The
Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are presented annually for outstanding achievements in
London TheatreWest End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's "Theatreland". Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world...
. Sponsored by the
Evening StandardThe London Evening Standard is a free local daily newspaper, published in tabloid format in London, England. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the southeast of England, with coverage of national and international news and a strong emphasis on City of London finance...
newspaper, they are announced in late November or early December.
Trophies
The trophies take the form of a strongly modelled statuette, a somewhat Grecian figure representing
DramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
, designed by
Frank DobsonFrank Dobson R.A. was a British artist and sculptor.Dobson attended the Hastings School of Art and was then an apprentice in the studio of Sir William Reynolds-Stephens. From 1910 to 1912 he attended the City and Guilds of London Art School in Kennington, South London...
RAThe Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London, England. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment...
, a former Professor of Sculpture at the
Royal College of ArtThe Royal College of Art is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD...
.
Categories
Three of the awards are given in the names of former Evening Standard notables:
- Arts editor Sydney Edwards (who conceived the awards, and died suddenly in July 1979) for the Best Director category.
- Editor Charles Wintour
Charles Vere Wintour, CBE was a British newspaper editor.Wintour wrote articles for the Radio Times while he was at Oundle School, and won a prize awarded by the Daily Mail...
(who as deputy-editor in 1955, launched the awards after a 'nod from the then proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook') for Most Promising Playwright.
- Long-serving theatre critic Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic.-Early life:He was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a successful shopkeeper. His parents were born in the Ukraine and were driven out of Russia by poverty and the pogroms against the Jews...
(for several years a key member of the judging panel) for the Outstanding Newcomer award.
In 1980, noting the first use of the
Special Award category, Shulman observed that: "In 1968 the judges felt that Alan Bennett's work
Forty Years On did not fit either the category of a Play or a Musical. But since they liked it so much they gave him the coveted Dobson statuette as a Special Award. In a quarter of a century, only in 1968 had no-one been designated as 'Promising' although it could conceivably be argued that Alan Bennett's Special Award was a reasonable substitute for this category."
The Special Awards process came to a climax in 2004 when, in the 50th anniversary year, the category was used to signal peaks of accomplishment by the
National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company....
(an institution),
Harold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE , was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times...
(a playwright) and Dame
Judi DenchDame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English actress.Originally trained as a set designer, Dench began her acting career in the mid 1950s in amateur productions, and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company...
(a performer).
The
Patricia Rothermere Award, presented biennially, was established in 1999 to recognise those who have given outstanding support to young actors. There is also a three-year scholarship award for a drama student. Lady Rothermere is the wife of Lord Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust, owners of the Evening Standard.
Commencing in 2007, the award for
Best Musical was renamed The
Ned SherrinEdward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC....
Award, in memory of the entertainer and raconteur, for many years the witty compere of the Evening Standard Awards ceremony.
Awards ceremonies
The 2007 Awards lunchtime ceremony took place at the
Savoy HotelThe Savoy Hotel is a five-star hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London that opened on 6 August 1889. The hotel, called "London's most famous hotel", remains one of London's most prestigious and opulent hotels, with 263 rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames...
in London on 27 November, 2007. . For the judges' assessments of the winners, see
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23423447-details/Winning+performances+on+the+West+End+stage/article.do
The 2008 winners were announced in a ceremony at London's Royal Opera House on 24 November .For the judges' assessments of the winners, see
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23592167-details/A+winning+year+for+leading+lights+of+the+London+stage/article.do.
Best Play
- 1955: Tiger at the Gates by Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II.-Biography:...
- 1956: Romanoff and Juliet
Romanoff and Juliet is a play by Peter Ustinov. A comic spoof of the Cold War, it is set in the small mythical mid-European country of Concordia, whose leader is wooed by the United States and the Soviet Union, each one wanting him as an ally. Russia's ambassador, a member of the Romanoff family,...
by Peter UstinovSir Peter Alexander Ustinov, CBE , was a British actor, writer and dramatist.He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, director, stage designer, screenwriter, comedian, humorist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter.A noted wit and...
- 1957: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on November 28, 1955...
by Ray LawlerRaymond Evenor Lawler is an influential Australian actor, dramatist and producer. His most notable play was his tenth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , which had its premiere in Melbourne in 1955. The play changed the direction of Australian drama...
- 1958: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955, has been restaged several times since, and was adapted into an acclaimed 1958 motion picture.-Plot:...
by Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams , né Thomas Lanier Williams, was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama...
- 1959: The Long and the Short and the Tall
The Long and the Short and the Tall is a 1960 film directed by Leslie Norman and stars Laurence Harvey, Richard Todd, Richard Harris, David McCallum, John Meillon, John Rees and Ronald Fraser...
by Willis HallWillis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class Leeds roots in much of his material....
- 1960: The Caretaker
The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
by Harold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE , was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times...
- 1961: Becket
Becket or The Honor of God is a Tony Award-winning play written in French by Jean Anouilh. It is a depiction of the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England leading to Becket's murder in 1170...
by Jean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist.-Early years:Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux and had Basque ancestry. His father was a tailor and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship...
, adapted by Lucienne Hill
- 1962: The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who steals a baby but becomes a better mother than its natural parents....
by Bertolt Brecht' was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner...
, translated by John HolmstromJohn Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He is best known for illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe...
- 1963: Poor Bitos by Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist.-Early years:Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux and had Basque ancestry. His father was a tailor and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship...
, adapted by Lucienne Hill
- 1964: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider...
by Edward AlbeeEdward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Seascape . His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition...
- 1965: A Patriot for Me
A Patriot For Me is a 1965 play by the English playwright John Osborne, based on the true story of Alfred Redl. It was notable for being denied a licence for performance by the censor of the time....
by John OsborneJohn James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of The Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre. In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV...
, and The Killing of Sister GeorgeThe Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus that was adapted as a 1968 film directed by Robert Aldrich.Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers...
by Frank MarcusFrank Marcus was a playwright, best known for The Killing of Sister George.-Life:Frank Ulrich Marcus was born 30 June 1928 into a Jewish family in Breslau . They came to England as refugees in 1939...
(joint award)
- 1966: Loot
Loot is a play by Joe Orton. The play is an extremely dark farce which satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force....
by Joe OrtonJohn Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
- 1967: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a 1967 play by English playwright Peter Nichols, first staged at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland before transferring to London's West End theatres in 1968.-Plot summary:Characters* Bri* Grace* Joe* Freddie...
by Peter NicholsPeter Nichols is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and then did his National Service in the RAF for three years, going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While he was working as a...
- 1968: The Hotel in Amsterdam by John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of The Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre. In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV...
- 1969: The National Health
The National Health is a play by Peter Nichols. Reminiscent of the Carry On film series, this black comedy with tragic overtones focuses on the appalling conditions in an under-funded national health hospital, which are contrasted comically with a Dr...
by Peter NicholsPeter Nichols is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and then did his National Service in the RAF for three years, going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While he was working as a...
- 1970: Home
Home is a play by David Storey. Written in a quasi-absurdist style heavily influenced by Samuel Becket, it is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is revealed gradually as the story progresses....
by David StoreyDavid Malcolm Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award winning novelist and a former professional Rugby League player....
- 1971: Butley
Butley is a 1971 play by Simon Gray. The title character, a literary professor and T. S. Eliot scholar, is a suicidal alcoholic who loses his wife and male lover on the same day...
by Simon GraySimon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was a British playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
- 1972: Jumpers
Jumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skillful competitive gymnastics display...
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1973: Saturday, Sunday, Monday by Eduardo de Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...
, adapted by Keith WaterhouseKeith Spencer Waterhouse CBE was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.-Biography:Keith Waterhouse was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
and Willis HallWillis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class Leeds roots in much of his material....
- 1974: The Norman Conquests
The Norman Conquests is a trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour...
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1975: Otherwise Engaged
Otherwise Engaged is a bleakly comic play by English playwright Simon Gray. It opened at the Queen's Theatre in London on 10 July 1975, with Alan Bates as the star and Harold Pinter as director, produced by Michael Codron. Ian Charleson co-starred as Dave, a Glasgow lout...
by Simon GraySimon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was a British playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
- 1976: Weapons of Happiness
Weapons of Happiness is a 1976 political play by Howard Brenton about a strike in a London crisp factory. The play makes use of a dramatic conceit whereby the Czech communist cabinet minister Josef Frank is imagined alive in the 1970s , and his hallucinations of life in Stalinist Czechoslovakia...
by Howard BrentonHoward John Brenton is an English playwright. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on 13 December, 1942, son of Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He married Jane Margaret Brenton.-Early years:...
- 1977: Just Between Ourselves by Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1978: Night and Day
Night and Day is a 1978 play by Tom Stoppard. The sets and costumes were designed by Carl Toms and it ran for two years at the Phoenix Theatre in central London, UK. The lead roles of George Guthrie and Ruth Carson were created by John Thaw and Diana Rigg....
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1979: Amadeus
Amadeus is a stage play written in 1979 by English author Peter Shaffer, loosely based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. Amadeus was inspired by Mozart and Salieri, a short play by Aleksandr Pushkin and later adapted into an opera of the same name by Nikolai...
by Peter ShafferSir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist, author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
- 1980: The Dresser
The Dresser is a 1983 film which tells the story of an aging actor's personal assistant, who struggles to keep his charge's life together. The film is based on a screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on his successful West End and Broadway play....
by Ronald HarwoodRonald Harwood CBE, is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay...
- 1981: Passion
Passion is a 1981 play by British playwright Peter Nichols dealing with adultery and betrayal. The play opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on May 7, 1983 where it closed on August 8, 1983 after 107 performances. The production was directed by Marshall W...
by Peter NicholsPeter Nichols is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and then did his National Service in the RAF for three years, going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While he was working as a...
- 1982: The Real Thing
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1983: Master Harold...and the Boys
Master Harold...and the Boys is a play by Athol Fugard. First produced at the Yale Repertory Theatre in early 1982 and made its premiere on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on 4 May where it ran for 344 performances...
by Athol FugardAthol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in , best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
- 1984: Benefactors
Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila...
by Michael FraynMichael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 1985: Pravda
Pravda is a play by David Hare and Howard Brenton. It was first produced at the Royal National Theatre on 2 May 1985, directed by David Hare starring Anthony Hopkins in the role of Lambert Le Roux. It is a satire on the mid-1980s newspaper industry, in particular the press baron Rupert Murdoch...
by Howard BrentonHoward John Brenton is an English playwright. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on 13 December, 1942, son of Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He married Jane Margaret Brenton.-Early years:...
and David HareSir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Biography :Hare was born David Rippon in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Theodore Rippon, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing College and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
- 1986: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les liaisons dangereuses is a play adapted from the 1782 Pierre Choderlos de Laclos novel of the same title by Christopher Hampton. The plot focuses on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation, all the while enjoying their...
by Choderlos de Laclos
- 1987: A Small Family Business
A Small Family Business is a play by Alan Ayckbourn, based around the business of the title and dealing with the Thatcherism of the time. It premiered at the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre on 20 May 1987, where it won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for that year...
