The first award presented at the ceremony was for Best Lighting Design, the category won by Mark Henderson for Burnt By The Sun at the National's Lyttelton Theatre. Henderson received a second nomination for Enron; this is the fifth time he has received this award. He also won a Tony Award in 2006 for The History Boys in New York. His fellow nominees in the category were Kevin Adams for Spring Awakening and Jon Clark for Three Days of Rain.
The other design awards went to Ultz for his set design for Jerusalem at the Royal Court and now at the Apollo, to Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner for the costume designs for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at the Palace Theatre, and to Brian Ronan for the sound design for Spring Awakening at the Novello. Rupert Goold took the best director award for Enron, now at the Noel Coward Theatre, while Stephen Mear - who years ago choreographed Dancing With Light, the show that launched White Light into the world of moving lights at the 1995 PLASA Show - won the Best Theatre Choreographer category for his work on Hello Dolly! at the Open Air Theatre, Regents Park.
Hello Dolly! also picked up the award for Best Musical Revival, and for Samantha Spiro, named Best Actress In A Musical, while Jerusalem won its leading actor, Mark Rylance, the award for best actor. Spring Awakening had a successful evening, also picking up wins in the Best Actor in a Musical (Aneurin Barnard) and Best Supporting Performance in a Musical (Iwan Rheon) categories, and declared Best New Musical.
Other shows rewarded included the Donmar Warehouse's productions of Red(best supporting actor for Eddie Redmayne) and A Streetcar Named Desire (best actress for Rachel Weisz, best supporting actress for Ruth Wilson), The Mountaintop (best new play), The Priory (best new comedy), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (best revival), Morecambe (best entertainment) and Wicked (winner of the publicly-voted Audience Award for Most Popular Show).
Goldberg: The Brandstrup Rojo Project at the Royal Opera House won the Best New Dance Production category, with Rambert Dance collecting the Outstanding Achievement in Dance award for their year of new work. The Royal Opera also won the Best New Opera Production category for Tristan Und Isolde, with Nina Steme collecting the Outstanding Achievement In Opera award for her performance in the show. The Royal Court took the award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for Cock at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
(Jim Evans)
