Star-studded is the word that comes to mind when talking about the 20th annual WhatsOnStage Awards. All of the most successful and important actresses, actors, directors, writers and other theatre associates came together in the Prince of Wales Theatre in London on March 1st, to celebrate the lucky few to receive an award. The WhatsOnStage awards are purely based on the public vote and are therefore a special representation of the theatre lover’s opinion as opposed to that of theatre critics.
For that reason, the WhatsOnStage awards were open to fans to buy tickets and to be able to watch their favourite performers go on stage to accept their awards. For the rest of the world, the only way to participate in the event was to listen to the BBC 2 radio show hosted by Elaine Paige (actress) and Paddy O’Connell (radio host).
For Musical entertainment, the casts of the musicals nominated for an award gave performances of their best songs. The casts of Only Fools and Horses the Musical, Dear Evan Hansen, &Juliet, Come From Away, and Waitress were received with much applause and excitement, as they performed their numbers. Additionally, the cast of The Color Purple (currently on at the Birmingham Hippodrome), made an appearance.
The hosts, Jodie Prenger and Tom Read Wilson, opened the show with a performance themselves, which included a lot of references to the most popular theatrical productions before the first two winners of the night were announced.
First was the category for Best Supporting Actor in a Play, which was won by Hammed Animashaun for his performance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In respect to recent events where several people in the theatre industry have stepped up to talk about their own struggle with mental health (on social media), Hammed used the opportunity to say that “love is universal” and appealed to the audience to show more love to each other by giving them a smile to “let people know that they matter”.
Right after, Sophie Thompson won in the category Best Supporting Actress in a Play for Present Laughter and made the audience laugh by swearing on stage, which prompted the BBC presenter to immediately apologise to the radio audience. This happened once more when the cast of &Juliet performed their song “It’s my life”, which is when Romeo comes back to life and Juliet’s reaction to that is “Oh shit”.
In his acceptance speech as Best Actor in a Play, Andrew Scott closed his musings about the Theatre community with a heartfelt “Long live the theatre”. When he was interviewed backstage later on, he talked about the play Present Laughter by Noel Coward, for which he’d won and said about Coward that he was an “incredible brave man” for writing his works at a time where censorship was still widespread and he decided to write about topics that were frowned upon at the time, e.g. homosexuality.
A little less eloquent but just as heartfelt was the acceptance speech by Sam Tutty, who won the award as Best Actor in a Musical for Dear Evan Hansen. Between trying to emphasise the importance of accepting and taking care of people with mental health issues (whether that is ourselves or others), he kept giggling and muttering “this is silly” in regards to himself winning this award. Tutty later revealed that he auditioned 13 times for the role of Evan and that he just graduated from Drama school last year, which added to his excitement of already winning such an important award.
At the end of the night, Elaine Paige herself went on stage to present the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award for the Best Musical. The winner was the popular Musical Six, which is about the wives of King Henry VIII. The writers of the play could not be there to receive the award in person, as they are currently in New York for the opening of Six on Broadway, which makes the musical a hot contender for the Tony awards (if not this, then next year).
Winners of the evening are definitely the musical &Juliet, which managed to take home six of awards out of the 13 awards in which it was nominated as well as the musical Come From Away, which received all five awards it was nominated for, including Best New Musical.
Have a look at all the remaining winners here:
- Best Actor in a Play: Andrew Scott (Present Laughter)
- Best Actress in a Play: Claire Foy (Lungs)
- Best Actor in a Musical: Sam Tutty (Dear Evan Hansen)
- Best Actress in a Musical: Miriam-Teak Lee (&Juliet)
- Best Supporting Actor in a Play: Hammed Animashaun (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
- Best Supporting Actor in a Musical: Jack Loxton (Dear Evan Hansen)
- Best Supporting Actress in a Play: Sophie Thompson (Present Laughter)
- Best Supporting Actress in a Musical: Rachel Tucker (Come From Away)
- Best New Play: Life of Pi
- Best New Musical: Come From Away
- Best Play Revival: Betrayal
- Best Musical Revival: Mary Poppins
- Best Off-West End Production: Falsettos
- Best Regional Production: The Color Purple
- Best Choreography: Kelly Devine (Come From Away)
- Best Costume Design: Paloma Young (&Juliet)
- Best Direction: Jamie Lloyd (Evita)
- Best Graphic Design: Dewynters (&Juliet)
- Best Lighting Design: Howard Hudson (&Juliet)
- Best Musical Direction: Ian Eisendrath, Alan Berry and Team (Come From Away)
- Best Set Design: Soutra Gilmour (&Juliet)
- Best Sound Design: Gareth Owen (Come From Away)
- Best Video Design: Andrzej Goulding (&Juliet)
Each and every one of the nominees should be seen as absolute winners because they have put so much work, sweat and tears into their respective productions. Sadly, some of the categories were awarded “off the air” even though as Andrew Scott said in his acceptance speech, “acting is a team sport”. I would broaden this sentence to mean the whole company and every single person working on a play to make it fantastic. For me, personally, a great experience at the front of house at the theatre, starting with the security guard is immeasurably important for an enjoyable evening out. So this is me, saying a big thank you not only to the actors, actresses, writers, directors and stage managers of a production, but to the swings, to the front of house team, to the security team, to the lovely lovely people at the bar and merch counters, to every intern that shows up to work every day eager and happy to be in the wonderful world of theatre. Each and every one of these people make my life as a theatre nerd so much brighter and happier and when better to thank them than on a day, where the award show is all about the fan’s opinions.