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1988: Aristocrats by Brian Friel
Brian Joseph Friel Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist and theatre director, originally from Northern Ireland, now a resident of the Republic of Ireland.-Biography:...
- 1989: Ghetto
Ghetto is a play by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol about the experiences of the Jews of the Vilna Ghetto during Nazi occupation in World War II...
by Yehoshua SobolYehoshua Sobol, also known as Joshua Sobol , is an Israeli playwright, writer and director at theatres in Israel and abroad. Yehoshua Sobol is married to Edna, set and costume designer...
- 1990: Shadowlands
Shadowlands is a 1985 television film, written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. Its subject is the relationship between Oxford don and author, C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham....
adapted by William NicholsonWilliam Nicholson is a BAFTA-, Oscar- and Tony-nominated British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist.-Family:A native of Lewes, Sussex, William Nicholson was raised in a Catholic family in Gloucestershire. By the time he reached his tenth birthday, he had decided to become a writer...
from a play Surprised By Joy by Brian SibleyBrian Sibley is an English writer. He is author of over 100 hours of radio drama and has written and presented hundreds of radio documentaries, features and weekly programmes.- Early life :...
and Norman Stone
- 1991: Dancing at Lughnasa
Dancing at Lughnasa is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in Ireland's County Donegal in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator...
by Brian FrielBrian Joseph Friel Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist and theatre director, originally from Northern Ireland, now a resident of the Republic of Ireland.-Biography:...
- 1992: Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...
by Tony KushnerTony Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Early years:Kushner was born in Manhattan, New York...
- 1993: Arcadia
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge.-Synopsis:...
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1994: Three Tall Women
Three Tall Women is a play by Edward Albee, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Albee's third.-Characters:* A: She is a very old woman in her 90s. She is thin, autocratic, proud, and wealthy. She also has a mild case of Alzheimer's disease.* B: B is A's 52 year-old version, to whom she...
by Edward AlbeeEdward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Seascape . His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition...
- 1995: Pentecost by David Edgar
David Edgar is a British playwright and author who has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, making him one of the most prolific dramatists of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain.He was resident playwright at the Birmingham...
- 1996: Stanley
Stanley is a 1996 play written by English playwright, Pam Gems. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London.-Plot synopsis:...
by Pam GemsPam Gems is an English playwright. She is the author of numerous original plays, as well as of adaptations of works by major European playwrights of the past. She is best known for the hit musical Piaf.-Career:...
- 1997: The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories after dying and contains many classical allusions. ...
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1998: Copenhagen
Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based around an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It debuted in London in 1998. Within the National Theatre in London, it ran for more than 300 performances, starring David Burke ,...
by Michael FraynMichael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 1999: no award
- 2000: Blue/Orange
Blue/Orange is a play by written by English dramatist, Joe Penhall. A sardonically comic piece which touches on race, mental illness, and 21st century British life, it premiered at the Cottesloe Theatre in April 2000, starring Bill Nighy, Andrew Lincoln and Chiwetel Ejiofor...
by Joe PenhallJoe Penhall is a playwright and screenwriter. Born in London, his first major play was Some Voices for the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1994...
- 2001: Far Side of the Moon by Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage, CC, OQ is a playwright, actor and film director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...
- 2002: A Number
A Number is a 2002 play by English playwright Caryl Churchill which addresses the subject of human cloning and identity, especially nature versus nurture...
by Caryl ChurchillCaryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
- 2003: Democracy
Democracy is a play by Michael Frayn which premiered at the Royal National Theatre on September 9, 2003, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Roger Allam as Willy Brandt and Conleth Hill as Günter Guillaume...
by Michael FraynMichael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 2004: The History Boys
The History Boys is a play by English playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Lyttelton Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where there were 185 performances staged before it closed on 1 October 2006.-Characters:*...
by Alan BennettAlan Bennett is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright.-Early years:Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School , learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained...
- 2005: The Home Place
The Home Place is a play written by Brian Friel that first premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on 1 February 2005. After a sold-out season at the Gate it transferred to London's West End on 25 May 2005, where it won the 2005 Evening Standard Award for Best Play, and made its American premiere at...
by Brian FrielBrian Joseph Friel Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist and theatre director, originally from Northern Ireland, now a resident of the Republic of Ireland.-Biography:...
- 2006: Rock 'n' Roll
Rock 'n' Roll is a play by Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.-Plot summary:...
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 2007: A Disappearing Number
A Disappearing Number is a 2007 play co-written and devised by the Complicite company and directed and conceived by English playwright Simon McBurney. It was inspired by the collaboration during the 1910s between two of the most remarkable pure mathematicians of the twentieth century, Srinivasa...
by Simon McBurneySimon Montagu McBurney, OBE is an English Olivier Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
and CompliciteThe British experimental theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name, Théâtre de Complicité, is French for Theatre of Complicity...
- 2008: The Pitmen Painters
The Pitmen Painters is a play by Lee Hall, inspired by a book by William Feaver about the Ashington Group. Following a sell out run at both the Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne in 2007 and its transfer to the Royal National Theatre, it will return to the National for a limited season before...
by Lee HallLee Hall is an English playwright and screenwriter.-Career:Hall's most commercially successful work is Billy Elliot, the story of a young boy in the north of England who, in the face of opposition from his family and community, aspires to be and ultimately becomes a ballet dancer. The inspiration...
Best Actor
- 2008 – Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor, OBE is a British actor. In 2006 he received 2 Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture and Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series.-Early years:...
for OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
- 2007 – Patrick Stewart
Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor. He has had a distinguished career in theatre for nearly fifty years, including performances as various characters in Shakespearean productions...
for MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth, commonly just Macbeth, is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
- 2006 – Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he became well known for his role as the hero, Will Ladislaw, in the BBC adaptation of...
for Rock 'n' RollRock 'n' Roll is a play by Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.-Plot summary:...
- 2005 – Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
for The PhilanthropistThe Philanthropist is a quarterly academic journal devoted to the legal, management and accounting issues facing charitable and not-for-profit organizations. It was founded as an occasional publication of the Trusts and Estates Section of the Canadian Bar Association - Ontario in Toronto,...
- 2004 – Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths OBE is an English actor of stage, film and television. He has received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play, and the Tony Award for Best Performance by a...
for The History BoysThe History Boys is a play by English playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Lyttelton Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where there were 185 performances staged before it closed on 1 October 2006.-Characters:*...
- 2003 – Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen, OBE is a Welsh actor. Having worked with screen writer Peter Morgan on five films, Sheen has become best known for his portrayals of well-known public figures: Tony Blair in The Deal, The Queen, and The Special Relationship, David Frost in both the stage production and film version...
for CaligulaCaligula is a play written by Albert Camus, begun in 1938 and published for the first time in May 1944 by Éditions Gallimard. The play was later the subject of numerous revisions. It was part of what the author called the "Cycle of the Absurd", with the novel The Stranger and the essay The Myth...
- 2002 – Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
for Uncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.-Background:...
and Twelfth Night
- 2001 – Alex Jennings
Alex Jennings is an English actor perhaps best known for his supporting role as Charles, Prince of Wales in The Queen alongside Helen Mirren.-Early years:Jennings was born to Michael Thomas and Peggy Patricia Mahoney in Essex...
for The Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W...
and The RelapseThe Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded....
- 2000 – Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
for HamletThe Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then...
- 1999 – Stephen Dillane
"Stephen Dillane is a British actor.-Biography:Dillane was born in West Wickham in South-East London, England, to an Australian surgeon father and an English mother. He read history and political science at the University of Exeter and afterward became a journalist for the Croydon Advertiser...
for The Real ThingThe Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
- 1998 – Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
for The Iceman ComethThe Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Harry Hope –...
- 1997 – Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles, including the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the...
for King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
- 1996 – Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE was an English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, a reprise of the role he played in the stage...
for John Gabriel BorkmanJohn Gabriel Borkman is the penultimate composition of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, written in 1896.-Plot:The play is based on an incident that Ibsen recorded from an earlier period in his life, the attempted suicide of an army officer who had been accused of embezzlement...
- 1995 – Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Olivier Award- and BAFTA Award-winning Irish-British actor who has worked in theatre, television, and film...
for VolponeVolpone is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and animal fable...
- 1994 – Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
for Moscow Stations (Venedikt Yerofeev, ad Stephen Mulrine)
- 1993 – Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles, including the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the...
for MoonlightMoonlight is a play written by Harold Pinter, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in September 1993.-Setting:
THREE MAIN PLAYING AREAS:rehashes his youth, loves, lusts, and betrayals with his wife, [Bel], while simultaneously his two sons [Fred and Jake] — clinical,...
- 1992 – Nigel Hawthorne
Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne CBE was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister.-Early life:Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England, the son of Agnes...
for The Madness of King George IIIThe Madness of King George is a 1994 film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own play, The Madness of George III. It tells the true story of George III's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his son, the Prince of Wales, particularly...
- 1991 – John Wood
John Wood, CBE, is an English actor.-Biography:Wood was born in Derbyshire and studied at Jesus College, Oxford. Known as a stage actor, he has played extensively in Shakespeare, having joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s. He has also appeared in many of Tom Stoppard's plays...
for King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
- 1990 – Richard Harris for Henry IV
Henry IV is a play by Luigi Pirandello, considered by some to be his masterpiece. Written in just two weeks in 1921 and first performed in 1922, it studies the comedy and tragedy of madness and is based on Pirandello’s experiences with his wife who struggled with the disease all her life.There are...
- 1989 – Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE , is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received a Tony Award and two Academy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
for OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
- 1988 – Eric Porter
Eric Richard Porter was an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early life:Porter was born in Shepherds Bush, London to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall...
for Cat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955, has been restaged several times since, and was adapted into an acclaimed 1958 motion picture.-Plot:...
- 1987 – Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Olivier Award- and BAFTA Award-winning Irish-British actor who has worked in theatre, television, and film...
for A View from the BridgeA View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller first staged on 29 September 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway....
- 1986 – Albert Finney
Albert Finney, Jr. is an English actor. Hailed as a "second Olivier" as a young stage actor in the late 1950s, Finney rose to film star fame in the early 1960s...
for OrphansOrphans is a 2009 play by London playwright Dennis Kelly, an exploration of violence in urban areas. Kelly said “I always want my plays to have tension, whether the audience hates it or loves it is up to them, but I never want them to be bored.”...
(Lyle Kessler)
- 1985 – Anthony Sher for Richard III
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591, depicting the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as...
- 1984 – Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE , is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received a Tony Award and two Academy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
for CoriolanusCoriolanus is a 1608 tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Martius Coriolanus.-Characters:*Gaius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus*Menenius Agrippa, Senator of Rome...
- 1983 – Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi CBE is an English actor and film director. Like Laurence Olivier, he bears the distinction of holding two knighthoods, Danish and British.-Early life:...
for Much Ado about NothingMuch Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare set in Messina, Sicily. The story concerns a pair of lovers named Claudio and Hero who are due to be married in a week. To pass the time before their wedding day, they conspire with Don Pedro, the prince of Aragon, to trick their...
