2024 Olivier Awards nominations: ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ ‘Guys and Dolls,’ ‘Dear England’ lead

David Buchanan
·5 min read
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We are still approximately six weeks away from learning the nominees for the 77th Tony Awards, but across the pond the finalists for the 2024 Olivier Awards were just announced. A radical new remounting of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Nicole Scherzinger is the most nominated show of the year with 11 citations. Another musical revival is nipping at its heels: the immersive “Guys and Dolls” scored 10, as did new play “Dear England,” which centers on England’s national men’s football team and stars Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate. Scroll down to see a complete list of 2024 Olivier Awards nominations.

American audiences will be familiar with many of the plays, musicals and performers nominated this year. The Best New Musical category includes Tony Award-winning shows “Next to Normal” and “A Strange Loop,” while Best Musical Revival boasts productions of “Groundhog Day” and “Hadestown.” Caissie Levy, who originated the role of Elsa in “Frozen” on Broadway and most recently starred in the New York production “Leopoldstadt” earned a nom for the role in “Next to Normal” that won Alice Ripley a Tony back in 2009. Sarah Jessica Parker, who missed out on a Tony nomination when she did Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” on Broadway in 2022, earned an Olivier bid for the transfer of that production. She competes in the same category as Sarah Snook, who fresh off her Emmy win for “Succession” has thrown herself into not one but 26 roles in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Other nominated performers popular with U.S. viewers include Best Actor hopefuls James Norton (“A Little Life”), Andrew Scott (“Vanya”) and David Tennant (“Macbeth”) and Tony Award-winner and Best Actress nominee Sophie Okonedo (“Medea”).

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Other productions that received multiple Olivier nominations include musical “Operation Mincemeat” with 6, play “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” with 5, “Next to Normal” with 4, “A Little Life,” “Macbeth,” “The Little Big Things,” “The Motive and the Cue” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with 3, and “An Enemy of the People,” “Shirley Valentine,” “The Hills of California,” “Till the Stars Come Down” and “Vanya” with 2.

The nominations success of “Sunset Boulevard” bode well for its prospects at the distant 2025 Tony Awards, as the Lloyd production will transfer to Broadway with lead Scherzinger later this year. When the winners are announced on April 14 – Hannah Waddingham will once again host the ceremony – the production could cement itself as a strong contender for U.S. awards in the next Tony cycle.

MUSICALS

BEST NEW MUSICAL
The Little Big Things
Next to Normal
Operation Mincemeat
A Strange Loop

BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL
Groundhog Day
Guys and Dolls
Hadestown
Sunset Boulevard

BEST ACTRESS (MUSICAL)
Natasha Hodgson, “Operation Mincemeat”
Caissie Levy, “Next to Normal”
Nicole Scherzinger, “Sunset Boulevard”
Marisha Wallace, “Guys and Dolls”

BEST ACTOR (MUSICAL)
David Cumming, “Operation Mincemeat”
Tom Francis, “Sunset Boulevard”
Daniel Mays, “Guys and Dolls”
Charlie Stemp, “Crazy for You”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (MUSICAL)
Grace Hodgett Young, “Sunset Boulevard”
Zoë Roberts, “Operation Mincemeat”
Amy Trigg, “The Little Big Things”
Eleanor Worthington-Cox, “Next to Normal”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (MUSICAL)
Jak Malone, “Operation Mincemeat”
Cedric Neal, “Guys and Dolls”
David Thaxton, “Sunset Boulevard”
Jack Wolfe, “Next to Normal”

BEST MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION
Tom Brady and Charlie Rosen, “Guys and Dolls”
Matt Brind, “Just for One Day”
Steve Sidwell and Joe Bunker, “Operation Mincemeat”
Alan Williams, “Sunset Boulevard”

PLAYS

BEST NEW PLAY
Dear England
The Hills of California
The Motive and the Cue
Till the Stars Come Down

BEST REVIVAL
The Effect
Macbeth
Shirley Valentine
Vanya

BEST ACTOR (PLAY)
Joseph Fiennes, “Dear England”
Mark Gatiss, “The Motive and the Cue”
James Norton, “A Little Life”
Andrew Scott, “Vanya”
David Tennant, “Macbeth”

BEST ACTRESS (PLAY)
Laura Donnelly, “The Hills of California”
Sophie Okonedo, “Medea”
Sarah Jessica Parker, “Plaza Suite”
Sheridan Smith “Shirley Valentine”
Sarah Snook, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (PLAY)
Lorraine Ashbourne, “Till the Stars Come Down”
Priyanga Burford, “An Enemy of the People”
Haydn Gwynne, “When Winston Went to War With the Wireless”
Gina McKee, “Dear England”
Tayna Reynolds, “A Mirror”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (PLAY)
Will Close, “Dear England”
Paul Hilton, “An Enemy of the People”
Giles Terera, “Clyde’s”
Luke Thompson, “A Little Life”
Zubin Varla, “A Little Life”

DANCE/OPERA/FAMILY

BEST NEW DANCE PRODUCTION
Broken Chord
La Ruta
Time Spell

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE
Isabela Corarcy, “NINA: By Whatever Means”
Jonzi D, Breakin’ Convention 2023 International Festival of Hip-Hop Dance Theatre
Rhiannon Faith, “Lay Down Your Burdens”

BEST NEW OPERA PRODUCTION
Blue
Innocence
Picture a Day Like This
The Rhinegold

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN OPERA
Antonio Pappano, Musical Director of the Royal Opera House
Belarus Free Theatre Company, “King Stakes Wild Hunt”
Marina Abramović, “7 Deaths of Maria Callas” concept and design

BEST FAMILY SHOW
Bluey’s Big Play
Dinosaur World Live
The House With Chicken Legs
The Smeds and the Smoos

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN AFFILIATE THEATRE
Blue Mist
A Playlist for the Revolution
Sleepova
The Swell
The Time Machine: A Comedy

BEST NEW ENTERTAINMENT OR COMEDY PLAY
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends
Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial

CRAFTS

BEST DIRECTOR
Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Rupert Goold, “Dear England”
Jamie Lloyd, “Sunset Boulevard”
Sam Mendes, “The Motive and the Cue”

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN
Jon Clark, “Dear England”
Jon Clark, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Paule Constable, “Guys and Dolls”
Jack Knowles, “Sunset Boulevard”

BEST SET DESIGN
Miriam Buether and 59 Productions, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Bunny Christie, “Guys and Dolls”
Es Devlin and Ash J Woodward, “Dear England”
Soutra Gilmour, Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom, “Sunset Boulevard”

BEST THEATRE CHOREOGRAPHER
Fabian Aloise, “Sunset Boulevard”
Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf, “Dear England”
Arlene Phillips with James Cousins, “Guys and Dolls”
Mark Smith, “The Little Big Things”
Susan Stroman, “Crazy for You”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Bunny Christie and Deborah Andrews, “Guys and Dolls”
Ryan Dawson Laight, “La Cage Aux Folles”
Hugh Durrant, “Peter Pan”
Marg Horwell, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Paul Arditti, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Dan Balfour and Tom Gibbons, “Dear England”
Adam Fisher, “Sunset Boulevard”
Gareth Fry, “Macbeth”

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