The Royal Court, National Theatre and Almeida theatre have all received nominations in the 2011 South Bank Sky Arts Awards, to be announced on 25 January.
Bruce Norris’s play Clybourne Park, which ran at the Royal Court in the autumn and last Sunday won an Evening Standard Theatre Award, is nominated in the theatre category alongside Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes In London at the National Theatre and Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined at the Almeida theatre.
Having been staged as the South Bank Show Awards for the past 14 years, the awards have been relaunched for 2011 by Sky Arts following the demise of ITV arts programme the South Bank Show. Melvyn Bragg, who hosted both the TV show and the awards, will return to present the ceremony at the Dorchester hotel in January, which will be broadcast on Sky Arts 1 HD.
The trio of plays are nominated in a shortlist that covers comedy, TV, classical and pop music, film, dance, opera, literature and visual art.
Sadler’s Wells receives two nominations in the dance category, for works by Hofesh Shechter and Akram Khan, while English National Opera’s production of A Dog’s Heart, directed by Simon McBurney, will compete for the opera prize.
Actor Andrew Scott, who starred in Bartlett’s Cock at the Royal Court late last year, and, more recently, Design For Living at the Old Vic, is one of the nominees for The Times Breakthrough Award, which celebrates up and coming talent.
Bragg commented: “The shortlist demonstrates the extraordinary wealth of achievement across the arts in the UK. It is fantastic to see the arts flourishing – and there has certainly never been a more important moment to celebrate the breadth and range of talent across the country. We are delighted that we can continue to honour the dedication of these artists.”
CB