Jerwood Theatre Upstairs Recognised at 2013 Olivier Awards

The Royal Court Theatre’s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs was recognised in the category for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre at the Olivier Awards last night (Sunday).

The season of new writing was former Artistic Director of the Royal Court Dominic Cooke’s final programme in charge of the venue and included a diverse series of plays starting from the opening of the 2012 Young Writers Festival with Hayley Squires’ Vera Vera Vera and Luke Norris’ Goodbye To All That. Bola Agbaje’s third play at the Royal Court continued the year with Belong set in London and Nigeria ,in a co-production with Tiata Fahodzi and Vivienne Franzmann’s acclaimed second play The Witness about an award winning war photographer and his adopted daughter. Stephen Emmott and Katie Mitchell’s collaboration on the future of the planet Ten Billion played for four weeks in July and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy set in an all black American prep school to a soundtrack of gospel and Jez Butterworth’s ethereal The River followed and the year ended with E.V. Crowe’s Hero.

In 2013, Polly Stenham’s anarchic twist on the drawing room drama No Quarter opened the year, followed by Polish writer Anna Wakulik’s A Time to Reap which explored abortion in contemporary Poland.

Dominic Cooke accepted the award and said:

“The English Stage Company at the Royal Court is dedicated to a principle. That principle is that the leading artist is not the actor, but the playwright. This season happened because ten incredible playwrights wrote ten singular and extraordinary plays. Playwrights are so important in our society. They tell us who we are and they reflect back at us our complicated collective and individual stories and they leave a legacy.

“All of these playwrights were given a platform because of enlightened and sustained public funding, so I want to thank the Arts Council for backing the Royal Court and allowing us to do this work and would like to thank everyone who believes in the value of public funding.”

This is the fourth time that the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court has won the award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, winning in 2008 for Gone Too Far by Bola Agbaje, in 2009 The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell and in 2010 with Cock by Mike Bartlett.

The Jerwood Theatre Upstairs season was made possible with the support of the following: Coutts, the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, the Genesis Foundation, the European Commission Representation in the UK and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.