Today, the Evening Standard announces the 2023 shortlist for the 67th Evening Standard Theatre Awards. The shortlist features the biggest names and brightest emerging talents from the London stage over the last twelve months. Recognised across nine award categories, globally-renowned actors, actresses and hit shows including Guys & Dolls, Dear England, A Strange Loop and A Mirror, will compete to win one of the coveted awards.
In the running for the Best Actor Award are the Bafta Award-winning star, and 2019 winner of the Evening Standard Theatre Award Best Actor, Andrew Scott, shortlisted for his role in the radical one-man show, Vanya. Scott’s All of Us Strangers co-star Paul Mescal, another Bafta Award-winner and Academy Award Nominee, is also up for Best Actor, alongside Paapa Essiedu, for his performance in The Effect, and Mark Gatiss for his performance as Sir John Gielgud in The Motive and the Cue.
Paul Mescal is nominated for his performance as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, a show that is shortlisted in four categories including two for the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress in association with Mithridate, with Anjana Vasan nominated alongside her co-star Patsy Ferran.
The National Theatre’s stunning year is reflected in eight nominations, including two each in the Best Actor and Best Play categories. Islington’s 325-seat Almeida theatre received the second largest number of nominations, six in all, including nods in the Best Play category for Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, and the Best Director category for Rebecca Frecknall, whose production of A Streetcar Named Desire wowed critics and audiences despite actress Patsy Ferran stepping into the leading role of Blanche Dubois at short notice.
Ferran’s triumphant turn earns her a place on the list of nominations for the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress in association with Mithridate, alongside Anjana Vasan, for her performance opposite Ferran as Blanche’s sister Stella, Rachael Stirling for her performance as Amanda in the Donmar Warehouse production of Private Lives, and Sophie Okonedo for the title role in Medea at @sohoplace.
2023 has also been the year of the return of the blockbuster musical, with the Bridge Theatre’s Guys & Dolls being shortlisted in five separate categories: Best Musical, Best Director, Best Design, Best Musical Performance and Emerging Talent. Andrew Richardson is nominated in the latter category for his professional stage debut in the leading role of Sky Masterson in the show. Sunset Boulevard, which opened on the last night of the awards’ eligibility period, earned eleventh-hour nods for star Nicole Scherzinger and director Jamie Lloyd.
The Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush retains its status as the capital’s premier new writing venue, with two out of four nominations in the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright category, for Anoushka Lucas’s Elephant and Matilda Feyisayo Ibini’s Sleepova.
Rebecca Frecknall is joined in the Milton Shulman Award for Best Director by Dear England director Rupert Goold, Jamie Lloyd for Sunset Boulevard and Nicholas Hytner for Guys & Dolls.
This year’s highly-coveted Emerging Talent category showcases the breadth and vitality of the London theatre scene: Andrew Richardson’s theatre debut in Guys & Dolls, Taylor Russell’s performance as Connie in The Effect, Jack Wolfe in Next to Normal and Tatenda Shamiso’s performance telling the story of his experience as a Black transgender immigrant in the UK in NO I.D., all make the shortlist.
In this year’s Best Musical Performance category, Kyle Ramar Freeman is nominated for his performance in A Strange Loop, facing competition from Nicole Scherzinger’s Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Other contenders include Charlie Stemp in Crazy For Your and Marisha Wallace in Guys & Dolls.
Continuing with the musical categories, this year’s shortlist for Best Musical includes Standing at the Sky’s Edge at the National Theatre, A Strange Loop at the Barbican Theatre, Tammy Faye at the Almeida Theatre and the five-time nominated Guys & Dolls, at the Bridge Theatre.
For this year’s Best Design award, the multi-award-winning Bunny Christie is also shortlisted for her set design for Guys & Dolls. Alongside her are Robert Jones, for Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre, Georgia Lowe for The Good Person of Szechwan at the Lyric Hammersmith and Tom Pye for My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican theatre.
The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright sees nominees including Matilda Feyisayo Ibini for Sleepova at the Bush Theatre, Kimber Lee’s Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play at the Young Vic Theatre, Anoushka Lucas’ Elephant at the Bush Theatre and Isley Lynn’s The Swell, at the Orange Tree Theatre, all getting the nod.
Evening Standard’s Chief Theatre Critic Nick Curtis, said: “This shortlist reflects the full richness of London’s theatre right now, from star-studded spectacle in the West End and beyond to new stories and talents emerging from the fringe and mid-range venues.”
Judge Baz Bamigboye, Deadline Hollywood, said: “This is a fantastic list: three years ago London theatre was on its knees and now thanks to the likes of Patsy Ferran, Rebecca Frecknall and Jamie Lloyd it’s in rude health.”
Nancy Durrant, the Standard’s Culture Editor, who chaired the judging panel, said: “It’s been a hell of a year for theatre in London, and in whittling its treasures down to this dazzling shortlist, the judges had both an unenviable task, in that there was so much to see, and a deeply enviable one, in that there was so much to see, and they got to see it.”
Judge Matt Wolf, The New York Times said: “More than ever, London theatre has shown itself ready and willing over the past year to embrace a breadth and depth of work that have been simply thrilling to behold, It’s a real privilege to bear witness to such a range of talent.”
Freelance theatre critic and playwright, Farah Najib said: “I’m so excited by the shortlist we’ve collated, and the breadth and depth of theatre it represents from the past year. It’s a joy to see new artists and big names side by side, having their incredible work acknowledged.”
The winners will be announced on Sunday 19th November at an awards ceremony, held at Claridge’s. The Evening Standard Theatre Awards are hosted by the newspaper’s proprietor Lord Lebedev, alongside new co-hosts this year; David Harewood, Vanessa Kirby, Ian McKellen, Sienna Miller and this year’s presenter Susan Wokoma.
