Evening Standard Theatre Award Winners Announced

Central graduates have been announced as winners of their categories in the 2017 London Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

Andrew Garfield (BA (Hons) Acting 2004) won Best Actor for Angels in America at the National Theatre, ahead of competition from Andrew Scott for the title role in the Almeida Theatre’s Hamlet, and Bertie Carvel for Ink. The Oscar-nominated actor returned to the stage in May to play Prior Walter, a man with AIDS who has heavenly visions, in a major revival of Tony Kushner’s epic at the National Theatre. The production will transfer to Broadway next year.

Winning Best Play, Sonia Friedman (Tech 1985) produced Jez Butterworth’s ‘shattering feast of intricate storytelling’, The Ferryman for the Royal Court Theatre & Gielgud Theatre. She also produced James Graham’s Ink, which was nominated for Best Play, and the West End’sDreamgirls which was nominated for the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical.

Bat Out Of Hell, which included video design from Finn Ross (BA (Hons) Theatre Practice2003), won the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical.

Also shortlisted this year was The Stage Debut Award winner Katherine Soper (MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media 2014), recognised in the Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright for her play Wish List at the Royal Exchange Manchester and Royal Court.

The awards ceremony was co-hosted by Evening Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev, American Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, Cate Blanchett and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge was on presenting duties in the annual award that ‘recognises the dazzling array of talent, emerging and established, perennially confirms London’s theatre as the best in the world’.

Find more information on the full list of winners.

Above: BA Acting graduate Andrew Garfield accepts the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor. Photo: Dave Benett for London Evening Standard Theatre Awards