Broadway veteran
Stephen Sondheim swept the board at one of Britain's top
theater awards on Sunday, sending the big-budget Monty
Python musical Spamalot away empty-handed.
A revival of the
composer's acclaimed musical Sunday in the Park With
George was the surprise winner of five prizes at
the prestigious Laurence Olivier Awards ceremony in
London.
The show,
inspired by the work of French painter Georges-Pierre
Seurat, opened to small audiences at a minor London
theater in 2005 before moving to a bigger stage in the
capital's West End.
Despite its
relatively low budget and uncommercial subject, it gained
glowing reviews, with one critic calling it "close to
perfection--an experience of aching loveliness."
The show won
Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine a Pulitzer Prize
for Drama when it first opened on Broadway in 1984.
The London
revival earned five Oliviers, for Lighting, Set Design,
Outstanding Musical Production, and Best Actor and Actress
in a Musical (for Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell).
However, that
meant disappointment for Spamalot.
The bawdy romp,
based on the classic comedy film Monty Python and the
Holy Grail, failed to pick up a single award,
despite seven nominations.
The surreal tale
of King Arthur, flatulent Frenchmen, and killer rabbits
has packed theaters on both sides of the Atlantic and was
hotly-tipped to do well in the awards.
Hollywood actress
Kathleen Turner, who starred in Edward Albee's classic
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? missed out on
the Best Actress award.
The prize went to
English actress Tamsin Greig's Beatrice in
Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
English actor
Rufus Sewell was named Best Actor for his role as a Czech
dissident in Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll, a
play about the democracy movement in the former
Czechoslovakia.
Arthur Miller's
classic drama The Crucible won two awards, for
Best Revival and Best Director (Dominic Cooke).
The awards were
launched in 1976 to recognize excellence on the London
stage. (Reuters)