Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies and Thea Sharrock’s production of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance lead the nominations in the 2011 Laurence Olivier Awards, announced today.
Love Never Dies, which continued The Phantom Of The Opera story with its arrival at the Adelphi theatre last March, leads the musicals pack with seven nominations including Best New Musical and recognition for its stars Sierra Boggess, Ramin Karimloo and Summer Strallen.
Sharrock, who recently won Best Director at the Critics’ Circle Awards, receives an Olivier nomination for her direction of Rattigan’s play at the National Theatre, which will also compete for Best Revival. Nominations for lighting, costume and cast members Nancy Carroll and Adrian Scarborough take the play’s haul to six.
After The Dance helps the National Theatre to an impressive 17 nominations, which includes recognition for shows Fela!, Hamlet, Beauty And The Beast, The White Guard, Earthquakes In London and London Assurance.
Fellow subsidised theatres the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse collect nine nominations each, for productions including Clybourne Park (four) and King Lear (five). The Royal Court’s success with new writing is reflected in its three MasterCard Best New Play nominations for Clybourne Park, Sucker Punch and Tribes.
However, commercial theatre holds its own with End Of The Rainbow (four nominations) and The Little Dog Laughed (two) competing with the Royal Court for MasterCard Best New Play, and All My Sons (two), Love Story (three), Legally Blonde The Musical (five) and Sweet Charity (three) offering strong competition across the board.
Recent Evening Standard Award-winner Carroll will contest the Best Actress category with Tracie Bennett (End Of The Rainbow), Tamsin Greig (The Little Dog Laughed) and Sophie Thompson (Clybourne Park).
The Best Actor nominees comprise 2010 winner Mark Rylance (La Bête), 2009 winner Derek Jacobi (King Lear), this year’s Critics’ Circle Award winner David Suchet (All My Sons), Evening Standard Award winner Rory Kinnear (Hamlet) and previous Olivier winner Roger Allam (Henry IV Parts I & II).
Boggess is nominated for Best Actress in a Musical alongside Sheridan Smith for Legally Blonde The Musical, Love Story’s Emma Williams and Elena Roger, who will hope to match her 2009 win for Piaf with triumph for another Donmar Warehouse production, Passion.
Karimloo faces competition for Best Actor in a Musical from Legally Blonde’s Alex Gaumond, David Thaxton (Passion), Sahr Ngaujah (Fela!) and Love Story’s Michael Xavier, who receives a second, supporting, nomination this year for Into The Woods.
Sharrock once again finds herself competing for Best Director with Michael Grandage (King Lear) with whom she jointly won the Critics’ Circle Award. They come up against Evening Standard Award-winner Howard Davies (The White Guard) and Dominic Cooke (Clybourne Park).
In the opera categories, English National Opera and the Royal Opera receive three nominations each, with La Bohème at Soho theatre competing with them for Best New Opera Production. Sadler’s Wells dominates the dance categories with five nominations; Asphodel Meadows – for John MacFarlane’s designs – is the only production in the running that was not staged there.
Other nominated shows this year include When We Are Married (Revival), Deathtrap (Lighting), Design For Living (Costume and Set), Ghost Stories (Entertainment and Sound), The Railway Children (Entertainment and Sound) and Blasted (Affiliate).
The Laurence Olivier Awards – the most prestigious awards in London’s Theatreland – will be held this year in a revamped ceremony at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Sunday 13 March. Follow full coverage of the event on www.olivierawards.com.
Full list of nominations for the 2011 Laurence Olivier Awards.