The
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical is an annual award presented by the
Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial London theatre. The awards were established as the Society of
West End Theatre
West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes, "West End" in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194â ...
Awards in 1976, and renamed in 1984 in honour of English actor and director
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...
.
This award was introduced in 1979, along with the award for
Best Actress in a Musical. In 1977 and 1978, there had been a commingled actor/actress award for
Best Performance in a Musical, won both times by an actress.
Winners and nominees
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple awards and nominations for Best Actor
Awards
Three awards
*
Philip Quast
Philip Mark Quast (born 30 July 1957) is an Australian actor and singer. He has won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical three times, making him the first actor to have three wins in that category.
He is perhaps best known f ...
Two awards
*
Michael Ball
*
Michael Crawford
*
Robert Lindsay
*
Daniel Evans
Nominations
Four nominations
*
Philip Quast
Philip Mark Quast (born 30 July 1957) is an Australian actor and singer. He has won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical three times, making him the first actor to have three wins in that category.
He is perhaps best known f ...
Three nominations
*
Alun Armstrong
*
Michael Crawford
*
Daniel Evans
*
Tim Flavin
*
Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman (born 23 April 1950) is a RADA trained British actor. He has appeared on television and radio, in film and in the theatre.
Early life
He attended the Central Foundation Boys' School and joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, ...
*
Douglas Hodge
*
Denis Lawson
*
Robert Lindsay
*
Clark Peters
*
Jonathan Pryce
Two nominations
*
Michael Ball
*
Ian Bartholomow
*
Bertie Carvel
Robert Hugh Carvel (born 6 September 1977) is a British actor. He has twice won a Laurence Olivier Award: for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role as Miss Trunchbull in '' Matilda the Musical'', and for Best Actor in a Suppor ...
*
Tim Curry
*
Killian Donnelly
*
Paul Keating
*
Mark McGann
*
Charlie Stemp
Charlie Stemp (born 30 November 1993) is an English actor. Stemp came to prominence for his leading role as Arthur Kipps in the West End musical ''Half a Sixpence'', which earned him a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a M ...
Multiple awards and nominations for a character
Awards
3 awards
*
Sweeney Todd from ''
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street''
2 awards
*
George from ''
Sunday in the Park with George
''Sunday in the Park with George'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande J ...
''
Nominations
4 nominations
*Sweeney Todd from ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street''
3 nominations
*Billy Flynn from ''
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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''
*Fagin from ''
Oliver!''
*Fred Graham from ''
Kiss Me, Kate''
*Henry Higgins from ''
My Fair Lady''
*Nathan Detroit from ''
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" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also b ...
''
*''Emcee in
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...
''
2 nominations
*Albin from ''
La Cage aux Folles''
*Curly from ''
Oklahoma!''
*Emile de Becque from ''
South Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
''
*George from ''Sunday in the Park with George''
*Haywood Patterson from ''
The Scottsboro Boys''
*Mickey from ''
Blood Brothers''
*Sky Masterson from ''Guys and Dolls''
*The Engineer from ''
Miss Saigon
''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...
''
*The Pirate King from ''
The Pirates of Penzance''
See also
*
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
*
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
References
*
External links
*
{{OlivierAward MusicalActor
Actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...
Theatre acting awards