WOS Awards Thanks to Cameron & Our Sponsors

The 2010 Awards shortlists will be announced this Friday 3 December 2010 at a lunchtime ceremony at Cafe de Paris in the heart of the West End. Our guest presenters at the event are: When We Are Married’s Maureen Lipman and Roy Hudd; Malcolm Sinclair, president of actors’ union Equity, one of this year’s sponsors; and, speaking on behalf of this year’s adopted charity The Theatrical Guild, Deathtrap and London Assurance star Simon Russell Beale.

There will also be live musical performances by: Legally Blonde star – and previous two-time Whatsonstage.com Awards host – Sheridan Smith; Anna Francolini, giving one of London’s last tributes to Stephen Sondheim in his 80th birthday year; and Flashdance’s rock ‘n’ roll-loving divas Charlotte Harwood, Hannah Levane and Twinnielee Moore.

The 26 Awards categories include standards such as Best Actor, Best Actress, Best New Play and Best New Musical as well as less conventional fields like Best Ensemble Performance, Best Off-West End Production, Theatre Event of the Year and, introduced for last year’s tenth birthday of the Awards, Best West End Show, covering long-running productions.

After the launch party, the race is on to decide the eventual Whatsonstage.com Award winners, with voting opening on Friday and continuing until the end of January. Results are announced and awards presented in front of a live audience of theatregoer voters at our Winners’ Concert on Sunday 20 February 2011 at the West End’s Prince of Wales Theatre.

Advance booking for the Winners’ Concert has now opened for members of our Whatsonstage.com Theatre Club – click here for more info & to book! Public booking opens on Friday afternoon…

A word from Cameron Mackintosh & our sponsors

2011 will be the third year in a row that the Whatsonstage.com Awards Concert will be held at the Prince of Wales (home of Mamma Mia!). Theatre owner and impresario Cameron Mackintosh has been a huge champion and shared his thoughts with us about the increasing importance of the Whatsonstage.com Awards in the wider theatre landscape.

Mackintosh said: “In the ten years since Whatsonstage.com started their Awards, the event has gone from an insiders’ get-together to the commercial theatre’s only true popular awards: a real celebration of the most popular theatre productions of the year voted for by the people who actually pay for their own tickets and for shows they really want to see. As well as being a hugely enjoyable night out, the Whatsonstage.com Awards are mostly given to productions that are actually still running. So best wishes for another exciting decade of theatregoing.”

The Awards would not be possible without the help, cooperation and generosity of Delfont Mackintosh and a record number of sponsors that have come on board this year.

Our corporate sponsors this year include some of the biggest commercial names in the West End. They are, in alphabetical order: AKA, Ambassador Theatre Group, Baby Grand at Freedom, Capital Breaks, Dewynters, EMG, Equity, Last Second Tickets, Leicester Square Theatre, Les Miserables, Nursing Standard, Oberon Books, Radisson Edwardian Hotels, Really Useful Group, See Tickets, Shakespeare4Kidz, Spotlight, Take One Media and Whitelight.

We also have a record number of individual sponsors this year. They are: Alison Cook, Andrew Bennett, Anna Wawrzyniak, Anne-Marie McEwan, Barry Burnett, Clare Groom, Dee Quemby, Derek Payne, Emma Shannon, Fiona Cartwight, Hilary A Williams, Mark Burton, Matthew Strachan and Sean Barnes.

We thank each and every one of them for their generous support. Please do take a moment to find out more about our sponsors by visiting the sponsors page on the awards microsite.

** FOR MORE INFO & TO BECOME A THEATREGOER SPONSOR – MUST BE BOOKED BY 5pm on THURSDAY 2 DECEMBER – CLICK HERE! **

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THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: