Five Jewish Olivier Award nominees walked away with the prized statuettes at this weekend’s star-studded ceremony.
Jewish-American playwright Tony Kushner’s Angels in America was selected as Best Revival. The two-part play, which also yielded a best supporting actress award for Denise Gough, is an impressionistic examination of AIDS and gay culture in America in the 1980s. It was first presented in San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre in 1980 and has been revived several times to great acclaim.
The best musical revival award went to Steven Sondheim’s Follies, a bittersweet study of fractured marriages set in a crumbing theatre that once hosted Weismann's Follies, a musical revue which Sondheim based on the legendary Ziegfeld Follies.
Sam Mendes took home the Best Director award for The Ferryman, a by turns funny, romantic and profoundly tragic drama set against the background of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the early Eighties.
But the big story of the night was blockbuster rap musical Hamilton, which scooped up seven awards from its 13 nominations.
Among Hamilton’s winners were producer Jeffrey Sellers and Nevin Steinberg, who was responsible for the show’s arresting sound design.