The Laurence Olivier Awards are a series of awards presented annually by The Society of London Theatre. They are presented in recognition of achievements in commercial British theatre, most notably plays and musicals in the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, an area commonly referred to as "Theatreland". The awards were established as the Society of West End Theatre Awards in 1976 and, in 1984 they we renamed in honour of the renowned British actor Sir Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

. The Olivier Awards are the most prestigious theatrical awards in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and are the UK equivalent of the Tony Awards.

1970s

• 1979: Virginia McKenna
  Virginia McKenna
  Virginia A. McKenna OBE is a British stage and screen actress, author and wildlife campaigner.-Early career:McKenna trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama then worked on stage in London's West End theatres before making her motion picture debut in 1952...
  
   – The King and I
  The King and I
  The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
  
  
  • Carol Channing
    Carol Channing
    Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
    
     – Hello, Dolly!
    Hello, Dolly! (musical)
    Hello, Dolly! is a musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955....
    
    
  • Antonia Ellis – Chicago
    Chicago (musical)
    Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
    
    
  • Liz Robertson
    Liz Robertson
    Liz Robertson is an English actress and singer. She is the widow of Playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.Robertson began training at the Finch Stage School at the age of three. Her first professional employment was as a cabaret dancer at London's Savoy Hotel at the age of sixteen...
    
     – My Fair Lady
    My Fair Lady
    My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
    
    

1980s

• 1980: Gemma Craven
  Gemma Craven
  Gemma Craven is an award-winning Irish actress.She is possibly best known for her role in the Irish TV drama The Clinic as Dr...
  
   – They're Playing Our Song
  They're Playing Our Song
  They're Playing Our Song is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.In a story based on the real-life relationship of Hamlisch and Sager, a wisecracking composer finds a new, offbeat lyricist, but initially the match is not one made in heaven...
  
  
  • Sheila Hancock
    Sheila Hancock
    Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...
    
     – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
    Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1936 British film produced and directed by George King.-Plot:The film features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles as barber Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was wrongly sentenced to life in prison. After his release 15 years later, he begins...
    
    
  • Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
    
     – On the Twentieth Century
    On the Twentieth Century
    On the Twentieth Century is a musical with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Cy Coleman. Part operetta, part farce, part screwball comedy, the story involves the behind-the-scenes relationship of a temperamental actress and a director.-Background:Comden and Green based...
    
    
  • Siân Phillips
    Siân Phillips
    Jane Elizabeth Ailwên "Siân" Phillips, CBE, is a Welsh actress.-Early life:Phillips was born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales, the daughter of Sally , a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman...
    
     – Pal Joey

• 1981: Carlin Glynn – The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
  The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
  The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...
  
  
  • Petula Clark
    Petula Clark
    Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
    
     – The Sound of Music
    The Sound of Music
    The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
    
    
  • Patricia Hodge
    Patricia Hodge
    Patricia Ann Hodge is an English actor.-Early life:The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion , Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St...
    
     – The Mitford Girls
  • Sylvia Kumba Williams – One Mo' Time

• 1982: Julia McKenzie
  Julia McKenzie
  Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
  
   – Guys and Dolls
  Guys and Dolls
  Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
  
  
  • Val McLane
    Val McLane
    Val McLane is an English actress, scriptwriter, director and teacher.She founded the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle in 1973 with director Geoff Gillham...
    
     – Andy Capp
    Andy Capp
    Andy Capp is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe , seen in The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a single-panel cartoon, Smyth later expanded it to four panels....
    
    
  • Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...
    
     – The Beggar's Opera
    The Beggar's Opera
    The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
    
    
  • Marti Webb
    Marti Webb
    Marti Webb is a musical actress from England, who appeared on stage in Evita, before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980...
    
     – Song and Dance
    Song and Dance
    Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a love story.The first part is Tell Me On A Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York...
    
    

• 1983: Barbara Dickson
  Barbara Dickson
  Barbara Ruth Dickson, OBE is a Scottish singer whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" and "January February"...
  
   – Blood Brothers
  • Ellen Greene
    Ellen Greene
    Ellen Greene is an American singer and actress. Greene has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actor and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films – notably Little Shop of Horrors...
    
     – Little Shop of Horrors
    Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
    Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...
    
