The Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design is presented annually by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements by scenic design

Scenic design

Scenic design is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with M.F.A...

ers for commercial British theatre, most notably 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...

 plays and musicals.

It originated as a single award for Designer of the Year in 1976. In 1991 it was divided into three awards, one for sets, one for costumes, and one for lighting.

1990s

• 1991: Mark Thompson – The Wind in the Willows
  The Wind in the Willows
  The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England...
  
  
  • Tom Cairns – 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...
    
    
  • William Dudley
    William Dudley (designer)
    William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
    
     – Marya
  • Nigel Lowery – The Illusion
    The Illusion
    The Illusion is a play by Tony Kushner, adapted from Pierre Corneille's seventeenth-century comedy, L'Illusion Comique. It follows a contrite father, Pridamant, seeking news of his prodigal son from the sorcerer Alcandre. The magician conjures three episodes from the young man's life...
    
    

• 1992: Mark Thompson – The Comedy of Errors
  The Comedy of Errors
  The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
  
  and 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...
  
  
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
    
     – When She Danced, Murmuring Judges
    Murmuring Judges
    Murmuring Judges, first performed in 1991, is a scathing attack on the British legal system, and the second of a trilogy of plays by David Hare examining Great Britain's most hallowed institutions...
    
    and The Night of the Iguana
    The Night of the Iguana
    The Night of the Iguana is a stageplay written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961. Two film adaptations have been made, including the Academy Award-winning 1964 film of the same name....
    
    
  • Ashley Martin-Davis – The Miser
    The Miser
    L'Avare is a 1668 five-act satirical comedy by French playwright Molière. Its title is usually translated as The Miser when the play is performed in English....
    
    and The Recruiting Officer
    The Recruiting Officer
    The Recruiting Officer is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers...
    
    
  • Philip Prowse – A Woman of No Importance
    A Woman of No Importance
    A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy...
    
    and The White Devil
    The White Devil
    The White Devil is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the...
    
    

• 1993: Ian MacNeil
  Ian MacNeil (scenic designer)
  Ian MacNeil is a British scenic designer. He won the 1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for An Inspector Calls and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Billy Elliot The Musical.-Early life and career:...
  
   – An Inspector Calls
  An Inspector Calls
  An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 in the Soviet Union and 1946 in the UK. It is considered to be one of Priestley's best known works for the stage and one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre...
  
  
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
    
     – 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...
    
    , Henry IV and No Man's Land
    No Man's Land (play)
    No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...
    
    
  • Jerome Sirlin – Kiss of the Spider Woman
    Kiss of the Spider Woman (musical)
    Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, with the book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the Manuel Puig novel El Beso de la Mujer Araña...
    
    
  • Robin Wagner
    Robin Wagner (designer)
    Robin Wagner is an American scenic designer.Born Robin Samuel Anton Wagner in San Francisco, he attended art school and started his career in theatres in that city with designs for Don Pasquale, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Tea and Sympathy, and Waiting for Godot, among others...
    
     – 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...
    
    

• 1994: Mark Thompson – Hysteria
  Hysteria (play)
  Hysteria: Or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis is a two-hour play by Terry Johnson fictionalising a 1938 meeting between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud a year before the latter's death. It is named after the Freudian psychological term "hysteria" and its London premiere was in 1...
  
  
  • Peter J. Davison – Medea
    Medea (play)
    Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
    
    
  • Ian MacNeil
    Ian MacNeil (scenic designer)
    Ian MacNeil is a British scenic designer. He won the 1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for An Inspector Calls and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Billy Elliot The Musical.-Early life and career:...
    
     – Machinal
    Machinal
    Machinal is a play written by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real life case of convicted and executed murderess Ruth Snyder...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward – The Winter's Tale
    The Winter's Tale
    The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
    
    

• 1995: Stephen Brimson Lewis – Design for Living
  Design for Living
  Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
  
  and Les Parents terribles
  Les parents terribles
  Les Parents terribles is a 1938 French play written by Jean Cocteau. Despite initial problems with censorship, it was revived on the French stage several times after its original production, and in 1948 a film adaptation directed by Cocteau himself was released...
  