- 1982 – Alec McCowen
Alexander Duncan "Alec" McCowen CBE, , an English actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. He was awarded the CBE in the 1985 New Year's Honours List.-Personal:...
for The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. is a 1981 literary novella written by George Steiner, in which Jewish Nazi hunters find Adolf Hitler alive in the Amazon jungle thirty years after the end of World War II...
- 1981 – Alan Howard
Alan MacKenzie Howard, CBE, is an English actor known for his roles on stage, television and film.He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983, and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.-Personal life:Howard is the only son of the actor...
for Good
- 1980 – Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
for The DresserThe Dresser is a 1983 film which tells the story of an aging actor's personal assistant, who struggles to keep his charge's life together. The film is based on a screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on his successful West End and Broadway play....
- 1979 – Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell is an English actor.-Early life:Mitchell was born Warren Misel in Stoke Newington, London. He is of Russian Jewish descent, but describes himself in interviews as an atheist who sometimes believes in God....
for Death of a SalesmanDeath of a Salesman is a 1949 play by American playwright Arthur Miller and is a classic of American theater. The play ran for 742 performances, winning both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The original production was directed by Elia Kazan with Lee J...
- 1978 – Alan Howard
Alan MacKenzie Howard, CBE, is an English actor known for his roles on stage, television and film.He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983, and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.-Personal life:Howard is the only son of the actor...
for CoriolanusCoriolanus is a 1608 tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Martius Coriolanus.-Characters:*Gaius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus*Menenius Agrippa, Senator of Rome...
- 1977 – Donald Sinden
Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE D.Litt is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled...
for King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
- 1976 – Albert Finney
Albert Finney, Jr. is an English actor. Hailed as a "second Olivier" as a young stage actor in the late 1950s, Finney rose to film star fame in the early 1960s...
for Tamburlaine the Great
- 1975 – John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor/director/producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
for No Man's LandNo Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...
- 1974 – John Wood
John Wood, CBE, is an English actor.-Biography:Wood was born in Derbyshire and studied at Jesus College, Oxford. Known as a stage actor, he has played extensively in Shakespeare, having joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s. He has also appeared in many of Tom Stoppard's plays...
for TravestiesTravesties is a comedy by British dramatist, Tom Stoppard, first produced at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 10 June 1974, in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play was directed by Peter Wood and designed by Carl Toms, with lighting by Robert Ornbo...
- 1973 – Alec McCowen
Alexander Duncan "Alec" McCowen CBE, , an English actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. He was awarded the CBE in the 1985 New Year's Honours List.-Personal:...
for The MisanthropeThe Misanthrope is the first EP from metal band Darkest Hour. It was released in 1996 on the defunct label Death Truck Records. It is much more hardcore orientated metalcore unlike their later releases.- Track listing :# "Vise" - 5:30...
- 1972 – Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
for Long Day's Journey Into NightLong Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
- 1971 – Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was a British actor of stage, screen and television.-Early life:Bates was born in Allestree, Derby, England on 17 February 1934, the eldest of three sons of Florence Mary , a homemaker and a pianist, and Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance broker and a cellist...
for ButleyButley is a 1971 play by Simon Gray. The title character, a literary professor and T. S. Eliot scholar, is a suicidal alcoholic who loses his wife and male lover on the same day...
- 1970 – John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor/director/producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
and Ralph RichardsonSir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
for HomeHome is a play by David Storey. Written in a quasi-absurdist style heavily influenced by Samuel Becket, it is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is revealed gradually as the story progresses....
- 1969 – Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson is a Scottish-born British actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando".-Early life:...
for HamletThe Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then...
- 1968 – Alec McCowen
Alexander Duncan "Alec" McCowen CBE, , an English actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. He was awarded the CBE in the 1985 New Year's Honours List.-Personal:...
for Hadrian VII
- 1967 – Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
for Dance of Death
- 1966 – Albert Finney
Albert Finney, Jr. is an English actor. Hailed as a "second Olivier" as a young stage actor in the late 1950s, Finney rose to film star fame in the early 1960s...
for A Flea in Her EarA Flea in Her Ear is a 1907 play by Georges Feydeau written at the height of the Belle Époque.-Plot:The play is set in Paris at the turn of the century. Raymonde Chandebise, after years of wedded bliss, begins to doubt the fidelity of her husband, Victor Emmanuel, who suddenly has become sexually...
- 1965 – Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles, including the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the...
for Henry VHenry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War....
- 1964 – Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson is a Scottish-born British actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando".-Early life:...
for Inadmissible EvidenceInadmissible Evidence is a Tony-nominated play written by John Osborne in November 1964. It was also filmed in 1968.The protagonist of the play is William Maitland, a middle-aged English solicitor who has come to hate his entire life. Much of the play consists of lengthy monologues in which...
- 1963 – Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.He twice won Best Actor trophies in the Evening Standard Awards and twice received the Variety Club of Great Britain 'Actor of the Year' Award...
for Uncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.-Background:...
- 1962 – Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE was an English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, a reprise of the role he played in the stage...
for King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
- 1961 – Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer, CC is a Canadian theater, film and television actor. In a career that spans over five decades and includes substantial roles in film, television, and theater, Plummer is perhaps best known for the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music...
for BecketBecket or The Honor of God is a Tony Award-winning play written in French by Jean Anouilh. It is a depiction of the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England leading to Becket's murder in 1170...
- 1960 – Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE, was an English actor. He featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. Guinness later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
for RossRoss is a 1960 play by British playwright Terence Rattigan.It is a biographical play of T. E. Lawrence and is centred around the assumption that Lawrence was homosexual.- Plot synopsis :...
, and Rex HarrisonSir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won both an Academy Award and a Tony Award.-Youth and stage career:...
for PlatonovPlatonov is the name in English given to an early, untitled play written in Russian by Anton Chekhov in 1878. It was the first large-scale drama by Chekhov written specifically for Maria Yermolova, rising star of Maly Theatre...
- 1959 – Eric Porter
Eric Richard Porter was an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early life:Porter was born in Shepherds Bush, London to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall...
for RosmersholmRosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwork, only equalled by The Wild Duck of 1884...
- 1958 – Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.He twice won Best Actor trophies in the Evening Standard Awards and twice received the Variety Club of Great Britain 'Actor of the Year' Award...
for A Touch of the Sun (N C Hunter)
- 1957 – Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
for The Entertainer- Background :The Entertainer is a three act play by John Osborne, first produced in 1957. His first play, Look Back in Anger, had attracted mixed notices but a great deal of publicity. Having depicted an "angry young man" in the earlier play, Osborne wrote about an angry middle aged man in The...
- 1956 – Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE was an English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, a reprise of the role he played in the stage...
for The Power and the GloryThe Power and the Glory is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often added to the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever , amen." This novel has also been published under the name The...
- 1955 – Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award and was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood...
for Henry VHenry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War....
Best Actress
- 2008 – Penelope Wilton
Penelope A. Wilton, Lady Holm OBE is an English actress.-Biography:Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire to a former actress mother and a businessman father. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant...
and Margaret TyzackMargaret Maud Tyzack OBE , is an award-winning British actress.-Early life:Tyzack was born in Essex, England, the daughter of Doris and Thomas Edward Tyzack. She grew up in West Ham...
for The Chalk GardenThe Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered in 1955 on Broadway. The play tells the story of Mrs. St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under Miss Madrigal's care. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near...
- 2007 – Anne-Marie Duff
Anne-Marie Duff is an English actress best known for playing Fiona Gallagher in Shameless, and Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen.-Early life:...
for Saint JoanSaint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises based on what is known of her life and on the substantial records of her trial...
- 2006 – Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Prizzi's Honor....
for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider...
- 2005 – Harriet Walter
Harriet Mary Walter, CBE, is a Tony Award-nominated British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Christopher Lee., as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. She was educated at the Cranbourne Chase School...
for Mary StuartMary Stuart is a play by Friedrich Schiller based on the life of Mary I of Scotland. The play is subdivided in five acts and each act is divided into several scenes. The play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800...
- 2004 – Victoria Hamilton
Victoria Sharp is a British actress who performs under the stage name Victoria Hamilton.Hamilton is best known for her roles in costume drama. She appears as Ruby Pratt, one of the major characters in the BBC1 series Lark Rise To Candleford...
for Suddenly, Last SummerSuddenly, Last Summer is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams. It opened off Broadway on January 7, 1958 as part of a double-bill with another one of Williams' one-act plays: Something Unspoken. The presentation of the two plays was given the overall title Garden District, but Suddenly, Last...
- 2003 – Sandy McDade for Iron
- 2002 – Claire Higgins
Clare Frances Elizabeth Higgins is an award-winning English actress.- Early life :Age : 53Higgins, the second of five children, was born in Bradford in the county of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Paula Cecilia and James Stephen Higgins. Her parents came from a working-class Irish Catholic...
for Vincent in BrixtonVincent in Brixton is a play by Nicholas Wright. The play premiered at London's National Theatre. It transferred to the Playhouse Theatre and later to Broadway.It focuses on artist Vincent Van Gogh's time in Brixton, London in 1873...
- 2001 – Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw, CBE is a leading Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is regarded as one of the finest classical actresses of her generation...
for MedeaMedea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
- 2000 – Paola Dionisotti for Further Than the Furthest Thing (Zinnie Harris)
- 1999 – Janie Dee
Janie Dee is an award-winning English actress and singer.She is married to the actor Rupert Wickham.-Theatre:Dee has performed a wide range of stage productions, from modern comedy to Shakespeare, contemporary drama to musical theatre and opera...
for Comic PotentialComic Potential by Alan Ayckbourn is a romantic sci-fi comedy. It is set in a TV studio in the foreseeable future, when low-cost androids have largely replaced actors....
- 1998 – Sinéad Cusack
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress.-Background:Cusack was born Jane Moira Cusack, the daughter of Maureen and Cyril Cusack, both actors. She is the sister of actresses Sorcha Cusack, Niamh Cusack and half sister to Catherine Cusack...
for Our Lady of Sligo (Sebastian Barry)
- 1997 – Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London , the cockney daughter of Annie Ellen , a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and Arthur Thomas Atkins, a gas-meter reader who was...
for A Delicate Balance
- 1996 – Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider...
and Mother CourageMother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin...
- 1995 – Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan is an English actress, with a diverse history in theatre, film and television. From 2004–2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple shown on ITV1 in the UK, and PBS in the U.S.-Background:She was born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932, in Old...
for The Way of the WorldThe Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
- 1994 – Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 57 years...
for Three Tall WomenThree Tall Women is a play by Edward Albee, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Albee's third.-Characters:* A: She is a very old woman in her 90s. She is thin, autocratic, proud, and wealthy. She also has a mild case of Alzheimer's disease.* B: B is A's 52 year-old version, to whom she...
- 1993 – Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw, CBE is a leading Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is regarded as one of the finest classical actresses of her generation...
for MachinalMachinal is a play written by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real life case of convicted and executed murderess Ruth Snyder. The play stands out as one that calls for a vast array of specific sound effects...
