Frost/Nixon, Evita, Rock 'N' Roll Top London's Evening Standard Awards Nominations
Frost/Nixon and the revival of Evita led the list of nominees for London's Evening Standard Theatre Awards, announced today. Both shows, directed by Michael Grandage, received four nominations. Tom Stoppard's popular Rock ‘N' Roll received three nominations. Transfers of the Broadway hits Wicked and Avenue Q as well as popular favorite Dirty Dancing were notably absent from the list. American nominees included Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Kevin Spacey for A Moon for the Misbegotten. The awards ceremony will take place at the Savoy Hotel on November 27.
Two further awards will be announced on the day of the ceremony: the annual special award usually for lifetime achievement and the Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright, which comes with a £30,000 prize donated jointly by Lord Rothermere, chairman of The Daily Mail and General Trust who publish The Evening Standard, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, daughter of the late former editor of the paper Charles Wintour.
Here are the nominees:
Best Play
Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan
Rock ‘N' Roll by Tom Stoppard
The Seafarer by Conor McPherson
Best Musical
Caroline, or Change
Evita
Spamalot
Sunday in the Park with George
Marianne Elliott—Pillars of the Community
Michael Grandage—The Wild Duck, Frost/Nixon and Evita
Anthony Page—Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Best Actor
Bill Irwin—Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Rufus Sewell—Rock ‘N' Roll
Michael Sheen—Frost/Nixon
Kevin Spacey—A Moon for the Misbegotten
Best Actress
Sinead Cusack—Rock ‘N' Roll
Frances O'Connor—Tom And Viv
Kathleen Turner—Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Best Design
Timothy Bird projection design and David Farley set and costume design—Sunday in the Park with George
Borkur Jonsson—Metamorphosis
Christopher Oram—Evita and Frost/Nixon
The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer
Andrew Garfield—Beautiful Thing; Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship; The Overwhelming
Chris New—Bent
Punchdrunk Theatre Group—Faust
Elena Roger—Evita
The Evening Standard Theatre Awards are judged by a panel of professional critics, including the Standard's Nicholas de Jongh, and are not representative of the entire season's output, merely the tastes of the nominators.
