barbican ticket record – won the Best Theater Choreographer Award out of a total of nine nominations. Anything Goes received a five-star review from the Guardian, as did the blockbuster musical Disney Frozen, which reopened at the Royal Drury Lane Theater after a 60 60 million renovation. Frozen had four nominations, but none led to victory. Red Mill! Musical won for its luxurious costumes designed by Catherine Zuber. Get up get up! Bob Marley Musical had four nominations, with orchestrator Simon Hale winning in his category. The ceremony was marked by performances by musical nominees and concluded with a tribute to the late Stephen Sondheim. Cabaret director Rebecca Frecknal. Photo: David Levene / The Guardian The Royal Opera House was recognized for Peter Whelan and the Bajazet of the Irish Baroque Orchestra (an outstanding achievement in opera) and for Jenůfa, directed by Claus Guth (best new opera production), and for Best Family Performance for the Wolf Witch Giant Fairy . a folk opera created with Little Bulb at the ROH Linbury Theater. Both dance awards went to productions at Sadler’s Wells: Revisor, Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s show based on Nikolai Gogol’s play The Government Inspector, was named best new dance production, while Jolly Folly, an ode to silent films in choreography of rising star Arielle Smith for English National Ballet, won great success in dance. Special recognition awards were given to five people this year for recognizing their outstanding contribution to the theater industry. They went to Lisa Burger, executive director and co-director of the National Theater (which also recently became CBE). designer Bob King, who has created artwork and advertising campaigns for many major West End shows. Gloria Louis, inclusion and diversity for the Delfont Mackintosh Theaters. the philanthropist Susie Sainsbury. and Sylvia Young, who founded her drama school 50 years ago. His alumni include singers Amy Winehouse and Dua Lipa, actors Daniel Kaluuya and Keeley Hawes, and former Olivier Award winner Billie Piper.