- 1992 – Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
for MedeaMedea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
- 1991 – Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave CBE is an Oscar winning English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. A former Trotskyist and leading member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, She is also a social activist for human rights and has...
for When She Danced (Martin Sherman)
- 1990 – Josette Simon
Josette Patricia Simon OBE is a British actress of Antiguan descent. She trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. -Career:...
for After the FallAfter the Fall is a play by American dramatist Arthur Miller. The original performance opened in New York City on January 23, 1964, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Barbara Loden and Jason Robards Jr., with a cameo appearance by Faye Dunaway. Kazan also collaborated with Miller on the script...
- 1989 – Felicity Kendal
Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actress who is well known in the United Kingdom for her television work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring rep company. First appearing on stage aged 9 months, Kendal appeared in her first film,...
for Much Ado About NothingMuch Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare set in Messina, Sicily. The story concerns a pair of lovers named Claudio and Hero who are due to be married in a week. To pass the time before their wedding day, they conspire with Don Pedro, the prince of Aragon, to trick their...
and IvanovIvanov is a four-act drama by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.Ivanov was first performed in 1887, when Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow, commissioned Chekhov to write a comedy. Chekhov, however, responded with a four-act drama, which he wrote in ten days. Despite the success...
- 1988 – Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Vere Duncan, CBE is a Scottish actress. She is a noted stage and television actress, winning the Tony Award for Private Lives.-Personal life:...
for Cat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955, has been restaged several times since, and was adapted into an acclaimed 1958 motion picture.-Plot:...
- 1987 – Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English actress.Originally trained as a set designer, Dench began her acting career in the mid 1950s in amateur productions, and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company...
for Antony and CleopatraAntony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Markus Antonius and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to...
- 1986 – Julia McKenzie
-Career:McKenzie was born in Enfield, Middlesex, England, the daughter of Kathleen Rowe and Albion McKenzie. She is also a patron of the Stephen Sondheim Appreciation Society.-Theatre:...
for Woman in MindWoman in Mind is the 32nd play by English playwright, Alan Ayckbourn. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, in 1985. Despite pedestrian reviews by many critics, strong audience reaction resulted in a transfer to London's West End...
- 1985 – Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave CBE is an Oscar winning English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. A former Trotskyist and leading member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, She is also a social activist for human rights and has...
for The SeagullThe Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
- 1984 – Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 57 years...
for The Way of the WorldThe Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
- 1983 – Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan is an English actress, with a diverse history in theatre, film and television. From 2004–2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple shown on ITV1 in the UK, and PBS in the U.S.-Background:She was born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932, in Old...
for The RivalsThe Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
- 1982 – Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English actress.Originally trained as a set designer, Dench began her acting career in the mid 1950s in amateur productions, and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company...
for A Kind of AlaskaA Kind of Alaska is a one-act play written in 1982 by Harold Pinter , the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.-Summary:A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comotose state for thirty years as a result of contracting sleeping sickness, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old...
(Harold Pinter) and The Importance of Being EarnestThe Importance of Being Earnest is a comic play by Oscar Wilde. It premiered on 14 February 1895 at the St. James's Theatre in London.Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social...
- 1981 – Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 57 years...
for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider...
- 1980 – Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English actress.Originally trained as a set designer, Dench began her acting career in the mid 1950s in amateur productions, and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company...
for Juno and the PaycockJuno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, the second of his well-known "Dublin Trilogy" and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924...
and Frances de la TourFrances de la Tour is an English actress perhaps best known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom Rising Damp, and as Madame Olympe Maxime in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire....
for Duet for OneDuet for One is a film based on an award-winning British play by Tom Kempinski about a world-famous concert violinist named Stephanie Anderson who is suddenly struck with multiple sclerosis. It is set in London and directed by Andrei Konchalovsky...
- 1979 – Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave CBE is an Oscar winning English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. A former Trotskyist and leading member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, She is also a social activist for human rights and has...
for The Lady from the SeaThe Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.-Plot:Ellida Wangel is married to the much older Doctor Wangel, a widower who already has two daughters not much younger than Ellida. After some years, Doctor Wangel finds his wife increasingly strange and anxious...
- 1978 – Kate Nelligan
Patricia Colleen "Kate" Nelligan is a Canadian stage, film and television actress.-Early life:Nelligan, the fourth of six children, was born in London, Ontario, the daughter of Josephine Alice , a schoolteacher, and Patrick Joseph Nelligan, a factory repairman and municipal employee in charge of...
for PlentyPlenty is a play by David Hare about British post-war disillusion. Susan Traherne, a former secret agent, is a woman conflicted by the contrast between her past, exciting triumphs — she had worked behind enemy lines as a Special Operations Executive courier in Nazi-occupied France during World War...
- 1977 – Alison Steadman
Alison Steadman OBE is an award-winning English actress.- Personal life :Steadman was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, the daughter of Marjorie and George Percival Steadman, who worked for an electronics firm as a production controller...
for Abigail's PartyAbigail's Party is a play for stage and television written in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s...
- 1976 – Janet Suzman
-Early life:Suzman was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family, the daughter of Betty and Saul Suzman, a wealthy importer of tobacco. Her grandfather, Max Sonnenberg, was a member of the South African parliament, and she is also a niece of civil rights/anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Suzman...
for Three SistersThree Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first produced in 1901.-The Prozorovs:...
- 1975 – Dorothy Tutin
Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE, was an English actor of stage, film, and television.An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage...
for A Month in the CountryA Month in the Country is the fourth novel by J. L. Carr, first published in 1980 and nominated for the Booker Prize. The book won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1980....
- 1974 – Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
for A Streetcar Named Desire
- 1973 – Janet Suzman
-Early life:Suzman was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family, the daughter of Betty and Saul Suzman, a wealthy importer of tobacco. Her grandfather, Max Sonnenberg, was a member of the South African parliament, and she is also a niece of civil rights/anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Suzman...
for Hello and Goodbye (Athol Fugard))
- 1972 – Rachel Roberts for Alpha Beta (E A Whitehead)
- 1971 – Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
for The Loves of Viorne (Marguerite Duras)
- 1970 – Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 57 years...
for Hedda GablerHedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
- 1969 – Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Early life:Harris was born in Ashby, Suffolk, England, the daughter of Enid Maude Frances and Stafford Berkley Harris. Her grandmother was Romanian...
for Plaza SuitePlaza Suite is a comedy play by Neil Simon.-Plot:The play is composed of three acts, each involving different characters but all set in Suite 719 of New York City's Plaza Hotel...
- 1968 – Jill Bennett
Jill Bennett was a British actress, the fourth wife of playwright John Osborne.-Early life and career:She was born in Penang, Federated Malay States, to British parents, educated at Priors Field, an independent girls boarding school in Godalming, and trained at RADA...
for Time Present (John Osborne)
- 1967 – Lila Kedrova
Lila Kedrova was a Russian-born French actress.-Biography:Though born in Petrograd, Russia, Kedrova spent most of her life in France....
for The Cherry OrchardThe Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
- 1966 – Irene Worth
Irene Worth, Honorary CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre...
for A Song at TwilightA Song at Twilight is a play in two acts by Noël Coward. It is one of a trio of plays collectively entitled Suite in Three Keys, all of which are set in the same suite in a luxury hotel in Switzerland...
(Noël Coward)
- 1965 – Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London , the cockney daughter of Annie Ellen , a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and Arthur Thomas Atkins, a gas-meter reader who was...
for The Killing of Sister GeorgeThe Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus that was adapted as a 1968 film directed by Robert Aldrich.Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers...
- 1964 – Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
for The Wars of the Roses (William Shakespeare, ad John BartonJohn Barton may refer to:* John Barton , a fictional character in British soap Emmerdale* John Barton , 18th century abolitionist* John Barton , 18th century engineer noted for his engravings using his Ruling Engine...
, RSC)
- 1963 – Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress. She was awarded a CBE in 1970 and was made a Dame in the New Year's Honours of 2004.-Early life:...
for Saint JoanSaint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises based on what is known of her life and on the substantial records of her trial...
- 1962 – Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 57 years...
for The Private Ear and The Public Eye (Peter Shaffer)
- 1961 – Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave CBE is an Oscar winning English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. A former Trotskyist and leading member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, She is also a social activist for human rights and has...
for The Lady from the SeaThe Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.-Plot:Ellida Wangel is married to the much older Doctor Wangel, a widower who already has two daughters not much younger than Ellida. After some years, Doctor Wangel finds his wife increasingly strange and anxious...
- 1960 – Dorothy Tutin
Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE, was an English actor of stage, film, and television.An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage...
for Twelfth Night
- 1959 – Flora Robson
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...
for The Aspern PapersThe Aspern Papers is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley...
- 1958 – Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies
Dame Gwen Lucy Ffrangcon-Davies, DBE was a British actress and centenarian.Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies was born in London of a Welsh family; the name "Ffrangcon" originates from a valley in Snowdonia...
for Long Day's Journey Into NightLong Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
- 1957 – Brenda De Banzie
Brenda De Banzie was a British actress of stage and screen.She appeared as Maggie Hobson in the David Lean film version of Hobson's Choice with John Mills and Charles Laughton. Her most notable film role was as Phoebe Rice, the hapless wife of comedian Archie Rice , in the 1960 film version of...
for The Entertainer- Background :The Entertainer is a three act play by John Osborne, first produced in 1957. His first play, Look Back in Anger, had attracted mixed notices but a great deal of publicity. Having depicted an "angry young man" in the earlier play, Osborne wrote about an angry middle aged man in The...
- 1956 – Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
for The Chalk GardenThe Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered in 1955 on Broadway. The play tells the story of Mrs. St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under Miss Madrigal's care. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near...
- 1955 – Siobhan McKenna
Siobhán McKenna , was an Irish stage and screen actress.-Background:Born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family, she grew up in Galway City and in County Monaghan, Ireland speaking fluent Irish...
for Saint JoanSaint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises based on what is known of her life and on the substantial records of her trial...
Best Musical
- 2008 – Street Scene
Street Scene is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill , Langston Hughes , and Elmer Rice . It was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Rice...
- 2007 – Hairspray
Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues...
- 2006 – Caroline, or Change
Caroline, Or Change is a through-composed musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish Klezmer and folk music.-Production history:...
- 2005 – Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in the fictional town of 'Everington' in the real County Durham, UK, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older...
- 2004 – The Producers
The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics by Brooks and music by Brooks and Glen Kelly. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop. ...
- 2003 – Jerry Springer: The Opera
Jerry Springer: The Opera is a British musical written by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas, based on the television show The Jerry Springer Show. The musical is notable for its profanity, its irreverent treatment of Judeo-Christian themes, and surreal images such as a troupe of tap-dancing Ku Klux...
- 2002 – The Full Monty
The Full Monty is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally and score by David Yazbek.In this Americanized version adapted from the 1997 British film of the same name, six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers, low on both cash and prospects, decide to present a strip act at a local club after seeing...
- 2001 – Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew....
(a revival)
- 2000 – The Car Man
Matthew Bourne's The Car Man is a ballet by British choreographer Matthew Bourne. It previewed for the first time on 16 May 2000 at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, England, and was subsequently staged at the Old Vic in London in September of that year....
