Hall family and Wales shine in nationwide stage awards

Port Talbot’s staging of The Passion with Michael Sheen won the highest accolade at the Theatre Management Association Awards yesterday, which honour the best of work touring Britain beyond London during the 2010-11 season.

The adventurous Welsh community production, a National Theatre Wales/Wild Works collaboration put on over three days last Eastertide, won the Best Director gong for Sheen and co-director Bill Mitchell. Sheen told the awards lunch at Banqueting House, Whitehall: “This was the most meaningful and powerful experience of my life. I know this is the best thing that will ever happen to me.” Bill Mitchell added, “How often do you get a whole town to create a play? I’d like to thank Port Talbot.”

It was a double whammy for Wales, as the Outstanding Achievement in Opera award went to Music Theatre Wales’s production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Greek (pictured right by Clive Barda).

Sir Peter Hall and his son Edward made another double - the veteran founder-director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, director of the National Theatre and of the Peter Hall Company, was presented with The Stage’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre in recognition of more than 50 years’ “consistently outstanding work as a director and artistic director”, while Edward Hall won Best Touring Production for his all-male Shakespeare duo Richard III and The Comedy of Errors.

Derek Jacobi won Best Performance for his King Lear, Claire Price was Best Supporting Performance for the Sheffield production of The Pride. Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love for Drum Theatre Plymouth/Paines Plough was Best New Play.

Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella was the winner of the dance category, and the RSC’s Matilda the Musical picked up two awards, for Best Performance in a Musical - Bertie Carvel as Miss Trunchbull - and for Best Musical Production.

The judges were drawn from national critics in theatre, opera and dance. Theatre judges were theartsdesk’s Sam Marlowe, Paul Allen, Dominic Cavendish, Mark Fisher, Lyn Gardner and Grania McFadden. Dance judges were theartsdesk’s Ismene Brown, Donald Hutera and Jeanette Siddall, and opera was judged by Rupert Christiansen and George Hall.

Awards list

• Best Director: Michael Sheen and Bill Mitchell for The Passion (National Theatre Wales/Wild Works) - also nominated: Erica Whyman for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Sheffield Theatres/Northern Stage); Muriel Romanes for Age of Arousal (Stellar Quines/Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh)
• Best Performance in a Musical: Bertie Carvel for Matilda the Musical (RSC in Stratford) - also nominated: Tony Hasnath for The Jungle Book (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Jemima Rooper for Me and My Girl (Sheffield Theatres)
• Best Performance in a Play: Derek Jacobi for Shakespeare’s King Lear (Donmar Warehouse on tour) - also nominated: Marianne Oldham for The Years Between (Royal & Derngate, Northampton); David Haig for The Madness of George III (Peter Hall Company)
• Best Supporting Performance: Claire Price for The Pride (Sheffield Theatres) - also nominated: Kenneth Alan Taylor for The Price (Octagon Theatre, Bolton/Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough/Hull Truck Theatre); Clarke Peters for Five Guys Named Moe (Underbelly/Theatre Royal Stratford East)
• Best New Play: Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love (Drum Theatre Plymouth/Paines Plough) - also nominated: Vivienne Franzmann's Mogadishu (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Lucinda Coxon's Herding Cats (Theatre Royal, Bath)
• Best Touring Production: Shakespeare’s Richard III and The Comedy of Errors directed by Edward Hall (Propeller) - also nominated: Shakespeare's The Tempest directed by Declan Donnellan (Cheek By Jowl/Chekhov International Festival); Richard Bean's The Big Fellah directed by Max Stafford-Clark (Out of Joint/Lyric Hammersmith)
• Best Musical Production: Matilda the Musical, directed by Matthew Warchus (RSC in Stratford) - also nominated: Me and My Girl directed by Anna Mackmin (Sheffield Theatres); Singin' in the Rain directed by Jonathan Church (Chichester Festival Theatre)
• Best Show for Children and Young People: White (Catherine Wheels/Theatre Royal Bath) - Swallows and Amazons (Bristol Old Vic); The Monster in the Hall (Citizens Theatre Glasgow)
• Best Design: Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, designed by Lizzie Clachan, lighting by Natasha Chivers (Sheffield Theatres) - also nominated: John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, designed by Mike Britton, lighting by Oliver Fenwick (Wester Yorkshire Playhouse); John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, designed by Ruth Sutcliffe, lighting by Philip Gladwell (Royal & Derngate, Northampton)
• Outstanding Achievement in Dance: Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella (New Adventures) - also nominated: Hofesh Shechter's Political Mother; Luca Silvestrini's LOL (Protein)
• Outstanding Achievement in Opera: Music Theatre Wales’s production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek - also nominated: Opera North (for variety of repertoire in the season); Gerald Finley for his Hans Sachs in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Glyndebourne Festival)
• The Stage Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre: Sir Peter Hall