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Olivier Awards (2020)

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The Olivier Awards has just announced their nominations for 2020. Our Rupert has been nominated as one of four actors in the category Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for his role as Larry Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen.

DEH West End picked up a total of seven nominations, including Best New Musical, and Best Actor in a Musical for Sam Tutty (Evan Hansen). Jack Loxton (Jared Kleinman) was also nominated in the same category as Rupert. The Murphy family did well, with Lucy Anderson (Zoe Murphy) and Lauren Ward (Cynthia Murphy) both nominated in the category Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical.

You can read the full list of nominations here on the London Theatre site. The award ceremony is scheduled for Sunday 5 April.

Fingers, toes and eyes crossed for a win for Rupert! ♥

Update: Due to the pandemic, the winners were eventually announced online on 25 October 2020. Unfortunately Rupert missed out on a win in his category. However, Dear Evan Hansen won in the categories Best Original Score or New Orchestrations and Best New Musical, and Sam Tutty was recognised as Best Actor in a Musical.

On 8 October 2020, the Olivier Awards shared this gorgeous photo of the five nominated cast members…

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Dear Evan Hansen (2019)

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Rupert appeared in the West End production of Dear Evan Hansen, as Larry Murphy, Zoe and Connor’s dad.

The production’s London home was the Noel Coward Theatre – with previews from 29 October 2019, and opening on 19 November.

The play shut down during the pandemic, but reopened on 26 October 2021. The production eventually closed for good on 22 October 2022.

This was wonderful for Rupert, as the Broadway production has been enthusiastically received, and won six Tony Awards in 2017, including Best Musical.

Links:

You might like to consider the book published by Nick Hern Books: Dear Evan Hansen: The Complete Book and Lyrics (West End edition). I’m not sure how much Rupert-related goodness is in there, but he did suggest to me that I keep an eye out for it. Though I’m sure he knows I’m a completist, so that might not be a general recommendation! Available from: Nick Hern Books.

Reviews:

5 stars from Alex Wood for WhatsOnStage: … The result is something quite extraordinary – a musical not like any other. … And its success depends entirely on its leading man.  … Debutant Sam Tutty … wears a lot of the characters’ flaws on his cast-sporting sleeve, from nervous ticks to jaunted mannerisms and turbulent dialogue. It’s hard to appear simultaneously nervy while capable of holding the attention of 900 spectators, but it’s something Tutty manages adeptly – the sort of assurance you rarely get from a first timer. … But Tutty’s success comes while sitting on the shoulders of some titanic supporting performances … In a piece that spends a large portion of its runtime focussing on the anxieties of teens, it’s often the adults that steal the show – Rupert Young and Lauren Ward present a rich, textured relationship as Murphy’s parents … Dear Evan Hansen is a desperately powerful exploration of a troubled teen sacrificing the truth for a sense of comfort – startlingly relevant for a world swaddled in screens and fleeting fictions.

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