- 1999 – Spend Spend Spend
Spend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
- 1998 – Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
- 1997 – Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark is a musical written by Kurt Weill , Ira Gershwin , and Moss Hart . It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis, said to be based on Hart's own experiences with...
- 1996 – Passion
Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...
- 1995 – Mack and Mabel
- 1994 – No award
- 1993 – City of Angels
City of Angels is a musical comedy with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel, and book by Larry Gelbart. The musical weaves together two plots, the "real" world of a writer trying to turn his book into a screenplay, and the "reel" world of the fictional film.-Productions:City of Angels...
- 1992 – Kiss of the Spider Woman
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the Manuel Puig novel El Beso de la Mujer Araña. The musical had runs in the West End and Broadway and won the 1993 Tony Award for Best Musical.The show opened in New York to...
- 1991 – Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet opera Carmen in an African American...
- 1990 – Into the Woods
Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch, and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife, brought...
- 1989 – Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a West End musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. It is a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her...
- 1988 – No award
- 1987 – Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. Several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby," "I'm Still Here," "Too Many Mornings," "Could I Leave You?" and "Losing My Mind." The play was nominated for eleven Tonys and won...
- 1986 – The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. The music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Charles Hart and additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe...
- 1985 – Are You Lonesome Tonight by Alan Bleasdale
Alan Bleasdale , now in Merseyside, England is an English television dramatist, best known for writing several social realist drama serials based on the lives of ordinary people.-Early life:...
- 1984 – 42nd Street
42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...
- 1983 – Little Shop of Horrors
Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...
- 1982 – Windy City
Windy City is a musical with a book and lyrics by Dick Vosburgh and music by Tony Macaulay. It is based on the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.-Plot:...
by Dick VosburghRichard Kennedy "Dick" Vosburgh was an American-born comedy writer and lyricist working chiefly in Britain....
and Tony MacaulayTony Macaulay is an author, composer for musical theatre, and songwriter, though it was the latter that made him a household name early in his career.-Career:...
- 1981 – Cats
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. It introduced the song standard "Memory."...
- 1980 – Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 Tony Award–winning musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond.Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway...
- 1979 – Songbook
Songbook is a musical with music by Monty Norman and book by Monty Norman and Julian More. It premiered at the Globe Theatre, in London on July 25, 1979, and ran for 208 performances...
by Monty NormanMonty Norman is a singer and film composer best known for composing the "James Bond Theme".-Biography:Norman was born in the East End of London to Jewish parents on the second night of Passover in 1928...
and Julian Moore
- 1978 – Annie
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The musical ran for nearly six years on Broadway, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre...
- 1977 – Elvis
- 1976 – A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line is a musical about seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....
- 1975 – A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. The musical included the popular song "Send in the Clowns". This title is a literal...
- 1974 – John, Paul, George, Ringo...and Bert by Willy Russell
William Russell is a British dramatist, lyricist, and composer. His best-known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, and Blood Brothers.-Biography:...
- 1973 – The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British stage musical, opening in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, and developed by O'Brien in collaboration with Australian theater director Jim Sharman...
- 1972 – Applause
Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical....
- 1971 – No award
- 1970 – No award
- 1969 – Promises, Promises
Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore...
- 1968 – Cabaret
Cabaret is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
- 1967 – Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...
- 1966 – Funny Girl
- 1965 – No award
- 1964 – Little Me
Little Me was the parody "confessional" self-indulgent autobiography of "Belle Poitrine" , subtitled The Intimate Memoirs of the Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, by Patrick Dennis, who had achieved a great success with Auntie Mame...
- 1963 – Oh! What a Lovely War
Oh! What a Lovely War is a musical film based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! that Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop created in 1963. The title is derived from the music hall song Oh! It's a Lovely War, which is one of the major numbers in the productions. In 1969 Richard...
- 1962 – No award
- 1961 – Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in Britain's West End and on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satire in 1960s Britain.-The...
- 1960 – Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be is a play with music, rather than a normal musical. The play, by Frank Norman, himself a Cockney, has music and lyrics by Lionel Bart, a Jew who also grew up on London's East End. It was initially produced by Joan Littlewood, at her Theatre Workshop, based in the...
by Frank NormanFrank Norman was a British novelist, playwright and autobiographer.His reputation rests on his first memoir Bang to Rights and his musical play Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be , but the much of the remainder of his work remains fresh and readable...
and Lionel BartLionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music & lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
- 1959 – Make Me an Offer by Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent. He was born in Fashion Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London, the heart of London's Jewish community.This background provided him with the material for his most successful book A Kid for Two...
, Monty NormanMonty Norman is a singer and film composer best known for composing the "James Bond Theme".-Biography:Norman was born in the East End of London to Jewish parents on the second night of Passover in 1928...
and David Heneker
- 1958 – West Side Story
West Side Story is an American musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical's plot is based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet....
- 1957 – No award
- 1956 – Cranks by John Cranko
'John Cyril Cranko was a choreographer with the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet....
and John AddisonJohn Mervyn Addison was a British composer best known for his film scores.-Biography:Addison was trained at Wellington College, Berkshire and at the age of sixteen entered the Royal College of Music. He studied composition with Gordon Jacob, oboe with Léon Goossens, and clarinet with Frederick...
- 1955 – The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7-1/2 Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...
- Also in 1955 Salad Days was given the Award for Most Enjoyable Show.
Best Designer
- 2008 – Neil Murray
Neil Murray may refer to:*Neil Murray , British musician who has played bass for a number of notable rock bands*Neil Murray , Australian singer/songwriter who has worked solo and as a member of the Warumpi Band...
for Brief EncounterBrief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the mores of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love was an unexpectedly "violent" thing. The film stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. The screenplay is by Noël Coward, and is based on his 1936 one-act...
- 2007 – Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company for War Horse
War Horse is an adaptation by Nick Stafford of a book of the same name by acclaimed children's writer, Michael Morpurgo. It is was first staged on 17 October 2007 at the National Theatre on London's South Bank and ran through to 14 February 2008. The production returned to the National Theatre for...
- 2006 – Timothy Bird (projections) and David Farley
David Farley, born September 25, 1971 is an American author and journalist. He is originally from Dubuque,Iowa, but spent his formative years in Simi Valley, California...
(set and costumes) for Sunday in the Park With GeorgeSunday in the Park with George is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
- 2005 – Bob Crowley
Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
for Mary PoppinsMary Poppins is a Walt Disney Theatrical musical based on the similarly-titled series of children's books by P. L. Travers and the Disney 1964 film. The West End production opened in December 2004 and received two Olivier Awards, one for Best Actress in a Musical and the other for Best Theatre...
- 2004 – Ian MacNeil, Jean Kalman and Paul Arditti
Paul Arditti is a theatre sound designer, working mainly in the UK and the US. He specialises in designing sound scores for plays and sound systems for musicals. He has won awards for his work in both categories, including the 2006 Olivier Award for Billy Elliot the Musical...
for Festen
- 2003 – Christopher Oram
Christopher Oram is an award-winning British theatre set and costume designer.-Background:He trained at the West Sussex College of Art and Design ....
for CaligulaCaligula is a play written by Albert Camus, begun in 1938 and published for the first time in May 1944 by Éditions Gallimard. The play was later the subject of numerous revisions. It was part of what the author called the "Cycle of the Absurd", with the novel The Stranger and the essay The Myth...
- 2002 – Ian MacNeil for Plasticine and A Number
A Number is a 2002 play by English playwright Caryl Churchill which addresses the subject of human cloning and identity, especially nature versus nurture...
- 2001 – Paul Brown for Platonov
Platonov is the name in English given to an early, untitled play written in Russian by Anton Chekhov in 1878. It was the first large-scale drama by Chekhov written specifically for Maria Yermolova, rising star of Maly Theatre...
and The TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–11, although some researchers have argued for an earlier dating. The play's protagonist is the banished sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, who initially uses his magical powers to punish his enemies when he raises a...
- 2000 – Bunny Christie for Baby Doll
Baby Doll is a 1956 film which tells the story of the childlike bride of a Mississippi cotton gin owner, who becomes the pawn in a battle between her husband and his enemy. It stars Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach and Mildred Dunnock...
- 1999 – Rob Howell for Richard III
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591, depicting the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as...
, Troilus and CressidaTroilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. The play is not a conventional tragedy, since its protagonist does not die. The play ends instead on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between...
and VassaVassa , also called Rains Retreat, is the traditional retreat during the rainy season lasting for three lunar months from July to October. During this time Buddhist monks remain in a single place, generally in their temples...
- 1998 – Richard Hoover for Not about Nightingales
Not about Nightingales is a play by Tennessee Williams that was written in 1938 for the Group Theatre in New York City but was rejected and remained unproduced until 1998. The play is an 18-character socially-minded drama set in "a dynamite-proof, escape-proof" U.S. island prison that follows the...
(First award in this category)
Best Comedy
- 2001 – Feelgood by Alistair Beaton
Alistair Beaton is a Scottish left wing political satirist, journalist, radio presenter, novelist and television writer. At one point in his career he was also a speechwriter for Gordon Brown....
- 2000 – Stones in his Pocket by Marie Jones
Sarah Marie Jones is a Belfast-based actress and playwright. Born into a working class Protestant family, Jones was an actress for several years before turning her hand to writing.-Charabanc/DubbelJoint:...
- 1997 – Closer
Closer is the third play written by English playwright Patrick Marber. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London in 1997, and made its North American debut at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway on 25 January 1999....
by Patrick MarberPatrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, actor and screenwriter.-Early years:Marber was born in London, England, the son of a financial analyst, and was raised in Wimbledon...
- 1996 – 'Art'
‘Art’ is a French language play by Yasmina Reza that premiered on 28 October 1994 at Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The English language adaptation, translated by Christopher Hampton opened in London's West End on 15 October 1996....
by Yasmina RezaYasmina Reza is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter. Her parents were both of Jewish origin, her father Iranian, her mother Hungarian.-Career:...
- 1995 – Dealer's Choice
Dealer's Choice is a play by Patrick Marber first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London in February 1995 where it won both the 1995 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild Award for Best West End Play....
by Patrick MarberPatrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, actor and screenwriter.-Early years:Marber was born in London, England, the son of a financial analyst, and was raised in Wimbledon...
- 1994 – My Night with Reg
My Night with Reg is a play by British playwright Kevin Elyot which was produced in 1994 by the Royal Court Theatre, London, directed by Roger Michell...
by Kevin Elyot
- 1993 – Jamais Vu
In psychology, the term jamais vu is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer.-Psychology:...
by Ken CampbellKenneth Victor Campbell was an English writer, actor, director and comedian known for his work in experimental theatre. He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre."...
- 1992 – The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
Little Voice is a 1998 British drama film with music written and directed by Mark Herman. The screenplay is based on the play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice by Jim Cartwright.-Plot:...
by Jim CartwrightJim Cartwright is an English dramatist.Cartwright was born to Jim Cartwright and Edna Main at Farnworth, Lancashire, England. He trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama....
