‘Hamilton’ wins big at Oliviers
Musical about US founding father Alexander Hamilton takes seven prizes
winner of Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical (‘Hamilton’) and producers, Historical hip-hop musical Hamilton took seven trophies including best new musical at British theatre’s Olivier Awards, where women’s rights activists joined stage stars on the red carpet to support the Time’s Up movement.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about US founding father Alexander Hamilton was nominated in a record 13 categories at Britain’s equivalent of the Tony Awards. The show, which turns an early chapter of US history into a compellingly modern story, opened in London in December after taking New York by storm.
Jamael Westman gained a best-actor nomination in the title role, but lost out to co-star Giles Terera, who plays Hamilton’s nemesis, Aaron Burr. Terera said it had been “the joy of my life” to perform with the most diverse company he’d ever been part of.
“Diversity is not a policy. It is life,” he said.
Backstage, the British actor said he knew the first time he saw Hamilton that the show was “the most extraordinary thing I’d ever heard and seen.”
“Every now and again, you have a show which comes along and sort of shifts things and moves outside of the realm of musical theatre,” he said.
Michael Jibson took the supportingactor trophy for playing colonies-losing British monarch King George III in Hamilton.
The show — with a score that ranges from pop ballads and sexy R’n’B to rap battles — also won Oliviers for outstanding achievement in music, sound, lighting and choreography.
The seven wins didn’t beat the awards’ record haul of nine trophies, set last year by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Jez Butterworth’s drama The Ferryman, about the past coming back to haunt a Northern Ireland family, won three prizes including best play, best director for Sam Mendes and best actress for Laura Donnelly.
Bryan Cranston was named best actor in a play for his National Theatre performance as a news anchorman who snaps in Network. The former Breaking Bad star beat rivals who included Andrew Garfield, for playing a man with Aids in the British revival of Angels in America and Andrew Scott for the title role of Hamlet.
“It’s very difficult to be mad as hell when you’re holding an Olivier,” Cranston said, a nod to his character Howard Beale’s famous cry: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
The trophy for best actress in a musical went to Shirley Henderson for Girl from the North Country. Sheila Atim won the supporting-actress in a musical prize for the same production, a Depressionera drama set to the songs of Bob Dylan.
Named for the late British actor Laurence Olivier, the prizes honour achievements in London theatre, musicals, dance and opera.