    
  • Stephanie Lawrence
    Stephanie Lawrence
    Stephanie Lawrence was a British musical theatre actress.-Background:Stephanie Lawrence was born in Hayling Island, Hampshire, the daughter of a singer and classically trained dancer.She was from an early age close friends with another Famous Islander Peter Chilvers who in 1958 invented the...
    
     – Marilyn
  • Sarah Payne
    Sarah Payne (actor)
    Sarah Payne is a British actress and singer. She has worked extensively in London’s West End, and has played various roles in theatre, comedy, musical theatre, and opera.Payne initially trained as a musician, and studied music at Durham University...
    
    – Singin' in the Rain
    Singin' in the Rain (musical)
    Singin' in the Rain is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Arthur Freed, and music by Nacio Herb Brown.Adapted from the 1952 movie of the same name, the plot closely adheres to the original...
    
    

• 1984: Natalia Makarova
  Natalia Makarova
  Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
  
   – On Your Toes
  On Your Toes
  On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
  
  
  • Julia Hills
    Julia Hills
    Julia Hills is a British actress, known for being a member of the cast of the Channel 4 late-night comedy sketch show Who Dares Wins in the 1980s. She also played the character of Rona, the man-hungry neighbour, in eight series of the BBC hit sitcom 2point4 children...
    
     – The Hired Man
    The Hired Man
    The Hired Man is a novel by Melvyn Bragg, first published in 1969. It is the first part of Bragg's Cumbrian Trilogy.The story is set predominantly in the rural area around Thurston , from the 1890s to the 1920s, and follows the life of John Tallentire, a farm labourer and coal miner...
    
    
  • Clare Leach – 42nd Street
    42nd Street (musical)
    42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...
    
    
  • Sheila White
    Sheila White (actress)
    Sheila White is an English actress and West End musical star. She is married to the former theatre producer Richard M. Mills and lives in Kingston, Surrey.- Early life and career :White was born in London...
    
     – Little Me
    Little Me (musical)
    Little Me is a musical written by Neil Simon, with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh. The original Broadway production was memorable with Sid Caesar in multiple roles with multiple stage accents playing all of the heroine's husbands and lovers...
    
    

• 1985: Patti LuPone
  Patti LuPone
  Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
  
   – Les Misérables
  Les Misérables (musical)
  Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
  
  and The Cradle Will Rock
  The Cradle Will Rock
  The Cradle Will Rock is a 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles, and produced by John Houseman. The show was recorded and released on seven 78-rpm discs in 1938, making it the first cast album recording.The musical is a...
  
  
  • Betsy Brantley
    Betsy Brantley
    Betsy Brantley is an American actress.Brantley was born Rutherfordton, North Carolina. She is the older sister of producer/screenwriter Duncan Brantley, and formerly married to Simon Dutton and Steven Soderbergh....
    
     – Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
    
    
  • Carol Sloman – Lennon
    Lennon (musical)
    Lennon is a musical with music and lyrics by John Lennon and book by Don Scardino, who also directed its premiere. The musical is about the life of John Lennon and was notable for Scardino's choice to be almost exclusively-based on Lennon's own words and to focus on Lennon's solo career, with no...
    
    
  • Elisabeth Welch
    Elisabeth Welch
    thumb|right|200pxElisabeth Welch was an American born singer, actress, and entertainer whose career spanned seven decades, many years of which she was based in Britain....
    
     – Kern Goes to Hollywood

• 1986: Lesley Mackie – Judy
  • Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...
    
     – Wonderful Town
    Wonderful Town
    Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...
    
    
  • Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
    
     – Chess
    Chess (musical)
    Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, formerly of ABBA, and with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story involves a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other;...
    
    
  • Angela Richards
    Angela Richards
    Angela Richards is an English actress, best known to television viewers for her leading role in the BBC drama Secret Army , set during the Second World War in which she played Monique Duchamps....
    
     – Side by Side by Sondheim
    Side By Side By Sondheim
    Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...
    
    

• 1987: Nichola McAuliffe
  Nichola McAuliffe
  Nichola McAuliffe is an English television and stage actress and writer, best known for her role as Sheila Sabatini in the sitcom Surgical Spirit.-Background:McAuliffe was born in 1955 in Surrey, England...
  