  
  • Lez Brotherston – Neville's Island
  • Peter J. Davison – Le Cid
    Le Cid
    Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...
    
    and Saint Joan
    Saint Joan (play)
    Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward – Sweet Bird of Youth
    Sweet Bird of Youth
    Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies...
    
    and The Tempest
    The Tempest
    The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
    
    

• 1996: John Napier
  John Napier (designer)
  John Napier is a set designer for Broadway and London theatrical performances.-Biography:John Napier studied at Hornsey College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, studying under notable set designer Ralph Koltai....
  
   – Burning Blue
  • John Gunter
    John Gunter
    John Gunter was secretary-manager of Middlesbrough F.C. from February 1909 to June 1910.Following the departure of Andy Aitken to Leicester Fosse, Boro were left without a manager in name for sixteen months, and so the responsibilities of management fell to secretary John Gunter.Gunter joined the...
    
     – Skylight
    Skylight (play)
    Skylight is a play by British dramatist David Hare. It opened at the Royal National Theatre, Cottesloe, directed by Richard Eyre, in 1995. The production then moved to the Wyndham's Theatre for a short run from 13 February 1996, after winning the Laurence Olivier Award for the 1995...
    
    , Absolute Hell and Twelfth Night
  • Rob Howell – The Glass Menagerie
    The Glass Menagerie
    The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward – A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
    
    , La Grande Magia and The Way of the World
    The Way of the World
    The Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
    
    

• 1997: Tim Hatley
  Tim Hatley
  Tim Hatley is a British set and costume designer for theater and film. He is the winner of the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design.Hatley was educated at Bearwood...
  
   – Stanley
  Stanley (play)
  Stanley is a 1996 play written by English playwright, Pam Gems. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London.-Plot synopsis:...
  
  
  • John Arnone – Tommy
  • Paul Farnsworth – Passion
    Passion (play)
    Passion Play is a 1981 play by British playwright Peter Nichols dealing with adultery and betrayal. It was originally intended to open the Royal Shakespeare Company's new Barbican Theatre but was produced by them at the London's Aldwych Theatre in 1981...
    
    
  • Mark Thompson – 'Art'
    'Art' (play)
    ‘Art’ is a French language play by Yasmina Reza that premiered on 28 October 1994 at Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The English language adaptation, translated by Christopher Hampton opened in London's West End on 15 October 1996, starring Albert Finney. It played on Broadway in New York...
    
    

• 1998: Tim Goodchild – Three Hours After Marriage
  Three Hours After Marriage
  Three Hours After Marriage was a restoration comedy, written in 1717 as a collaboration between John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot. It premiered in 1717 and among its satirical targets were Richard Blackmore....
  
  
  • William Dudley
    William Dudley (designer)
    William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
    
     – The Homecoming
    The Homecoming
    The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...
    
    
  • John Gunter
    John Gunter
    John Gunter was secretary-manager of Middlesbrough F.C. from February 1909 to June 1910.Following the departure of Andy Aitken to Leicester Fosse, Boro were left without a manager in name for sixteen months, and so the responsibilities of management fell to secretary John Gunter.Gunter joined the...
    
     – The Peter Hall Company's Season
  • Rob Howell – Chips with Everything
    Chips with Everything
    Chips with Everything is a 1962 play by Arnold Wesker. The play shows class attitudes at the time by examining the life of a corporal.In 1963, the play opened in the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway. British actor Alan Dobie made his Broadway debut as Corporal Hill....
    
    

• 1999: Anthony Ward – 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...
  
  
  • Maria Björnson
    Maria Björnson
    Maria Björnson was an acclaimed theatre stage designer, born in Paris to Norwegian and Romanian parents....
    