- 1991 – Kvetch
To Kvetch means to moan, to complain, to whine incessantly....
by Steven BerkoffSteven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. He is patron of the Nightingale Theatre, in Brighton, England, a fringe theatre venue, which is , a small room over a pub...
- 1990 – Man of the Moment
Man of the Moment may refer to:*Man of the Moment , starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Laura La Plante*Man of the Moment , featuring Norman Wisdom*Man of the Moment , a 1990 play by Alan Ayckbourn...
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
and Jeffrey Bernard is UnwellJeffrey Bernard is Unwell is a play by Keith Waterhouse about real-life journalist Jeffrey Bernard who was still alive at the time the play was first performed in the West End in 1989.Bernard wrote the "Low Life" column in The Spectator...
by Keith WaterhouseKeith Spencer Waterhouse CBE was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.-Biography:Keith Waterhouse was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
- 1989 – Henceforward...
The play Henceforward... is the first comedy in which Alan Ayckbourn includes elements of science fiction. It concerns Jerome, a composer, who develops a plan to persuade his estranged wife Corinna that his home life is sufficiently stable for her to allow their daughter to stay with him...
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1988 – Lettice and Lovage
Lettice and Lovage is a comedic play by Peter Shaffer, author of Equus and Amadeus. The play was written specifically for Dame Maggie Smith, who originated the title role of Lettice Douffet in both the English and American runs of the production. The role of Lotte Schoen was played by Margaret...
by Peter ShafferSir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist, author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
- 1987 – Serious Money
Serious Money is a satirical play written by Caryl Churchill first staged in London in 1987. Its subject is the British stock market, specifically the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange ....
by Caryl ChurchillCaryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
- 1986 – A Month of Sundays by Bob Larbey
John Gilbert Esmonde and Bob Larbey were a successful British television comedy scriptwriting duo from the 1960s to the 1990s, creating popular situation comedies such as Please Sir! and The Good Life....
- 1985 – A Chorus of Disapproval
A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1988 British film adapted from the Alan Ayckbourn play of the same title, directed by Michael Winner. Among the movie's cast are Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Richard Briers, and Alexandra Pigg....
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1984 – Stepping Out
Stepping Out is a 1987 Broadway play by Richard Harris. It won the Evening Standard Comedy of the Year award in 1984.-Plot:The play revolves around eight students, which all attend the same weekly tap dancing class in a dingy North London church hall. The students come to class every week to chat,...
by Richard Harris
- 1983 – Tales from Hollywood by Christopher Hampton
Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is an Academy Award-winning British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for...
- 1982 – Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
by Michael FraynMichael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 1981 – Goose Pimples by Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh, OBE is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and did his early acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company . He began as a theatre director and playwright in the 1960s...
- 1980 – Make and Break by Michael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 1979 – A Day in Hollywood, a Night in the Ukraine by Dick Vosburgh
Richard Kennedy "Dick" Vosburgh was an American-born comedy writer and lyricist working chiefly in Britain....
and Frank Lazarus
- 1978 – Gloo-Joo by Michael Hastings
Michael Gerald Hastings is a British playwright, screen-writer, and occasional novelist and poet.He is probably best known for his 1984 play about the poet T.S...
- 1977 – Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols
Peter Nichols is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and then did his National Service in the RAF for three years, going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While he was working as a...
- 1976 – The Thoughts of Chairman Alf by Johnny Speight
Johnny Speight , was a TV scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms.His most famous creation was the controversial bigot Alf Garnett...
- 1975 – Alphabetical Order by Michael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
- 1974 – Travesties
Travesties is a comedy by British dramatist, Tom Stoppard, first produced at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 10 June 1974, in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play was directed by Peter Wood and designed by Carl Toms, with lighting by Robert Ornbo...
by Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
- 1973 – Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...
by Alan AyckbournSir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-two full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received...
- 1972 – Veterans by Charles Wood
Charles Wood is a playwright and scriptwriter for radio, television, and film. He lives in England....
- 1971 – Getting On by Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright.-Early years:Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School , learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained...
- 1970 – The Philanthropist
The Philanthropist is a quarterly academic journal devoted to the legal, management and accounting issues facing charitable and not-for-profit organizations. It was founded as an occasional publication of the Trusts and Estates Section of the Canadian Bar Association - Ontario in Toronto,...
by Christopher HamptonChristopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is an Academy Award-winning British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for...
(First award in this category)
Editor's Award
- 2008 – Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company. Located primarily at Stratford-upon-Avon, with bases also in London and Newcastle upon Tyne, it is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly-funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal National Theatre.-The early...
for its epic cycle of history plays
- 2006 – Frost/Nixon
Best Director
- 2008 – Michael Grandage
Michael Grandage is a British theatre director and producer, and current Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse, London.-Early years:...
for IvanovIvanov is a four-act drama by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.Ivanov was first performed in 1887, when Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow, commissioned Chekhov to write a comedy. Chekhov, however, responded with a four-act drama, which he wrote in ten days. Despite the success...
and OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
and The Chalk GardenThe Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered in 1955 on Broadway. The play tells the story of Mrs. St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under Miss Madrigal's care. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near...
- 2007 – Rupert Goold
Rupert Goold is English theatre director. He is artistic director of Headlong Theatre and from 2010 he will be an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company.-Early years:...
for MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth, commonly just Macbeth, is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
- 2006 – Marianne Elliott
Marianne Elliott is an Irish historian.She was brought up in Newtownabbey, a suburb of Belfast, and educated at Dominican College,Fortwilliam Park, Belfast, Queen's University Belfast and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.She lectured in history at West London Institute of Higher Education 1975 to 1977,...
for Pillars of the Community
- 2005 – Michael Grandage
Michael Grandage is a British theatre director and producer, and current Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse, London.-Early years:...
for Don CarlosDon Carlos is a five-act Grand Opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
and Grand HotelGrand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
- 2004 – Rufus Norris
Rufus Norris is an award winning British theatre director who trained as an actor at RADA before turning to directing.In 2001 he won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his production of Afore Night Came at the Young Vic....
for Festen
- 2003 – Polly Teale
Polly Teale is a British writer and theatre director best known for her work with the Shared Experience theatre company, where she is joint artistic director alongside Nancy Meckler. Teale won the prize for best director at the 2003 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her staging of After Mrs....
for After Mrs Rochester
- 2002 – Sam Mendes
Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes CBE is an English stage, film and commercial director at RSA US. He is known for his 1998 production of Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming, and his debut film, American Beauty, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director.-Early years:Mendes was born in Reading,...
for Uncle VanyaUncle Vanya is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.-Background:...
and Twelfth Night
- 2001 – Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the actress Fiona Shaw....
for MedeaMedea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
- 2000 – Howard Davies
Howard Davies is the name of:* Howard Davies , Wales rugby union international* Howard Davies , Director of the London School of Economics and former British financial regulator...
for All My SonsAll My Sons is a 1947 play by Arthur Miller. The play was twice adapted for film; in 1948, and again in 1986.The play, which opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1947 and ran for 328 performances, was awarded the 1947 Tony Award for...
- 1999 – Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn CBE is an English theatre- and film director.-Early years:Nunn was born in Ipswich, England to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper...
for SummerfolkSummerfolk is a play written in 1903 by Maxim Gorky. Based in part on the life of the writer Anton Chekhov, it takes place in 1904—the same year that Chekhov died...
and The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Although classified as a comedy in the First Folio, and while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic...
- 1996 – Katie Mitchell
Katrina Jane Mitchell OBE is an English theatre director. She is an Associate of the Royal National Theatre.She has been described as "a director who polarises audiences like no other" and "the closest thing the British theatre has to an auteur"...
for The Phoenician WomenThe Phoenician Women is a tragedy by Euripides based on the same story as Aeschylus' play Seven Against Thebes. The title refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi who are trapped in Thebes by the war...
- 1995 – Matthew Warchus
Matthew Warchus is a celebrated Tony award-winning English director and dramatist.Warchus studied music and drama at Bristol University...
for VolponeVolpone is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and animal fable...
and Henry VHenry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War....
- 1994 – Sean Mathias
Sean Gerard Mathias is a British theatre director, film director, writer and actor.He was born in Swansea, south Wales. He is known for directing the film, Bent, and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney...
for Les parents terriblesJean Cocteau's 1948 boulevard farce-with-a-vengeance Les parents terribles tells the tale of Michael and his 'parents terribles', George and Yvonne...
and Design for LivingDesign for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
- 1993 – Terry Hands
-Early years:Hands was born at Aldershot, Hampshire, England. He studied at Woking Grammar School, University of Birmingham and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1964 he established the Liverpool Everyman.-Career:...
for Tamburlaine The GreatTamburlaine the Great is the name of a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur 'the lame'...
- 1992 – Stephen Daldry
Stephen David Daldry, CBE is an English theatre and film director and producer, as well as a three-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning director.-Early years:...
for An Inspector CallsAn Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 and 1946 . It is considered to be one of Priestley's best known works for the stage and one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre...
- 1991 – Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn CBE is an English theatre- and film director.-Early years:Nunn was born in Ipswich, England to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper...
for Timon of AthensThe Life of Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare about an Athenian misanthrope named Timon , generally regarded as one of his most obscure and difficult works...
- 1990 – Richard Jones for Into The Woods
Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch, and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife, brought...
and The IllusionThe Illusion is a play by Tony Kushner, adapted from Pierre Corneille's seventeenth-century comedy, L'Illusion Comique. It follows a contrite father, Pridamant, seeking news of his prodigal son from the sorcerer Alcandre. The magician conjures three episodes from the young man's life...
- 1989 – Nicholas Hytner
Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's National Theatre since 2003.-Biography:...
for Miss SaigonMiss Saigon is a West End musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. It is a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her...
and GhettoGhetto is a play by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol about the experiences of the Jews of the Vilna Ghetto during Nazi occupation in World War II...
- 1988 – Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the actress Fiona Shaw....
for Titus AndronicusTitus Andronicus may be Shakespeare's earliest tragedy; it is believed to have been written in the early 1590s. It depicts a Roman general who is engaged in a cycle of revenge with his enemy Tamora, the Queen of the Goths. The play is by far Shakespeare's bloodiest work...
- 1987 – Peter Hall for Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Markus Antonius and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to...
- 1986 – Nuria Espert
Núria Espert is a TV, theatre and television Catalan actress, theatre and opera directorShe went to Institut Maragall, a highschool in Barcelona, and she started to study theatre while she was taking some courses of music and languages.When she was 17 years old, she had to substitute the actress...
for The House of Bernarda Alba
- 1985 – Bill Bryden
William Campbell Rough Bryden CBE is a British stage- and film director and screenwriter.-Biography:...
for The MysteriesThe Mysteries is a version of the medieval English mystery plays presented at London's National Theatre in 1977. The cycle of three plays tells the story of the Bible from the creation to the last judgement....
- 1984 – Christopher Morahan
Christopher Morahan is an English stage and television director and a producing manager, the son of Thomas Hugo Morahan and his wife Nancy Charlotte...
for Wild HoneyWild Honey is a 1984 adaptation by British playwright Michael Frayn of an earlier play by Anton Chekhov. The original work, a sprawling five-hour drama from Chekhov's earliest years as a writer, has no title but it is usually known in English as Platonov, from its principal character "Mikhail...