   – Kiss Me, Kate
  Kiss Me, Kate
  Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
  
  
  • Dee Dee Bridgewater
    Dee Dee Bridgewater
    Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American Jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award - winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater...
    
     – Lady Day
  • Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
    
     – Follies
    Follies
    Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...
    
    
  • Carol Woods – Blues in the Night
    Blues in the Night (musical)
    Blues in the Night is a musical revue conceived by Sheldon Epps. It was produced by Mitchell Maxwell, Alan J. Schuster, Fred H. Krones and M Squared Entertainment, Inc., and Joshua Silver ....
    
    

• 1988: Patricia Routledge
  Patricia Routledge
  Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE is an English character comedy actress and singer. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates...
  
   – Candide
  Candide (operetta)
  Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
  
  
  • Kiki Dee
    Kiki Dee
    Kiki Dee is an English singer with a career spanning more than 40 years....
    
     – Blood Brothers
  • Ann Miller
    Ann Miller
    Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
    
     – Sugar Babies
    Sugar Babies
    Sugar Babies is a musical revue conceived by Ralph G. Allen and Harry Rigby, with music by Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Al Dubin and various others. The show is a tribute to the old burlesque era...
    
    
  • Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...
    
     – The Wizard of Oz

1990s

• 1989/1990: Lea Salonga
  Lea Salonga
  Lea Salonga-Chien is a mezzo-soprano singer and actress from the Philippines well known for originating the lead role of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon, for which she won the Olivier, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Theatre World awards.She was the first Asian to play the roles of Éponine and...
  
   – Miss Saigon
  Miss Saigon
  Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...
  
  
  • Patricia Hodge
    Patricia Hodge
    Patricia Ann Hodge is an English actor.-Early life:The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion , Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St...
    
     – Noel and Gertie
  • Judy Kuhn
    Judy Kuhn
    -Life and career:Kuhn was born in New York City and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C.She entered Oberlin College in 1976. Although she was very interested in singing and theater, she began Oberlin in the College, not the Conservatory. After taking...
    
     – Metropolis
    Metropolis (musical)
    Metropolis is a musical based on the 1927 silent movie of the same name that was staged at the Piccadilly Theatre in London in 1989. The music was written by Joe Brooks, the lyrics by Dusty Hughes. The show was directed by Jerome Savary...
    
    
  • Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
    
     – Anything Goes
    Anything Goes
    Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
    
    

• 1991: Imelda Staunton
  Imelda Staunton
  Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...
  
   – Into the Woods
  Into the Woods
  Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
  
  
  • Sally Burgess
    Sally Burgess
    Sally Burgess FRCM is a South Africa-born British operatic lyric mezzo-soprano, opera director, and educator. She has been a Fellow and Professor of Vocal Studies at the Royal College of Music since 2004, as well as teaching stagecraft...
    
     – Show Boat
    Show Boat
    Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
    
    
  • Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
    
     – Sunday in the Park with George
    Sunday in the Park with George
    Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
    
    
  • Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie
    Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
    
     – Into the Woods
    Into the Woods
    Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
    
    

• 1992: Wilhelmenia Fernandez
  Wilhelmenia Fernandez
  Wilhelmenia Fernandez, sometimes billed as Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, is an American soprano, born in Philadelphia in 1949, who became famous as the star of the film Diva by French director Jean-Jacques Beineix....
  
   – Carmen Jones
  Carmen Jones
  Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...
  
  
  • Sharon Benson – Carmen Jones
    Carmen Jones
    Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...
    
    
  • Linzi Hateley
    Linzi Hateley
    Linzi Hateley is an English stage actress who is currently starring as one of the leads in the West End production of the musical Mamma Mia!. Her performance as Donna started on 5 March 2007....
    
     – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
    Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
    Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
    
    
  • Miriam Margolyes
    Miriam Margolyes
    Miriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...
    
     – Dickens' Women
    Dickens' Women
    Dickens' Women is a one person show written by Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser and starring Margolyes.The play includes 23 different characters based on or inspired by characters in Charles Dickens' novels....
    
    

• 1993: Joanna Riding
  Joanna Riding
  Joanna Riding, is an English actress. For her work in West End musicals, she has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two others.-Biography:...
  
