“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the new musical based on Roald Dahl’s novel, and a revival of the Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince 1981 box-office flop “Merrily We Roll Along” received seven nominations each on Monday for the 2014 Olivier Awards.
Three other U.S. imports, the smash hit “The Book of Mormon” by “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, “The Scottsboro Boys” based on the notorious Alabama trial of nine teenage blacks accused of rape, and “Once”, a musical version of the eponymous film, got six each, including for best new musical.
“It’s been an extraordinary year for London theatre,” Mark Rubinstein, president of the Society of London Theatre, said at a ceremony packed with theatre celebrities to announce the nominations for the awards.
The winners will be named at the Royal Opera House on April 13.
Rubinstein said the London stage had seen 46 revivals, 19 new plays, seven new comedies and nine new musicals produced in the last year, which he said secured the British capital’s position as one of the world’s great theatre centers.
Among major categories, some of the nominees are:
BEST ACTOR:
Henry Goodman – “The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui”
Tom Hiddleston – “Coriolanus”
Rory Kinnear – “Othello” and Jude Law for “Henry V”
BEST ACTRESS:
Hayley Atwell – “The Pride”
Anna Chancellor – “Private Lives”
Judi Dench – “Peter And Alice”
Lesley Manville – “Ghosts”
BEST DIRECTOR:
Richard Eyre – “Ghosts”
Maria Friedman – “Merrily We Roll Along”
Susan Stroman – “The Scottsboro Boys”
Lyndsey Turner – “Chimerica”
BEST NEW PLAY:
“1984”
“Chimerica”
“The Night Alive”
“Peter And Alice”
BEST NEW COMEDY:
“The Duck House”
“The Full Monty”
“Jeeves & Wooster In Perfect Nonsense”
“The Same Deep Water As Me”
BEST NEW MUSICAL:
“The Book Of Mormon”
“Charlie And The Chocolate Factory”
“Once”
“The Scottsboro Boys”
BEST REVIVAL:
“The Amen Corner”
“Ghosts”
“Othello”
“Private Lives”
BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL:
“Merrily We Roll Along”
“The Sound Of Music”
“Tell Me On A Sunday”
Source : Reuters