- 1983 – Yuri Lyubimov
Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov is a Russian stage actor and director associated with the Taganka Theatre which he founded, ....
for Crime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky that was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments in 1866. It was later published in a single volume...
- 1982 – Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre and television.-Biography:He was Associate Director at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh from 1967 to 1972...
for Guys and DollsGuys and Dolls is a musical, with the music and lyrics written by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon. It also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most...
- 1981 – Peter Hall for The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have been performed following the trilogy; it has not survived...
- 1980 – Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn CBE is an English theatre- and film director.-Early years:Nunn was born in Ipswich, England to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper...
and John CairdJohn Caird was a theologian, born at Greenock and educated at Glasgow. He entered the Church of Scotland, of which he became one of the most eloquent preachers....
for The Life and Adventures of Nicholas NicklebyThe Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an eight-hour stage play, presented over two performances, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel of the same name by David Edgar. Directed by John Caird and Trevor Nunn, it opened on 5 June 1980 at the Aldwych Theatre in London. The music and lyrics...
- 1979 – Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn CBE is an English theatre- and film director.-Early years:Nunn was born in Ipswich, England to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper...
for Once in a LifetimeOnce in a Lifetime is a play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the first of eight on which they collaborated in the 1930s.-Plot:The satirical comedy focuses on the effect talking pictures have on the entertainment industry...
(The first award in this category}
Most Promising Playwright
- 2008 – Tarell Alvin McCraney
Tarrell Alvin McCraney is an award-winning American playwright and actor. He is a member of Teo Castellanos/ D Projects Theater Company in Miami and in 2008 became RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company.-Biography:McCraney attended the New World School...
for In the Red and Brown Water and The Brothers Size
- 2007 – Polly Stenham
-Career:Her debut play That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in April 2007 in a production by Jeremy Herrin for which she won both the Evening Standard's 2007 Charles Wintour Award, and the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, as well as the 2007 Best New Play...
for That FaceThat Face is a two act play by Polly Stenham. The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London on April 26, 2007, directed by Jeremy Herrin. The play was revived at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End on May 1, 2008.-Plot:...
- 2006 – Nina Raine
Nina Raine is an English theatre director and playwright, and the only daughter of the poet Craig Raine.She graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1998 with a First in English Literature.-Career:...
for Rabbit
- 2005 – Nell Leyshon
Nell Leyshon is a British dramatist and novelist.She was born in Glastonbury, England, and lives in the county of Dorset. She attended the University of Southampton, gaining a first in English Literature.Leyshon writes regularly for Radio 4 and 3...
for Comfort Me With Apples
- 2004 – No award
- 2003 – Kwame Kwei-Armah
Kwame Kwei-Armah is a British actor, playwright, singer and broadcaster. In 2005 he became the first black Briton to have a play staged in the West End when his award-winning piece Elmina's Kitchen transferred to the Garrick Theatre in 2005....
for Elmira's Kitchen
- 2002 – Vassily Sigarev for Plasticine
- 2001 – Roy Williams
Roy Samuel Williams, OBE is an English playwright. He was born in London.His plays include:* Night & Day * Josie’s boys * No Boys Cricket Club * Starstruck * Lift Off * Local Boy...
for Clubland
- 2000 – Gary Mitchell
Gary Mitchell is a Northern Irish playwright.From a working-class, loyalist background, first foray into writing was for Radio 4. His first play was produced by Tinderbox but Mitchell's first major theatre success was the production of his In A Little World of Our Own at the Peacock...
fpr The Force of Change
- 1999 – Rebecca Gilman
Rebecca Gilman is an American playwright. She attended Middlebury College, graduated from Birmingham-Southern College, and earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa...
for The Glory of LivingThe Glory of Living is a 1998 play by Rebecca Gilman. The play received its first production at the Circle Theater in Forest Park, Illinois. The play has won many awards and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Plot:...
- 1998 – Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill is an English playwright and journalist.His most famous plays include Shopping and Fucking , Some Explicit Polaroids and Mother Clap's Molly House . He made his acting debut in his monologue Product, at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe...
for Handbag
- 1997 – Conor McPherson
Conor McPherson is an Irish playwright and director.Born in Dublin and educated at University College Dublin, McPherson began writing his first plays there as a member of UCD Dramsoc, the college's dramatic society, and went on to found Fly By Night Theatre Company which produced several of his...
for The WeirThe Weir is a play written by Conor McPherson in 1997. It was first produced at The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London, England, on 4 July 1997. It first appeared on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on 1 April 1998...
- 1996 – Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh is an English playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter.-Life:McDonagh was born in Camberwell, London, England to Irish parents...
for The Beauty Queen of LeenaneThe Beauty Queen of Leenane is a 1996 drama by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh premiered by the Druid Theatre Company in Galway Ireland. It also enjoyed successful runs at London's West End, and Broadway, and off-Broadway theatres in New York....
- 1995 – Jez Butterworth
Jeremy “Jez” Butterworth is an English dramatist and film director.-Biography:Butterworth was born in London, England, and attended Verulam Comprehensive School, St. Albans and St. John's College, Cambridge University...
for MojoMojo is a 1995 play written by English playwright Jez Butterworth that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London, directed by Ian Rickson....
- 1994 – Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey is the name of:*Jonathan Harvey , British composer*Jonathan Harvey , U.S. Representative from New Hampshire*Jonathan Harvey , British playwright...
for Babies
- 1993 – Brad Fraser
Brad Fraser is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and cultural commentator. He is one of the most widely produced Canadian playwrights both in Canada and internationally. Fraser's plays typically feature a harsh yet comical view of contemporary life in Canada, including frank depictions of...
for Unidentified Human Remains
- 1992 – Philip Ridley
Philip Ridley is a British artist working with various media. His work is characterised by an intriguing mix of both the menacing and the magical. The term 'barbaric beauty' has often been used to describe his signature style. You can hear a recording of his voice on TheatreVoice.- Biography...
for The Fastest Clock in the Universe
- 1991 – Rona Munro
Rona Munro is a prize-winning Scottish writer. She has written plays for theatre, radio, and television; was the author of the screenplay of Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird and co-author of Aimée & Jaguar by German director Max Färberböck.Munro is also known for being the author of the last classic...
for Bold Girls
- 1990 – Clare McIntyre for My Heart's a Suitcase
- 1989 – Stephen Jeffreys
Stephen Jeffreys is a British playwright.His plays include Like Dolls or Angels ; Carmen 1936 ; Valued Friends ; The Clink ; The Libertine - also a screenplay filmed with Johnny Depp; A Going Concern...
for Valued Friends
- 1988 – Timberlake Wertenbaker
-Biography:Wertenbaker grew up in the Basque Country of France near Saint-Jean-de-Luz. She attended schools in Europe and the US before settling permanently in London. Having been the Royal Court Theatre's writer-in-residence in 1985, she had her most successful play, Our Country's Good, performed...
for Our Country's GoodOur Country's Good is a 1988 play written by British playwright, Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker...
- 1987 – Stephen Bill for Curtains
- 1986 – Frank McGuinness
Frank McGuinness is an award-winning Irish playwright, translator and poet.-Biography:McGuinness was born in Buncrana, a town located on the Inishowen Peninsula of County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland...
for Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the SommeObserve the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, is perhaps one of Frank McGuinness's most respected plays. The Irish dramatist's work received several awards and accolades, most notably the London Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright...
- 1985 – Billy Hamon for Grafters
Grafters was a British drama/ comedy programme originally broadcast in the UK on ITV from 27 October 1998 - 20 December 1999 for 16 episodes over two series....
- 1984 – Sharman MacDonald
Sharman Macdonald is a Scottish playwright, screenwriter & former actress. She is the mother of Academy Award-nominee Keira Knightley.-Career:...
for When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout
- 1983 – Phil Young for Crystal Clear
- 1982 – Terry Johnson
Terry Johnson is a British dramatist and director working for stage, television and film. He is a Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre. At The Court he directed Dumb Show by Joe Penhall and opened his play Piano/Forte....
for Insignificance
- 1981 – Nell Dunn
-Early years:Dunn was born in London and educated at a convent, which she left at the age of fourteen. Although she came from an upperclass background, in 1959 she moved to Battersea and made friends in the neighborhood and worked for a time in a sweets factory...
for SteamingSteaming is a 1981 play written by English playwright Nell Dunn first staged at Theatre Royal, Stratford, in London.-Film adaptation:The play was adapted for film by Patricia Losey released in 1985. The film was directed by Joseph Losey with Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, and Diana Dors....
- 1980 – Paul Kember for Not Quite Jerusalem
- 1979 – Richard Harris
Richard Saint John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer...
for Outside EdgeOutside Edge is a play by Richard Harris about a cricket team trying to win a game of cricket whilst sorting out their various marital problems at the same time.-Plot:...
and Victoria WoodVictoria Wood CBE is a BAFTA award winning English comedienne, actor, singer and writer, educated at Bury Grammar Girls' School...
for Talent
- 1978 – John Byrne
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero....
for The Slab Boys and Brian ClarkBrian Burgess Clark is a full time playwright and playwright teacher. He is director of the Perry-Mansfield School of Arts theater program in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He was the bicentennial playwright for Worthington, Ohio in the summer of 2003....
for Whose Life Is It Anyway?Whose Life Is It Anyway? is a play by Brian Clark adapted from his 1972 television play of the same title. The play premiered at the Mermaid Theatre in London's West End in 1978 starring Tom Conti as Ken.-Plot:...
- 1977 – Mary O'Malley
Mary O'Malley was an Irish playwright, the founder of Belfast’s Lyric Players Theatre.-Life:At the age of thirteen, whilst stopping off in Dublin, on the way to begin her first year at Loreto Convent, Navan, she attended the Abbey Theatre...
for Once a Catholic and James RobsonJames Robson is a fictional character in the television series Oz, portrayed by R.E. Rodgers.-Character overview:Prisoner #97R492. Convicted November 7, 1997 - Murder in the first degree, assault...
for Factory Birds
- 1976 – Stewart Parker
James Stewart Parker was a Northern Irish poet and playwright.He was born in Sydenham, Belfast, of a Protestant working class family. While still in his teens, he contracted bone cancer and had a leg amputated...
for Spokesong
- 1975 – Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff CBE is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britain's foremost television dramatists.-Career:...
for Hitting Town
- 1974 – Mustapha Matura
Mustapha Matura is a Trinidadian playwright living in London.In 1971 his play As Time Goes By was first performed at the Traverse Theatre Club in Edinburgh and the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, with a cast of noted Caribbean actors including Stefan Kalipha, Alfred Fagon, Mona...
for Play Mas
- 1973 – David Williamson
David Keith Williamson AO is one of Australia's best-known playwrights. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.-Biography:...
for The RemovalistsThe Removalists is a play written by Australian playwright David Williamson. The main issues the play addresses are violence, specifically domestic violence, and the abuse of power and authority...