   – Carousel
  Carousel (musical)
  Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
  
  
  • Kim Criswell
    Kim Criswell
    Kim Criswell is an American musical entertainer and actress.- Life and career :Criswell was born in Hampton, Virginia, but grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After she graduated from high school, she studied musical theatre at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music...
    
     – Annie Get Your Gun
    Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
    Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
    
    
  • Ruthie Henshall
    Ruthie Henshall
    Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
    
     – Crazy for You
    Crazy for You
    Crazy for You is a musical with a book by Ken Ludwig, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. Billed as "The New Gershwin Musical Comedy", it is largely based on the songwriting team’s 1930 musical, Girl Crazy, but interpolates songs from several other productions as well...
    
    
  • Kelly Hunter – The Blue Angel

• 1994: Julia McKenzie
  Julia McKenzie
  Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
  
   – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
  Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1936 British film produced and directed by George King.-Plot:The film features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles as barber Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was wrongly sentenced to life in prison. After his release 15 years later, he begins...
  
  
  • Haydn Gwynne
    Haydn Gwynne
    -Personal life:Born in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex to father Guy Thomas Hayden-Gwynne, she played county level tennis before studying Sociology at the University of Nottingham, and is fluent in French and Italian...
    
     – City of Angels
    City of Angels (musical)
    City of Angels is a musical comedy with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel, and book by Larry Gelbart. The musical weaves together two plots, the "real" world of a writer trying to turn his book into a screenplay, and the "reel" world of the fictional film.-Productions:City of Angels...
    
    
  • Patti LuPone
    Patti LuPone
    Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
    
     – Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard (musical)
    Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
    
    
  • Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
    
     – Piaf
    Piaf (play)
    Piaf is a play by Pam Gems that focuses on the life and career of French chanteuse Edith Piaf. The biographical drama with music portrays the singer in a most unflattering light...
    
    

• 1995: Ruthie Henshall
  Ruthie Henshall
  Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
  
   – She Loves Me
  She Loves Me
  She Loves Me is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.The musical is the fifth adaptation of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, following the 1940 James Stewart-Margaret Sullavan film The Shop around the Corner and the...
  
  
  • Betty Buckley
    Betty Buckley
    Betty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...
    
     – Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard (musical)
    Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
    
    
  • Sally Dexter
    Sally Dexter
    Sally Julia Dexter , is an English actress of stage and screen.She was educated at Chiltern Edge School, King James's College at Henley-on-Thames, now The Henley College...
    
     – Oliver!
    Oliver!
    Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
    
    

• 1996: Judi Dench
  Judi Dench
  Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
  
   – A Little Night Music
  A Little Night Music
  A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
  
  
  • Elizabeth Mansfield – Marie
  • Caroline O'Connor – Mack & Mabel
    Mack & Mabel
    Mack & Mabel is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The plot involves the tumultuous romantic relationship between Hollywood director Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand , who became one of his biggest stars...
    
    
  • Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige
    Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
    
     – Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard (musical)
    Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
    
    

• 1997: Maria Friedman
  Maria Friedman
  Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
  
   – Passion
  Passion (musical)
  Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...
  
  
  • B J Crosby – Smokey Joe's Café: The Songs of Lieber and Stoller
  • Joanna Riding
    Joanna Riding
    Joanna Riding, is an English actress. For her work in West End musicals, she has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two others.-Biography:...
    
     – Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
    
    
  • Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...
    
     – Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
    
    

• 1998: Ute Lemper
  Ute Lemper
  Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...
  
   – Chicago
  Chicago (musical)
  Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
  
  
  • Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
    
     – Lady in the Dark
    Lady in the Dark
    Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis...
    
    
  • Ruthie Henshall
    Ruthie Henshall
    Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
    
     – Chicago
    Chicago (musical)
    Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
    
    
  • Siân Phillips
    Siân Phillips
    Jane Elizabeth Ailwên "Siân" Phillips, CBE, is a Welsh actress.-Early life:Phillips was born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales, the daughter of Sally , a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman...
    
     – Marlene

• 1999: Sophie Thompson
  Sophie Thompson
  Sophie Thompson is an award-winning English actress, best known for playing Stella Crawford in EastEnders.-Early life:...
  
   – Into the Woods
  Into the Woods
  Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
  
  
  • Krysten Cummings – Rent
    Rent (musical)
    Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...
    
