Having had a hand in The Tony Awards from 2004 through 2011, awards show-watching has been more than a pastime for me. But I’m a latecomer to The Olivier Awards. Two years ago I sat at home, watching the livestream in a window on my laptop. Last year, I finally accepted my annual invitation from the Society of London Theatres to attend in person. Earlier today, I spent four hours in the Jazz at Lincoln Center facility, where the livefeed of the Oliviers was shown on a large screen in Rose Hall, perhaps the city’s most unique venue, with views of Columbus Circle and Central Park behind the stage and, in this case, screen. Today’s experience felt like an amalgam of my prior two: I was watching on a screen, but a big one which often brought the event to larger than life size; instead of calling out the winners to my wife in the other room, I was surrounded by several hundred theatre professionals and other guests. This was the “NT Live” version of The Oliviers, so to speak.
I had expected the crowd to resemble “the usual suspects” seen at most opening nights, but it was an eclectic mix, with many folks I didn’t know. I spotted producers (Michael David of Jersey Boys, Sue Frost & Randy Adams of Memphis, Jed Bernstein of Driving Miss Daisy and Hal Luftig of Evita), some not-for-profit leaders (Teresa Eyring of the Theatre Communications Group and Victoria Bailey from the Theatre Development Fund), and a smattering of press (The New York Times, Playbill, Theatermania and AM New York). There was a large contingent from One Man, Two Guvnors there up through intermission (they had to depart for a 3 pm matinee), I don’t know how many from Ghost, Paulo Szot of South Pacific, and James Earl Jones.
It is impossible to know how many attendees had seen some, or any, of the nominated shows (I had seen only four), so an obvious question was whether one would feel any “rooting interest” in the room. Certainly the Guvnors crowd applauded heartily as their nominations were announced, but that was the only apparent partisanship in the room (and completely appropriate). What pleasantly surprised me was that the audience did respond as if at a live show, instead of a cinema; there was applause at the end of every musical number performed, all of which came off well on the big screen. If not the same as being there, there was the unifying effect that experiencing entertainment in a large group can bring; there was definitely a frisson of excitement when Matthew Warchus accepted his award live in New York – made even more exciting by it taking place just seconds after the briefly interrupted video feed came back online.
Andre Ptasyzynski’s opening remarks playfully hinted at rivalry between Broadway and the West End – he cited 14 million London admissions last year vs. Broadway’s 12.5, but also noted $1 billion in New York revenues against London’s $800 million, and also differentiated between voting rules for The Oliviers and The Tonys. But the prevailing spirit was of a carefree spring afternoon in London (even if it was nighttime there). The U.S. audience might have benefited from a few annotations by voice or on screen (Collaborators author John Hodge was never identified by name), and it was my sense that even with an introduction, the crowd neither understood who Ronan Keating and Kimberley Walsh were or why they were dropped into the middle of the event’s second act. Presenters from Downton Abbey needed no such identification.
Too often, in the press surrounding both The Oliviers and The Tonys, there’s an effort to stoke the fires of national competition. I’ve always thought it a false construct. This initial large scale opportunity for the New York theatre to join together for the Oliviers was a good first step and reinforced what I have always found to be true: the underlying unity of all theatre communities, wherever they may be and whoever wins their awards.
