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    Oliver Awards 2025 Nominations: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Earns 13 Nods

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    The acclaimed revival, which is about to transfer to London’s Barbican, scored 13 nominations at Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the much-loved 1964 musical, received the most nominations on Tuesday for this year’s Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.The show got 13 nods — seven more than any other musical or play — including best musical revival, where it is up against a production of “Hello, Dolly!” starring Imelda Staunton, which ran at the London Palladium, as well as ongoing revivals of “Oliver!” at the Gielgud Theater and “Starlight Express” at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theater.Directed by Jordan Fein, “Fiddler on the Roof” is a stripped-back version of the tale of a Jewish milkman in Czarist Russia who is marrying off his daughters against a backdrop of antisemitic pogroms. It received rave reviews when it opened last August at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theater. (It transfers to the Barbican Center on May 24).Marianka Swain, writing in The Daily Telegraph, called the production “a masterclass in balancing innovation with tradition.” Fein resisted the temptation to draw out the musical’s parallels to contemporary events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or surging antisemitism, Swain wrote. “No need when they come through so powerfully anyway,” the reviewer added.Fein is nominated in the best director category, where he will face tight competition from the directors of three of the past year’s most critically acclaimed plays: Nicholas Hytner for “Giant,” about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism, staged last year at the Royal Court and opening in April on the West End; Robert Icke for a version of “Oedipus” that ran at Wyndham’s Theater; and Eline Arbo for “The Years,” running at the Harold Pinter Theater.From left, Anjli Mohindra, Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee, Romola Garai and Harmony Rose-Bremner in “The Years.”Helen MurrayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Momma Rose’s Many Faces, From Ethel Merman to Audra McDonald

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      To those who worship at the church of the American musical, it was a holy night. For on a Thursday in late November in the city of New York, the faithful had assembled to witness what might be described as the Sixth Coming.Momma Rose was being reborn once again.The occasion was the first preview of the fifth Broadway revival of “Gypsy,” directed by George C. Wolfe at the newly restored Majestic Theater, which had last been the home of the longest-running musical on Broadway, “The Phantom of the Opera.” Rose was being played — deep breath, please — by the record-breaking, six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. The house was packed, the crowd aflutter, and expectations stratospheric.For the uninitiated, let me explain that Momma Rose — as she is somehow commonly known, though she is never called that in the show — is widely perceived by theater cognoscenti as the greatest character ever to inhabit a musical comedy. First portrayed by Ethel Merman, she is to that genre’s actresses what Hamlet and Lear are to Shakespearean actors, a sky-scraping, Himalayan peak. As Arthur Laurents, who wrote the show’s book, described her, she is “a larger-than-life mother, a mythic mesmerizing mother, a monster of a mother sweetly named Rose.”The title character of this 1959 musical is in fact the stripper deluxe Gypsy Rose Lee. But it’s her mother, Rose, who is the show’s very (very) dominating central figure, a human bulldozer who drags her two young daughters through the shabby vaudeville circuit of the Great Depression in the hope of making one of them a star. Written by the sacred trinity of Laurents, Jule Styne (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), “Gypsy” is regarded by many (including me) as the great book musical and the most probing musical about performing itself. For all its surface brightness and buoyancy, “Gypsy” thrums darkly with the ravenous hunger for attention that lies in the deepest heart of showbiz.McDonald with Joy Woods and Danny Burstein in the new production, directed by George C. Wolfe.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Hello, Dolly!’ Review: Imelda Staunton Has the Wow, Wow, Wow Factor

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      The veteran British actress shines in a new revival that is the musical theater highlight of the West End summer.Love affairs in the theater take different forms — between characters onstage, of course, but also between a performer and the public.In a new London revival of “Hello, Dolly!,” the leading lady, Imelda Staunton, grips the audience from the beginning and holds them in a shared embrace throughout. Ths show is the musical theater event of the West End summer, running at the London Palladium, through Sept. 14.“Hello, Dolly!” has always been a star vehicle. Carol Channing first played the matchmaking Dolly Gallagher Levi on Broadway in 1964 and made it her signature part, returning to the role of the deliciously meddlesome widow throughout her storied career. The others to take it on have included Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman, Bette Midler and, on film, Barbra Streisand. This production, indeed, owes quite a bit to the 1969 movie, the choice of opening song (“Just Leave Everything to Me”) included.But Staunton — who on Wednesday received an Emmy nomination for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Crown” — is probably the only English performer who can command as much respect in the role as those American ladies. She occupies a special place in British playgoers’ hearts, which this production, directed by Dominic Cooke’, taps into directly. Her acquaintance with the classics — Albee, Chekhov, Sondheim — lends a gravity to the performance, so that we understand Dolly as a fully realized person, pain and all, and not just a figure of fun.Staunton plays Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who has taken on the role of matchmaker in her community.Manuel HarlanWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘The Crown’ Auction Could Help You Live Like a Queen

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      Bonhams is selling hundreds of costumes and props from “The Crown,” including a horse-drawn carriage, robes of state and the queen’s bed.Despite all the scandals and tragedies, the royal lifestyle in “The Crown” looked enviably lavish.During six seasons, Queen Elizabeth II rode around London in a golden carriage, pulled by six horses. Princess Diana gallivanted, and moped, her way across Europe in a succession of designer outfits. For special occasions, the royals donned crowns and ermine robes.For most viewers, watching the show, which ended in December, was the closest they could get to the trappings of royal life.Until now. Sort of.On Feb. 7, the auction house Bonhams is scheduled to offer hundreds of items from “The Crown” in London, including intricate set pieces like a full-size replica of the golden state coach (with an estimated price of up to 50,000 pounds, or $63,000), as well as more affordable props that gave “The Crown” an air of authenticity. Those include two porcelain corgis that appeared on the queen’s writing desk ($380) and the Queen Mother’s drinks tray and champagne swizzle stick ($101).Some items look set to be bargains — relatively speaking. One of Princess Diana’s real dresses sold last year for more than $1 million, and her “revenge dress” — the black evening gown that she wore on the evening that Prince Charles admitted, on national television, to cheating on her — once fetched $74,000. The version of the revenge dress that Elizabeth Debicki wears on “The Crown” has an estimated lot price of $10,000 to $15,000 in the Bonhams sale.In interviews, three members of the show’s costume and set departments discussed some of the auction’s key lots. Below are edited excerpts from the conversations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More