And the Special Award goes to...

As the Evening Standard honours those who have made an outstanding contribution to theatre in its hardest few years, Nick Curtis talks to the people who have been at the forefront

- Nick Curtis

WHEN the 66th Evening Standard Theatre Awards, in association with Garrard, took place earlier this month after a two-year pandemic hiatus, the paper's owner, Lord Lebedev, handed out two special awards.

As in previous years, these were chosen to salute those who have made - and continue to make an outstanding contribution to British theatre. But this year they also recognised individuals who fought for the art form and kept its spirit alive during the pandemic.

Covid forced a disparate and diffuse industry - a mixture of commercial, state-subsidised and fringe organisations, mostly staffed by freelancers working in financially-draining buildings to pull together. "When we went into lockdown we were a pretty fantastically un-joined up industry," the National Theatre's artistic director, Rufus Norris, said when we spoke in November 2020, on the brink of a promised but ultimately short-lived reopening for the sector.

He cited commercial producer Sonia Friedman and Julian Bird, chief executive of industry body the Society of London Theatre, as the driving forces who pressed the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for support. Friedman lobbied for the industry in the media and behind the scenes, helped shape DCMS policy, and devised new producing models under lockdown, initially on screen and then through West End stagings of The Comeback (by comedy duo The Pin) and the Re: Emerge season of three new plays by emerging playwrights.

Norris himself kept the National producing, though each show he planned seemed to run into a new tightening of restrictions. Sir Sam Mendes set up the Theatre Artists Fund with support from Netflix, which raised £7.8 million and disbursed grants to 8,294 struggling freelancers in the sector. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Olivia Colman set up the Theatre Community Fund, receiving donations from fellow stars who wanted to put something back into the industry that had nurtured them.