The Stage

Donmar Warehouse leads Evening Standard Theatre Award nominations

Published Friday 7 November 2008 at 12:25 by Alistair Smith

The Donmar Warehouse leads the way in the shortlist for this year’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards, picking up six nominations.

Meanwhile, the Royal Court and Young Vic both receive three nods apiece, with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Scotland all picking up two.

The Donmar’s artistic director Michael Grandage is nominated for the Best Director award for his work on Ivanov, the Chalk Circle and Othello, while performers Kenneth Branagh, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margaret Tyzack, Penelope Wilton and Felicity Jones are all recognised for their performances in Donmar shows.

Evening Standard critic and one of the award judges Nicholas de Jongh said: “It’s been an astonishing year in the London theatre. We have ranged from the heights of Shakespeare’s Histories cycle performed in one epic sweep at the Roundhouse, to Kenneth Branagh leading Chekhov’s Ivanov and Michael Grandage’s year-long season in the West End.

“We have seen a West End cinema playing host to a hybrid film-theatre version of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, La Cage aux Folles rediscovered as the first gay-marriage musical and Enid Bagnold’s fifties traditional middle-class drama acclaimed as a classic of dark English comedy, while Kevin Spacey, Jeff Goldblum and Josh Hartnett have proved that Hollywood stars can dazzle in London as well.”

The winners will be revealed at a lunchtime award ceremony presented by Richard Wilson for around 250 invited guests in the Paul Hamlyn Hall at the Royal Opera House on Monday, November 24.

The nominations in full are:

Best Play:

• Black Watch - by Gregory Burke (National Theatre of Scotland at Barbican)
• Now Or Later - by Christopher Shinn (Royal Court)
• The Pitmen Painters - by Lee Hall (Live Theatre and National Theatre co-production)

Best Actor:

• Kenneth Branagh - Ivanov (Donmar West End at Wyndham’s)
• David Calder - King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe)
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - Othello (Donmar Warehouse)

Best Actress:

• Lesley Sharp - Harper Regan (National’s Cottesloe)
• Margaret Tyzack - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)
• Penelope Wilton - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)

The Sydney Edwards Award for Best Director:

• Michael Boyd - The History Cycle (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Roundhouse)
• Michael Grandage - Othello/The Chalk Garden/Ivanov (Donmar West End at Wyndham’s and Donmar Warehouse)
• John Tiffany - Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland at Barbican)

The Ned Sherrin Award for Best Musical:

• La Cage Aux Folles - Menier Chocolate Factory and Playhouse
• Marguerite - Theatre Royal Haymarket
• Street Scene - The Opera Group, Young Vic and Watford Palace Theatre co-production

Best Design:

• Miriam Buether - In The Red And Brown Water (Young Vic)
• Rob Howell - The Norman Conquests (Old Vic)
• Neil Murray - Brief Encounter (Kneehigh at Cinema Haymarket Theatre)

The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright:

• Bola Agbaje - Gone Too Far (Royal Court)
• Anupama Chandrasekhar - Free Outgoing (Royal Court)
• Tarell Alvin McCraney - In The Red And Brown Water/The Brothers Size (Young Vic)

The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer:

• Felicity Jones - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)
• Lex Shrapnel - Henry IV Part I (Royal Shakespeare Company at The Roundhouse)
• Ella Smith - Fat Pig (Trafalgar Studios and Comedy Theatre)
Tweet

Also from The Stage

• Shulman and Wintour commemorated in Evening Standard theatre awards
• Branagh, Spacey and Russell Beale battle it out for Best Actor Award
• Macbeth scoops double commendation at 53rd Evening Standard Theatre Awards
• Plays championed over musicals at Evening Standard Theatre Awards
• Russell Beale collects third Evening Standard award

External links

• Donmar Warehouse
• Entry for Evening Standard Theatre Awards in Wikipedia

The Stage Online is not responsible for the content of external sites.

To contact the Stage news team email newsdesk@thestage.co.uk or call 020 7403 1818, selecting option 2 (editorial) followed by option 1 (newsdesk).
If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Follow The Stage on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest entertainment industry news to your desktop or mobile.