    
  • Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
    
     – Chicago
    Chicago (musical)
    Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
    
    
  • Josefina Gabrielle
    Josefina Gabrielle
    Josefina Gabrielle is an Olivier Award-nominated stage and screen actress, best known for her performances in hit West End musicals and plays.-Theatrical career:Josefina Gabrielle began her professional career dancing with the National Ballet of Portugal...
    
     – Oklahoma!
    Oklahoma!
    Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
    
    

2000s

• 2000: Barbara Dickson
  Barbara Dickson
  Barbara Ruth Dickson, OBE is a Scottish singer whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" and "January February"...
  
   – Spend Spend Spend
  Spend Spend Spend
  Spend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
  
  
  • Josette Bushell-Mingo
    Josette Bushell-Mingo
    Josette Bushell-Mingo is a Swedish-based British theatre actor and director of African descent. She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2000 for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Rafiki in the London production of The Lion King . In 2001, she founded a black-led arts festival...
    
     – The Lion King
    The Lion King (musical)
    The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well...
    
    
  • Rachel Leskovac
    Rachel Leskovac
    Rachel Leskovac is an Olivier award-nominated British actress best known for playing hairdresser Natasha Blakeman in the British soap opera Coronation Street.-Early life:...
    
     – Spend Spend Spend
    Spend Spend Spend
    Spend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
    
    
  • Siobhan McCarthy
    Siobhán McCarthy
    Siobhán Mary Ann McCarthy is a television and stage actress. She is married to theatrical sound designer Andrew Bruce, and resides in London with her husband and two children, Kieran and Juliet....
    
     – Mamma Mia!
    Mamma Mia!
    Mamma Mia! is a stage musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. Although the title of the musical is taken from the group's 1975 chart-topper "Mamma Mia", the plot is fictional, not...
    
    

• 2001: Samantha Spiro
  Samantha Spiro
  Samantha Spiro is an Olivier Award-winning English actress. She is known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television film Cor, Blimey!, and DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team.-Background:Born in Mill Hill, Spiro grew up...
  
   – Merrily We Roll Along
  Merrily We Roll Along (musical)
  Merrily We Roll Along is a musical with a book by George Furth and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart....
  
  
  • Nicola Hughes
    Nicola Hughes
    Nicola Hughes is an English dancer, singer and actress of Antiguan descent.Hughes’ first principal theatre role was in The Who's Tommy, playing the Acid Queen at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1996...
    
     – Fosse
    Fosse
    Fosse is a three-act musical revue showcasing the choreography of Bob Fosse. After 21 previews, the original Broadway production, conceived and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr...
    
    
  • Joanna Riding
    Joanna Riding
    Joanna Riding, is an English actress. For her work in West End musicals, she has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two others.-Biography:...
    
     – The Witches of Eastwick
    The Witches of Eastwick (musical)
    The Witches of Eastwick is a 2000 musical based on the novel of the same name by John Updike. It was adapted by John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe , directed by Eric Schaeffer, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh....
    
    
  • Josie Walker – The Beautiful Game
    The Beautiful Game (musical)
    The Beautiful Game is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton about a group of teenagers growing up amid religious intolerance in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1969....
    
    

• 2002: Martine McCutcheon
  Martine McCutcheon
  Martine McCutcheon is an English singer, television personality and Laurence Olivier Award-winning actress. McCutcheon had minor success as one third of the pop group Milan in the early 1990s; however, it was her role as Tiffany Mitchell in BBC's EastEnders that made her a household name in the UK...
  
   – My Fair Lady
  My Fair Lady
  My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
  
  
  • Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
    
     – Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim
  • Ruthie Henshall
    Ruthie Henshall
    Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
    
     – Peggy Sue Got Married
    Peggy Sue Got Married (musical)
    Peggy Sue Got Married is a musical adapted from the Francis Ford Coppola film of the same name. The book was written by Arlene Sarner and Jerry Leichtling, music composed by Bob Gaudio, with lyrics by Jerry Leichtling...
    
    
  • Marin Mazzie
    Marin Mazzie
    Marin Joy Mazzie is an American actress and singer known for her work in musical theater. She was nominated for the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Olivier Award for her role as Lilli/Katharine in Kiss Me, Kate, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award...
    
