Rachel Weisz, Kevin Spacey, Ian McKellen, Mark Rylance and More Top London's Evening Standard Awards Long List

Academy Award winners Rachel Weisz and Kevin Spacey, Academy Award nominee Sir Ian McKellen, Tony Award winner Mark Rylance and Tony Award nominee Simon Russell Beale are among the long list of actors, directors and productions in the running for the 2009 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, which will be handed out on November 23 at the Royal Opera House. The list will be narrowed down over the course of the next week, with the short list of London stage competitors to be released shortly thereafter.

The Best Actress Award has notably been renamed to honor the late Natasha Richardson, who died earlier this year in a skiing accident.

The Evening Standard Awards highlight the best of the London stage annually. This year, Weisz's acclaimed performance in the Donmar Warehouse production of A Streetcar Named Desire puts her at the front of the pack. Meanwhile, Sir Ian McKellen is listed for his run in Waiting for Godot, though co-star Patrick Stewart is missing from the list. Also spotlit is comedian Lenny Henry, who made his dramatic debut to critical acclaim in Othello. The London transfer of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County received five Evening Standard nods.

The awards are chosen by a panel of theater critics from the UK's top publications. The complete list of contenders is as follows:

Best Actor
Bertie Carvel, The Pride
Michael Feast, Plague Over England
Henry Goodman, Duet for One
David Harewood, The Mountaintop
Matthew Kelly, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Troilus and Cressida
Ian McKellen, Waiting for Godot
Simon Russell Beale, The Winter’s Tale
Mark Rylance, Jerusalem
Kevin Spacey, Inherit the Wind
Ken Stott, A View From the Bridge
David Tennant, Hamlet
David Troughton, Enjoy
Samuel West, Enron

The Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress
Samantha Bond, Arcadia
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Penny Downie, Helen
Rebecca Hall, The Winter’s Tale
Pauline Malefane, The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso
Lyndsey Marshal, The Pride
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, A View From the Bridge
Amy Morton, August: Osage County
Juliet Stevenson, Duet for One
Michelle Terry, England People Very Nice
Rachel Weisz, A Streetcar Named Desire

Best Play
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
England People Very Nice by Richard Bean
Enron by Lucy Prebble
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth
Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek and Ryan Craig
Pornography by Simon Stephens
Punk Rock by Simon Stephens
Tusk Tusk by Polly Stenham
When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell

The Ned Sherrin Award for Best Musical
A Little Night Music
Been So Long
Hello, Dolly!
The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso
Spring Awakening
Sunset Boulevard

Best Director
Howard Davies, Burnt by the Sun
Marianne Elliott, All’s Well That Ends Well
Richard Eyre, The Last Cigarette and The Observer
Rupert Goold, Enron
Jeremy Herrin, Tusk Tusk
Janice Honeyman, The Tempest
Sean Mathias, Waiting for Godot
Sam Mendes, The Winter’s Tale
Ian Rickson, Jerusalem
Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County

Best Design
Jon Bausor, Kursk
Miriam Buether, Judgment Day
Lez Brotherston, Dancing at Lughnasa
Bob Crowley, Phedre
Rob Howell, The Observer
Mamoru Iriguchi, Mincemeat
Peter McKintosh, Prick Up Your Ears
Vicki Mortimer, Burnt by the Sun
Christopher Oram, Hamlet, Madame De Sade, Twelfth Night and A Streetcar Named Desire
Todd Rosenthal, August: Osage County
Ultz, Jerusalem

The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright
Alia Bano, Shades
Kieron Barry, Stockwell
Lucy Kirkwood, It Felt Empty When the Heart Went At First Bust It Is Alright Now
Molly Davies, A Miracle
Katori Hall, The Mountaintop
Ella Hickson, Eight
Alexi Kaye Campbell, The Pride and Apologia

The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer
Naana Agyei-Ampadu, Been So Long
Aneurin Barnard, Spring Awakening
Lenny Henry, Othello
Ruth Negga, Phedre
Bel Powley, Tusk Tusk
Toby Regbo, Tusk Tusk
Tom Sturridge, Punk Rock
Charlotte Wakefield, Spring Awakening
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, 2nd May 1997