     – Britannicus and Phedre
    Britannicus (play)
    Britannicus is a tragic play by the French dramatist Jean Racine.The play, produced in 1669, was the first time Racine had tried his hand at depicting Roman history. The tale of moral choice takes as its subject Britannicus, the son of the Roman emperor Claudius, and heir to the imperial throne...
    
    
  • William Dudley
    William Dudley (designer)
    William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
    
     – Amadeus and Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick
    Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick
    Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick is a 1998 play written by the English dramatist Terry Johnson, who also directed the original production at the National Theatre....
    
    
  • Richard Hoover – Not About Nightingales
    Not About Nightingales
    Not About Nightingales is a three act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1938. The play itself focuses on a group of inmates who go on a hunger strike in attempt to better their situation. There is also a soft love story, with the characters Eva, the new secretary at the prison, and Jim, a...
    
    
  • Mark Thompson – The Blue Room and The Unexpected Man
    The Unexpected Man
    The Unexpected Man is a play written in 1995 by Yasmina Reza. Reza is best known in the English speaking world as the author of Art.-Plot:...
    
    

2000s

• 2000: Rob Howell – Richard III
  Richard III (play)
  Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
  
  , Troilus and Cressida
  Troilus and Cressida
  Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus...
  
  and Vassa
  • Lez Brotherston – 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,...
    
    
  • Maria Björnson
    Maria Björnson
    Maria Björnson was an acclaimed theatre stage designer, born in Paris to Norwegian and Romanian parents....
    
     – Plenty
    Plenty (play)
    Plenty is a play by David Hare, first performed in 1978, about British post-war disillusion. Susan Traherne, a former secret agent, is a woman conflicted by the contrast between her past, exciting triumphs—she had worked behind enemy lines as a Special Operations Executive courier in Nazi-occupied...
    
    
  • Richard Hudson
    Richard Hudson (stage designer)
    Richard Hudson is a Zimbabwean stage designer best known for his work for The Lion King, which won him the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design....
    
     – 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...
    
    

• 2001: William Dudley
  William Dudley (designer)
  William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
  
   – All My Sons
  All My Sons
  All My Sons is a 1947 play by Arthur Miller. The play was twice adapted for film; in 1948, and again in 1987.The play opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1947 and ran for 328 performances...
  
  
  • Bunny Christie – Baby Doll
  • Rob Howell – The Caretaker
    The Caretaker
    The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
    
    
  • Brian Thomson
    Brian Thomson
    Brian Thomson is an Australian theatre, opera and film designer. He has been active in Australian stage design for over three decades.Thomson began a long and successful collaboration with director Jim Sharman after they met at Heavenburgers on Sydney's Oxford Street in 1969; they worked together...
    
     – 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...
    
    

• 2002: Tim Hatley
  Tim Hatley
  Tim Hatley is a British set and costume designer for theater and film. He is the winner of the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design.Hatley was educated at Bearwood...
  
   – Humble Boy
  Humble Boy
  Humble Boy is a 2001 English play by Charlotte Jones. The play was presented in association with Matthew Byam Shaw and Anna Mackmin, and was first performed on the Cottesloe stage of the Royal National Theatre on August 9, 2001. [1]-Background:...
  
  and Private Lives
  Private Lives
  Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
  
  
  • Lez Brotherston – The Little Foxes
    The Little Foxes
    The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." Set in a small town in Alabama in...
    
    and A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
    
    
  • Julian Crouch and Graeme Gilmour – Shockheaded Peter
    Shockheaded Peter (musical)
    Shockheaded Peter is a 1998 musical using the popular German children's book Der Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann as its basis.-Productions:* 1998 West Yorkshire Playhouse* 1999 Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater* 2002 Piccadilly Theatre...
    
    
  • Robin Wagner
    Robin Wagner (designer)
    Robin Wagner is an American scenic designer.Born Robin Samuel Anton Wagner in San Francisco, he attended art school and started his career in theatres in that city with designs for Don Pasquale, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Tea and Sympathy, and Waiting for Godot, among others...
    