     – Kiss Me, Kate
    Kiss Me, Kate
    Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
    
    

• 2003: Joanna Riding
  Joanna Riding
  Joanna Riding, is an English actress. For her work in West End musicals, she has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two others.-Biography:...
  
   – My Fair Lady
  My Fair Lady
  My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
  
  
  • Janie Dee
    Janie Dee
    Janie Dee is an English actress and singer.She is married to the actor Rupert Wickham.-Theatre:Dee is presently part of the Globe Theatre 2011 season playing The Countess of Roussillion in Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well" and in October she goes to Nottingham Playhouse to play Amanda in ...
    
     – My One and Only
    My One and Only
    My One and Only is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer and music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.Written to incorporate classic Gershwin tunes from Funny Face and other popular shows into one evening of entertainment, the plot, set in 1927 America, revolves around Capt...
    
    
  • Elaine Stritch
    Elaine Stritch
    Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
    
     – Elaine Stritch at Liberty
  • Sarah Wildor
    Sarah Wildor
    Sarah Wildor is an English ballerina and theatre dancer. She is most noted as a former principal dancer with The Royal Ballet, a leading international ballet company based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.- Overview :...
    
     – Contact
    Contact (musical)
    Contact: The Musical is a musical "dance play" that was developed by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, with its "book" by Weidman and both choreography and direction by Stroman. It ran both off-Broadway and on Broadway in 1999 - 2000. It consists of three separate one-act dance...
    
    

• 2004: Maria Friedman
  Maria Friedman
  Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
  
   – Ragtime
  Ragtime (musical)
  Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in...
  
  
  • Amanda Holden
    Amanda Holden
    Amanda Louise Holden is an English actress and presenter. Among her roles are Mia Bevan in Cutting It, Sarah Trevanion in Wild at Heart, and the title role in Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award...
    
     – Thoroughly Modern Millie
    Thoroughly Modern Millie (musical)
    Thoroughly Modern Millie is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, and a book by Richard Morris and Scanlan. Based on the 1967 film of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for...
    
    
  • Alison Jiear
    Alison Jiear
    Alison Jiear is a popular cabaret artist on the London cabaret circuit. Alison was trained at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Australia....
    
     – Jerry Springer: The Opera
    Jerry Springer: The Opera
    Jerry Springer: The Opera is a British musical written by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, based on the television show The Jerry Springer Show. The musical is notable for its profanity, its irreverent treatment of Judeo-Christian themes, and surreal images such as a troupe of tap-dancing Ku Klux...
    
    
  • Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Lipman
    Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...
    
     – Thoroughly Modern Millie
    Thoroughly Modern Millie (musical)
    Thoroughly Modern Millie is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, and a book by Richard Morris and Scanlan. Based on the 1967 film of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for...
    
    

• 2005: Laura Michelle Kelly
  Laura Michelle Kelly
  Laura Michelle Kelly is an English actress and singer who achieved critical acclaim in the role of Mary Poppins in the musical of the same name.-Musical theatre:...
  
   – Mary Poppins
  Mary Poppins (musical)
  Mary Poppins is a Walt Disney Theatrical musical based on the similarly titled series of children's books by P. L. Travers and the Disney 1964 film. The West End production opened in December 2004 and received two Olivier Awards, one for Best Actress in a Musical and the other for Best Theatre...
  
  
  • Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman
    Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
    
     – The Woman in White
    The Woman in White (musical)
    The Woman in White is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel with a book by Charlotte Jones, based on the novel The Woman in White written by Wilkie Collins...
    
    
  • Leigh Zimmerman
    Leigh Zimmerman
    Leigh Zimmerman is an American actress, singer and dancer. She has appeared on Broadway in The Will Rogers Follies, Crazy for You and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Nathan Lane and in London's West End in The Seven Year Itch and Chicago.In 1992, she had a minor role in Home...
    
     – The Producers
    The Producers (musical)
    The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich...
    
    

• 2006: Jane Krakowski
  Jane Krakowski
  Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...
  
   – Guys and Dolls
  Guys and Dolls
  Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
  
  
  • Jenna Russell
    Jenna Russell
    Jenna Russell is an English actress and singer. She has appeared on the stage in London in both musicals and dramas, as well as appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company...
    
     – Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
    
    
  • Haydn Gwynne
    Haydn Gwynne
    -Personal life:Born in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex to father Guy Thomas Hayden-Gwynne, she played county level tennis before studying Sociology at the University of Nottingham, and is fluent in French and Italian...
    
     – Billy Elliot the Musical
    Billy Elliot the Musical
    Billy Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is by Sir Elton John, and book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around motherless Billy, who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes...
    
    
  • Julie Walters
    Julie Walters
    Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...
    
     – Acorn Antiques: The Musical!
    Acorn Antiques: The Musical!
    Acorn Antiques:The Musical! is a musical about an antiques dealer, based on the parodic soap opera of the same name by Victoria Wood. It premiered in the West End in 2005, and starred Julie Walters and Celia Imrie...
    
    

• 2007: Jenna Russell
  Jenna Russell
  Jenna Russell is an English actress and singer. She has appeared on the stage in London in both musicals and dramas, as well as appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company...
  
   – Sunday in the Park with George
  Sunday in the Park with George
  Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
  
  
  • Nicola Hughes
    Nicola Hughes
    Nicola Hughes is an English dancer, singer and actress of Antiguan descent.Hughes’ first principal theatre role was in The Who's Tommy, playing the Acid Queen at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1996...
    
     – Porgy and Bess
    Porgy and Bess
    Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
    
    
  • Tonya Pinkins
    Tonya Pinkins
    Tonya Pinkins is an American actress and author known for her portrayal of Livia Frye on the soap opera All My Children and for her roles on Broadway, for which she won a Tony Award.-Biography:...
    
     – Caroline, or Change
    Caroline, or Change
    Caroline, or Change is a through-composed musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish klezmer and folk music....
    
    
  • Elena Roger
    Elena Roger
    Elena Silvia Roger is an Argentine actress who won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in Piaf. She has also appeared in the West End in Evita, Boeing-Boeing, and Passion...
    
     – Evita
  • Hannah Waddingham
    Hannah Waddingham
    Hannah Waddingham is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her contribution to West End theatre, particularly her original performance in Spamalot and in A Little Night Music...
    
     – Spamalot
    Spamalot
    Monty Python's Spamalot is a musical comedy "lovingly ripped off from" the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Like the film, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian Legend, but it differs from the film in many ways, especially in its parodies of Broadway theatre...
    
    

• 2008: Leanne Jones
  Leanne Jones
  Leanne Jones is a British actress. She was born in Stoke on Trent and grew up in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, where she attended St Ivo School, before studying at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in Wood Green, in north London, graduating in 2006...
  
   – Hairspray
  Hairspray (musical)
  Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues...
  
  
  • Lara Pulver
    Lara Pulver
    Lara Pulver is an English actress who has received nominations for the 2008 Laurence Olivier Awards and 'Whatsonstage' Theatregoers Choice Awards.-Career:...
    
     – Parade
    Parade (musical)
    Parade is a musical with a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. The musical was first produced on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on December 17, 1998. The production was directed by Harold Prince and closed 28 February 1999 after only 39 previews and 84 regular...
    
    
  • Sheridan Smith
    Sheridan Smith
    Sheridan Smith is an English actress and singer who is best known for her contributions to the British sitcoms Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin & Stacey and Benidorm. She has also become a recognised face in West End theatre, where she has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors,...
    
     – Little Shop of Horrors
    Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
    Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...
    
    
  • Summer Strallen
    Summer Strallen
    Summer Peta Vaigncourt-Strallen is an English actress who has performed various roles on stage and screen. Her most notable theatre credits include Meg Giry in the West End production of Love Never Dies and Maria Von Trapp in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of The Sound of Music at the London...
    
     – The Drowsy Chaperone
    The Drowsy Chaperone
    The Drowsy Chaperone is a musical with book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison. It debuted in 1998 at The Rivoli in Toronto and opened on Broadway on 1 May 2006. The show won the Tony Award for Best Book and Best Score. It started as a spoof of old...
    
    

• 2009: Elena Roger
  Elena Roger
  Elena Silvia Roger is an Argentine actress who won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in Piaf. She has also appeared in the West End in Evita, Boeing-Boeing, and Passion...
  
