2016 SYDNEY THEATRE AWARDS NOMINEES
Nominations were announced today for the Sydney Theatre Awards for 2016, which will be presented at a gala ceremony on Monday 23 January 2017 at 6pm at the York Theatre, Seymour Centre, a much larger venue than previous years due to the burgeoning popularity of the ceremony.
Leading the list with ten nominations are two musicals, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’, presented by Luckiest Productions and Tinderbox Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co, and ‘Spring Awakening’, presented by ATYP, followed by Sport for Jove’s ‘Antigone’ with nine nominations and Red Line Productions’ ‘The Whale’ with eight nominations, both hits of the independent theatre year. ‘The Drover’s Wife’ from Belvoir and ‘Inner Voices’ from Don’t Look Away and Red Line Productions both received seven nominations, while Sydney Theatre Company’s ‘All My Sons’ was awarded six. Nominations in the 35 categories were spread across 45 productions which played on Sydney stages during 2016.
New venues and companies were also part of the line up including Old 505 Theatre, Kings Cross Theatre and the National Theatre of Parramatta. The review panel commented on the richness of quality amongst nominees but also on this quality and richness despite the impact of the 2016 funding cuts and sector upheaval. #istandwith the arts
The reviewers all felt 2016 was a strong but difficult year for theatre in Sydney. John McCallum said, “The richness and quality of so much theatre this year has been an astonishing tribute to the resilience and generosity of our creative theatre artists. This is in the face of dreadful funding cuts and, in the case of the independent sector, mostly no funding at all. That sector continues to rival, and in some cases surpass, the work of the mainstream sector. They have done this by the appallingly simple method of foregoing a decent income for themselves. There has been so much offered to us for free. The mainstream sector has also continued to produce much excellent work. On behalf of Sydney theatregoers we thank them all.”
Elissa Blake agreed, “This was a year of outcry. Alongside the widespread funding cuts, female writers, directors and actors demanded gender parity across all theatre programming, more female stories and more culturally diverse voices. There were many, many excellent theatre productions led by women in 2016. Three of the four nominated directors of mainstream productions are women. All the nominated shows for Best Mainstage Production were either led by a female director, written by a woman, or included female performances of outstanding quality. Action has and is being taken to redress imbalance in the theatre and audiences are reaping the rewards.”
Source: Sydney Theatre Awards