     – 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...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward – 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...
    
    

• 2003: Bunny Christie – A Streetcar Named Desire
  A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
  A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
  
  
  • Anthony Ward – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (musical)
    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also known as Chitty the Musical, is a stage musical based on the 1968 film produced by Cubby Broccoli. The music and lyrics were written by Richard and Robert Sherman with book by Jeremy Sams.-Productions:...
    
    
  • Lez Brotherston – Play Without Words
    Play Without Words
    Play Without Words is a 2002 ballet by English choreographer Matthew Bourne with music by Terry Davies. The work is an adaptation of the Joseph Losey film, The Servant after the Robin Maugham novel of the same title.-External links:...
    
    
  • William Dudley
    William Dudley (designer)
    William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
    
     – The Coast of Utopia
    The Coast of Utopia
    The Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866...
    
    

• 2004: William Dudley
  William Dudley (designer)
  William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
  
   – Hitchcock Blonde
  • Franco Zeffirelli
    Franco Zeffirelli
    Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
    
     – Absolutely! (Perhaps)
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
    
     – Mourning Becomes Electra
    Mourning Becomes Electra
    Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932...
    
    

• 2005: Giles Cadle – His Dark Materials
  His Dark Materials (play)
  His Dark Materials is a play written by British playwright Nicholas Wright adapted from the Phillip Pullman fantasy novel trilogy of the same title. The production premiered in the Royal National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London, in 2003...
  
  
  • Ian MacNeil
    Ian MacNeil (scenic designer)
    Ian MacNeil is a British scenic designer. He won the 1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for An Inspector Calls and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Billy Elliot The Musical.-Early life and career:...
    
     – Festen
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
    
     – 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...
    
    
  • Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram is a British theatre set and costume designer.-Background:He trained at the West Sussex College of Art and Design ....
    
     – Suddenly, Last Summer
    Suddenly, Last Summer
    Suddenly, Last Summer is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams. It opened off Broadway on January 7, 1958, as part of a double bill with another of Williams's one-acts, Something Unspoken. The presentation of the two plays was given the overall title Garden District, but Suddenly, Last Summer is...
    
    
  • William Dudley
    William Dudley (designer)
    William Dudley is a British theatre designer.Dudley is the son of William Stuart Dudley and his wife Dorothy Irene. He was educated at the St Martin's School of Art and the Slade School of Art...
    
     – The Woman in White
    The Woman in White
    The Woman in White can refer to:*The Woman in White , an 1859 novel written by Wilkie Collins*The Woman in White , a 2004 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on the novel...
    
    

• 2006: Rob Howell – Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
  
  
  • Ian MacNeil
    Ian MacNeil (scenic designer)
    Ian MacNeil is a British scenic designer. He won the 1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for An Inspector Calls and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Billy Elliot The Musical.-Early life and career:...
    
     – 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...
    
    
  • Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram is a British theatre set and costume designer.-Background:He trained at the West Sussex College of Art and Design ....
    
     – Don Carlos
    Don Carlos (play)
    Don Carlos is a historical tragedy in five acts by Friedrich Schiller; it was written between 1783 and 1787 and first produced in Hamburg in 1787...
    
    

• 2007: David Farley
  David Farley
  David Farley, born September 25, 1971 is an American author and journalist. He is originally from Dubuque, Iowa, but spent his formative years in Simi Valley, California...
  
   and Timothy Bird – 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...
  
  
  • Tim Hatley
    Tim Hatley
    Tim Hatley is a British set and costume designer for theater and film. He is the winner of the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design.Hatley was educated at Bearwood...
    
     – 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...
    
    
  • Eugene Lee
    Eugene Lee
    Eugene Lee may refer to:* Eugene Gordon Lee , U.S. child actor* Eugene Lee , U.S. radio deejay, actor, and cable television host* Eugene Lee , Tony-Award winning designer*Eugene Lee -See also:...
    
     – Wicked
    Wicked (musical)
    Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...
    