   - Piaf
  Piaf (play)
  Piaf is a play by Pam Gems that focuses on the life and career of French chanteuse Edith Piaf. The biographical drama with music portrays the singer in a most unflattering light...
  
  
  • Sofia Escobar – West Side Story
    West Side Story
    West Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins...
    
    
  • Kathryn Evans
    Kathryn Evans
    Kathryn Evans is a British stage actress. She trained at the Royal Ballet School and Arts Educational.She is best known for taking over the lead role of Eva in Evita. She later appeared in many West End Theatre shows including Anything Goes, Aspects of Love, Mack & Mabel and The Fix.Most recently...
    
     – Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard (musical)
    Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
    
    
  • Ruthie Henshall
    Ruthie Henshall
    Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
    
     – Marguerite
    Marguerite (musical)
    Marguerite is a musical with a book by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Jonathan Kent, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, and music by Michel Legrand, with original French lyrics by Boublil. Based on the romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, the musical...
    
    
  • Emma Williams
    Emma Williams (actress)
    Emma Williams is a British actress. After, going to North Halifax Grammar School and studying at the Stage84 stage school in Idle, West Yorkshire, she has had a successful career in TV, film and on stage....
    
     – Zorro
    Zorro (musical)
    Zorro is a musical with music by the Gipsy Kings and John Cameron, a book by Stephen Clark and Helen Edmundson, and lyrics by Stephen Clark. It is based on the 2005 mock biography Zorro, the first origin story of the pulp hero Zorro, written by Chilean author Isabel Allende...
    
    

2010s

• 2010: Samantha Spiro
  Samantha Spiro
  Samantha Spiro is an Olivier Award-winning English actress. She is known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television film Cor, Blimey!, and DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team.-Background:Born in Mill Hill, Spiro grew up...
  
   – Hello, Dolly!
  Hello, Dolly! (musical)
  Hello, Dolly! is a musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955....
  
  
  • Melanie Chisholm
    Melanie Chisholm
    Melanie Jayne Chisholm is an English singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman professionally known simply as Melanie C . She is best known as one of the five members of the girl group Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed "Sporty Spice"...
    
     – Blood Brothers
  • Patina Miller
    Patina Miller
    Patina Miller is an American actress and singer.Miller is best known for originating the role of disco diva wannabe Deloris Van Cartier in the 2009 West End and 2011 Broadway productions of Sister Act the Musical.-Early life:...
    
     – Sister Act
  • Hannah Waddingham
    Hannah Waddingham
    Hannah Waddingham is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her contribution to West End theatre, particularly her original performance in Spamalot and in A Little Night Music...
    
     – A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
    
    
  • Charlotte Wakefield – Spring Awakening
    Spring Awakening
    Spring Awakening is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1892 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It features music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of...
    
    

• 2011: Sheridan Smith
  Sheridan Smith
  Sheridan Smith is an English actress and singer who is best known for her contributions to the British sitcoms Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin & Stacey and Benidorm. She has also become a recognised face in West End theatre, where she has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors,...
  
   – Legally Blonde
  Legally Blonde (musical)
  Legally Blonde is a musical with music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin and book by Heather Hach. The story is based on the novel Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown and the 2001 film of the same name. It tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who enrolls at Harvard Law School to...
  
  
  • Elena Roger
    Elena Roger
    Elena Silvia Roger is an Argentine actress who won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in Piaf. She has also appeared in the West End in Evita, Boeing-Boeing, and Passion...
    
     – Passion
    Passion (musical)
    Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...
    
    
  • Emma Williams
    Emma Williams (actress)
    Emma Williams is a British actress. After, going to North Halifax Grammar School and studying at the Stage84 stage school in Idle, West Yorkshire, she has had a successful career in TV, film and on stage....
    
     – Love Story
    Love Story (musical)
    Love Story is a musical written by Stephen Clark withmusic by Howard Goodall and lyrics by Stephen Clark and Goodall. It is inspired by Erich Segal’s best-selling novel of the same name...
    
    
  • Sierra Boggess
    Sierra Boggess
    Sierra Boggess is an American theater actress and soprano singer. She was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, with her two sisters, Summer and Allegra. The three of them were members of the Colorado Children's Chorale. Her parents are Kellun Turner and Michael Boggess...
    
     – Love Never Dies