2016 Sydney Theatre Awards Nominations

This week, nominations were announced for the 2016 Sydney Theatre Awards, which will be presented at a gala ceremony on Monday, January 23, 2017 at 6 pm 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 10 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. These were 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.

In addition, 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.

In an exciting development, some of Sydney’s newest venues and companies received nominations for the first time, including Old 505 Theatre, Kings Cross Theatre and the National Theatre of Parramatta.

The nominees for the 2016 Best Choreography in a Musical Award are Amy Campbell (for Spring Awakening), Andrew Hallsworth (separately for Dream Lover and Little Shop of Horrors) and Cameron Mitchell (for Mack and Mabel.)

The Sydney Theatre Awards are presented annually by a group of leading theatre critics to “celebrate the strength, quality and diversity of theatre in Sydney.” The reviewers all felt 2016 was a strong but difficult year for theatre in Sydney.

Reviewer 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.”

Another reviewer, Elissa Blake, agreed. She said, “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.”

Vying for Best Mainstage Production are All My Sons (Sydney Theatre Company), The Drover’s Wife (Belvoir), Faith Healer (Belvoir) and The Hanging (Sydney Theatre Company). The nominees for Best Independent Production are Antigone (Sport for Jove), The Block Universe (Cross Pollinate Productions and Old 505 Theatre), Hurt (White Box Theatre and The Old 505), Inner Voices (Don’t Look Away in association with Red Line Productions) and The Whale (Red Line Productions).

To see the full list of nominations for the 2016 Sydney Theatre Awards, visit www.sydneytheatreawards.com.

Photos of choreographers Amy Campbell (top), Andrew Hallsworth (left) and Cameron Mitchell (right), who are each nominated for the 2016 Best Choreography in a Musical Award.