- SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS WAS HONOURED IN LAST NIGHT’S OLIVIER AWARDS WITH ACCOLADES FOR LEOPOLDSTADT (BEST NEW PLAY) AND FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL).
- LEOPOLDSTADT’S WIN MEANS THAT SFP HAS BEEN LEAD PRODUCER OF THE OLIVIER AWARD-WINNING BEST NEW PLAY FOR FOUR CONSECUTIVE YEARS, TAKING ITS TOTAL BEST NEW PLAY OLIVIER AWARD WINS TO EIGHT SINCE 2010.
Sonia Friedman Productions last night continued its success in the Best New Play category at the annual Olivier Awards. The award for Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt means that SFP has won the coveted Best New Play Award as lead producer for four consecutive years with Leopoldstadt (Wyndham’s Theatre, 2020), The Inheritance (Noël Coward Theatre, 2019), The Ferryman (Gielgud Theatre, 2018) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre, 2017). These wins are in addition to SFP’s further four Olivier Award-winning Best New Play productions and co-productions in the last decade.
Sonia Friedman said:
“As we celebrated Tom Stoppard’s triumph last night with ‘Leopoldstadt’, it marked the fourth consecutive year as lead producer that I, along with my incredible company and co-producers, have won Best New Play, taking our total Olivier Award-winning Best New Play awards to eight in the last decade. We hadn’t fully comprehended, or indeed fully realised the scale of this achievement until today. This last decade stands now as an era of staggering and stage-shaking new theatrical work, in which writers from all backgrounds have begun to imagine a stage landscape that relates in genuinely insightful ways to the pulsing world outside; and it also heralds our commitment to go for a further decade. It is no accident to be making such a commitment to develop new work with the country’s finest writers, both established and emerging. It is only our creative artists, led by our writers, who have the guts and mental elasticity to shoulder this next challenge. We all know and feel the peril of life without theatre. But we also know that this simply will not go on. My company and I won’t allow it to, and the most heroic freelance army will be there to greet you at our doors again very soon, for many more beautiful nights.”
SFP’s ongoing commitment to producing the best new work is shown with the announcement of the brand-new play The Comeback by comedy duo The Pin which will play at the Noël Coward Theatre this December.
Other SFP wins at last night’s Olivier Awards included Best Musical Revival for their co-production of Fiddler on the Roof with Menier Chocolate Factory and Michael Harrison Entertainment, with Adrian Scarborough also winning Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Leopoldstadt. Additionally, Baby Reindeer which was slated to be part of the planned SFP at the Ambassadors season was awarded Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.