- 1972 – Wilson John Haire for Within Two Shadows
- 1971 – E A Whitehead for The Foursoe
- 1970 – David Hare
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Biography :Hare was born David Rippon in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Theodore Rippon, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing College and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
for Slag and Heathcote WilliamsJohn Henley Jasper Heathcote-Williams is an English poet, actor and playwright. He is also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror...
for AC/DC
- 1969 – Peter Barnes
Peter Barnes was an English Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His most famous work is the play The Ruling Class, which was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination....
for The Ruling ClassThe Ruling Class is a 1972 British comedy film, an adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman who inherits a peerage. The film costars Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour, James Villiers...
- 1968 – No award
- 1967 – Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and David StoreyDavid Malcolm Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award winning novelist and a former professional Rugby League player....
for The Restoration of Arnold Middleton
- 1966 – David Halliwell for Little Malcom and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs
- 1965 – David Mercer for Ride a Cock Horse
- 1964 – No award
- 1963 – Charles Wood
Charles Wood is a playwright and scriptwriter for radio, television, and film. He lives in England....
for Cockade and James Saunders for Next Time I'll Sing To You
- 1962 – David Rudkin
James David Rudkin is an English playwright of Northern Irish descent. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, Rudkin was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St Catherine's College, Oxford...
for Afore Night ComeAfore Night Come is a play by the British playwright David Rudkin, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962. While the subject matter of the play meant that any production in a public theatre would likely have been vetoed by the Lord Chamberlain, the RSC was able to mount the play at...
- 1961 – Gwyn Thomas
Gwyn Thomas may refer to:*Gwyn Thomas *Gwyn Thomas , 20th century prose writer*Gwyn Thomas , National Poet for Wales 2006...
for The KeepThe Keep may refer to:*The Keep , 1981 novel by F. Paul Wilson*The Keep , 2006*The Keep , 2006 graphic novel by F. Paul Wilson and Matthew Smith*The Keep , Michael Mann film based on the F...
and Henry LivingsHenry Livings was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television and theatre from the 1960s to the 1990s.-Early life and career:Livings was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, England...
for Stop It Whoever You Are
- 1960 – J P Donleavy for Fairy Tales of New York
- 1959 – John Arden
John Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....
for Serjeant Musgrave's DanceSerjeant Musgrave's Dance, An Un-historical Parable is a play by English playwright John Arden, written in 1959 and premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on October 22 of that year. In Arden's introductory note to the text, he describes it as "a realistic, but not a naturalistic" play...
and Arnold WeskerSir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...
for RootsRoots is the second play by Arnold Wesker in The Wesker Trilogy. The first part is Chicken Soup with Barley and the final play I'm Talking about Jerusalem. Roots focuses on Beatie Bryant as she makes the transition from being an uneducated working-class woman obsessed with Ronnie, her unseen...
- 1958 – Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist, author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
for Five Finger ExerciseFive Finger Exercise is a drama film made by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Daniel Mann and produced by Frederick Brisson from a screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on the play by Peter Shaffer....
- 1957 – Robert Bolt
Robert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.- Career :He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended Manchester University, and after war service Exeter University...
for Flowering Cherry
- 1956 – John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of The Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre. In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV...
for Look Back in AngerLook Back in Anger is a John Osborne play and 1958 movie about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
- 1955 – No award
Outstanding Newcomer
- 2008 – Ella Smith
Ella Smith is a Welsh actress. She trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and is a former member of the National Youth Theatre....
for Fat Pig- Plot synopsis :Fat Pig tells us the story of Tom, a thirty-something, in shape, stereotypical professional in a large city, who falls for a very plus-size librarian named Helen. They meet in a crowded cafeteria at lunchtime and get to talking. Tom is taken with her brash acceptance of the way...
- 2007 – Stephen Wight
Stephen Wight is an award-winning British actor, who trained at the Drama Centre London.-Career:Wight's television career dates back to 2003 with a minor part in Casualty....
for Dealer's Choice and Don Juan in SohoDon Juan in Soho is a play by the British playwright Patrick Marber after Molière .Directed by Michael Grandage, it premiered at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London on 6 December 2006, running until 10 February 2007,...
- 2006 – Andrew Garfield
Andrew Garfield is a BAFTA award-winning English actor, who has appeared in radio, theatre, film, and television, including the 2007 releases Lions for Lambs and Boy A.-Personal life:...
for Beautiful ThingBeautiful Thing is a play written and first performed in 1993 by Jonathan Harvey. A screen adaptation of the play was released in 1996 by Channel 4 Films, with a revised screenplay also by Harvey. Initially, the film was only intended for television broadcast but it was so well-received that it was...
; Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship; The Overwhelming
- 2005 – Menier Chocolate Factory
The Menier Chocolate Factory is an award-winning 180 seat fringe studio theatre, restaurant and gallery. It is located in a former 1870s Menier Chocolate Company factory in Southwark Street, a major street in the London Borough of Southwark, central south London, England. The theatre stages plays...
: David Babani and Danielle Tarento
- 2004 – Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne is an English actor and model. He won the award for Outstanding Newcomer at the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his performance in Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, and the award for Best Newcomer at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in 2005. So far, he has...
for The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia?
- 2003 – Tom Hardy
Edward Thomas "Tom" Hardy is an English actor.-Early years:Hailing from East Sheen, London, Hardy began his career in war dramas...
for Blood and In Arabia We'd All Be KingsIn Arabia We'd All Be Kings is a dramatic stageplay that takes place in 1990s New York City, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in 1999. It chronicles the demise of a group of individuals living in New York's Hell's Kitchen around the time of Rudy Giuliani's...
- 2002 – Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
for This Is Our YouthThis Is Our Youth is a play by Kenneth Lonergan. Originally produced by The New Group, it opened at the INTAR Theatre in New York City in October 1996. It later opened at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in November 1998. It was directed by Mark Brokaw, with Mark Rosenthal as Dennis, Mark Ruffalo as...
- 2001 – Rufus Norris
Rufus Norris is an award winning British theatre director who trained as an actor at RADA before turning to directing.In 2001 he won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his production of Afore Night Came at the Young Vic....
for Afore Night ComeAfore Night Come is a play by the British playwright David Rudkin, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962. While the subject matter of the play meant that any production in a public theatre would likely have been vetoed by the Lord Chamberlain, the RSC was able to mount the play at...
- 2000 – Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor, OBE is a British actor. In 2006 he received 2 Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture and Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series.-Early years:...
for Blood/Orange
- 1999 – Eve Best
Eve Best , is a British actress best known for her stage work.-Early life and education:Best grew up in Ladbroke Grove and attended Wycombe Abbey Girls’ School before going on to Lincoln College, Oxford where she read English. Among her earliest public performances were with the W11 Opera...
for Tis Pity She's a Whore (First award in this category)
Theatrical Achievement
- 1998 – Jonathan Kent
Jonathan Kent may refer to:*Jonathan Kent , British actor, then later theatre and opera director*Jonathan Kent , adoptive father of DC Comics character Superman-See also:*Jon Kent, South African cricketer...
and Ian McDiarmidIan McDiarmid is a Scottish Tony Award-winning theatre actor and director, who has also made sporadic appearances on film and television...
of the Almeida TheatreThe Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival...
(Only award in this category)
Patricia Rothermere Award
- 2005 – Penelope Keith
Penelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...
. And Hannah Croft scholarship award
- 2003 – Lord Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE is an English actor, director, producer, and entrepreneur. Attenborough has won two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes...
for exceptional support for young actors. And Elif Yesil scholarship award
- 2001 – Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, best known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:During her long career Scales has usually been cast in...
. And Cassandre Joseph scholarship award
- 1999 – Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director.-Early years:Callow was born in Streatham, London, UK, to Yvonne Mary Guise, a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman...
for Outstanding services to the theatre. And Martin Rea scholarship award
Special Award
- 2008 – Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
for bringing new life to the Old Vic
- 2007 – Stephen Tompkins
Stephen Tompkins is an American artist and animator based in Southern California. He grew up in Avon Lake, Ohio, near Cleveland....
for innovative theatre architecture
- 2006 – The Tricycle Theatre
The Tricycle Theatre is located on Kilburn High Road in Kilburn in the London Borough of Brent, England. It is a publicly subsidised performing arts venue which specialises in new work with political themes, including plays by Irish, African-Caribbean, Jewish and Asian writers, reflecting the mix...
for its pioneering work in political theatre
- 2005 – The Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
- 2004 – 50th Anniversary Special Award: Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE , was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times...
(playwright), National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company....
(institution) and Dame Judi DenchDame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English actress.Originally trained as a set designer, Dench began her acting career in the mid 1950s in amateur productions, and made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company...
(performer)
- 2003 – Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart Stafford-Clark is an English Theatre Director. He went to school at Felsted and Riverdale Country School in New York City. He has worked as a theatre director since he left Trinity College, Dublin....
- 2002 – Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which officially opened in 1997, is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. It is approximately from the site of the original theatre...
- 1998 – Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, fashion model, singer and humanitarian. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honour. In 2006, she was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry.Kidman's...
for The Blue RoomThe Blue Room is a 1998 play by David Hare, adapted from Der Reigen written by Arthur Schnitzler , and more usually known as La Ronde.-Schnitzler's play:...
- 1989 – Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre , multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize...
- 1988 – National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company....
1963-1988: 25 Years of Achievement
- 1984 – Graeae Theatre Company
Graeae Theatre Company is a British organisation composed of artists and managers with physical and sensory impairments. Founded by Nabil Shaban and Richard Tomlinson in 1980 and named for the Graeae of Greek mythology, the company has since become the most well-respected group of its kind...
sharing with The Theatre of Comedy Company
- 1982 – John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor/director/producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
- 1981 – The Royal Shakespeare Company
- 1980 – Sir Ralph Richardson
- 1979 – 25th Anniversary Special Award: Sir Peter Hall
- 1977 – Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary....
- 1976 – Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
- 1975 – Ben Travers
Ben Travers AFC CBE was a British playwright most famous for his farces.Born in the London borough of Hendon, Travers was educated at Charterhouse, where today there is a theatre named for him. After a brief sojourn in business, he served in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service...
- 1973 – Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
- 1972 – Peter Daubeny (Impresario and organizer of the annual World Theatre Season, Aldwych Theatre
The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
1967-1973 and 1975)
- 1968 – Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright.-Early years:Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School , learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained...
for Forty Years OnForty Years On is a 1968 play by Alan Bennett. It was his first West End play.-Subject:The play is set in a British public school called Albion House, which is putting on an end of term play in front of the parents, i.e. the audience...
(First award in this category)
Sources
- Celebration: 25 Years of British Theatre. W. H. Allen Ltd, 1980. ISBN 0491027702, for Awards 1955-1978
- Theatre Record
Theatre Record is a periodical that reprints reviews, production photographs, and other information about the British theatre.-Overview:Founded by Ian Herbert and published fortnightly since January 1981, Theatre Record is printed and published in England every two weeks.It reprints unabridged all...
and its annual Indexes, for Awards 1981 to date