    

• 2008: Rae Smith and Handspring Puppet Company
  Handspring Puppet Company
  The Handspring Puppet Company is a puppetry performance and design company established in 1981 by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, situated in Cape Town, South Africa. Thys Stander is the company's chief puppet maker.-History:...
  
   – War Horse
  War Horse (play)
  War Horse is a play based on the book of the same name by acclaimed children's writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted for stage by Nick Stafford. Originally Morpurgo thought "they must be mad" to try to make a play from his best-selling 1982 novel. He was proved wrong by the play's instant success...
  
  
  • David Rockwell
    David Rockwell
    David Rockwell is an American architect and designer, who is the founder and CEO of Rockwell Group, based in New York with satellite offices in Madrid and Dubai. Rockwell has long been fascinated with immersive environments.-Early life and education:...
    
     – 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...
    
    
  • Rob Howell – The Lord of the Rings
    The Lord of the Rings (theatre)
    The Lord of the Rings is the most prominent of several theatre adaptations of British author J. R. R. Tolkien's epic high fantasy novel of the same name, set in his world of Middle-earth. The show includes music by A. R. Rahman, Christopher Nightingale, and the band Värttinä, with book and lyrics...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward and Lorna Heavey – Macbeth
    Macbeth
    The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
    
    

• 2009: Todd Rosenthal
  Todd Rosenthal
  Todd Rosenthal is an American scenic designer. He won the 2007 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design for Steppenwolf Theatre Company's August: Osage County....
  
   – August: Osage County
  August: Osage County
  August: Osage County is a darkly comedic play by Tracy Letts. It was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on 28 June 2007, and closed on 26 August 2007. Its Broadway debut was at the Imperial Theater on 4 December 2007 and...
  
  
  • Neil Murray – Brief Encounter
    Brief Encounter
    Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...
    
    
  • Tom Piper – The Histories
  • Soutra Gilmour – The Lover & The Collection
  • Paul Brown – 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...
    
    

2010s

• 2010: Ultz – Jerusalem
  Jerusalem (play)
  Jerusalem is a play by Jez Butterworth that opened at the downstairs theatre of the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009. The production starred Mark Rylance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger. After receiving rave reviews its run was extended. In January 2010 it transferred...
  
  
  • Mark Thompson – England People Very Nice
    England People Very Nice
    England People Very Nice is a play by Richard Bean. It opened at the National Theatre in February 2009. The play, directed by Nicholas Hytner, is about four waves of immigrants - French Huguenot, Irish, Jewish and Bangladeshi - that have arrived in the district of Bethnal Green, East London, over...
    
    
  • Anthony Ward – ENRON
    ENRON (play)
    ENRON is a 2009 play by the British playwright Lucy Prebble, based on the Enron scandal.-Productions:ENRON premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre , before London transfers to the Jerwood Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre from 17 September to 7 November 2009 and then the Noel Coward...
    
    
  • Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram
    Christopher Oram is a British theatre set and costume designer.-Background:He trained at the West Sussex College of Art and Design ....
    
     – Red
    Red (play)
    Red is a play by American writer John Logan about artist Mark Rothko first produced by the Donmar Warehouse, London in December 2009. The original production was directed by Michael Grandage and performed by Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his assistant Ken.The production, with its...
    
    

• 2011: Bunny Christie – The White Guard
  The White Guard
  The White Guard is a novel by 20th century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, famed for his critically acclaimed later work The Master and Margarita.-History:...
  
  
  • Lez Brotherston – Design for Living
    Design for Living
    Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
    
    
  • Miriam Buether – Earthquakes in London
    Earthquakes in London
    Earthquakes in London is a play by Mike Bartlett. It received its world premiere at the Royal National's Cottesloe Theatre on 4 August 2010, following previews from 29 July 2010. The production was directed by Rupert Goold in a co-production with Headlong....
    
    
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...
    
     – Love Never Dies

External links

• Laurence Olivier Awards official website
• Olivier Awards archives