We're delighted to announce that the recipient of our 2018 Gielgud trophy, to be presented at a UK Theatre Awards luncheon Sunday, October 14, in London's historic Guildhall, will be prolific director, producer, filmmaker, and author Sir Richard Eyre. Sir Richard's riveting television production of King Lear, with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role, debuted recently on Amazon Prime Video. Meanwhile his evocative feature film, The Children Act, co-starring Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci, and featuring Fionn Whitehead in a screenplay by novelist Ian McEwan, is now gripping audiences in cinemas around the globe.
Bestowing this year's award will be our inaugural Gielgud laureate, Sir Ian McKellen. When he received his trophy in a ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington on May 20, 1996, Sir Ian used the occasion to recall a powerful admonition from The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore and relate it to what Justice Anthony Kennedy had said earlier that day as he delivered a pivotal Supreme Court ruling that "no state may 'deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.'" Sir Ian is now earning plaudits in a West End stage production of King Lear that is being shared with the rest of the world by means of HD technology.
More details about our 2018 Gielgud festivities will follow shortly. In the interim we're savoring a ceremony that occurred on October 15, 2017, when the Guild paid tribute to playwright David Hare. Sir David was the first dramatist to receive an award in Sir John's name, and attendees were deeply moved by the eloquent remarks he delivered as he accepted this year's beautiful Clive Francis trophy. The ceremony took place as part of a UK Theatre Awards luncheon in one of London's most legendary institutions, an edifice Shakespeare refers to in Richard III. And as usual it received extensive media coverage, with illustrated stories in such news sources as Broadway World, What's On Stage, The Stage, and Theatre News.
Among the things that made this presentation special was that it reinforced a ceremony that Sir David had graced with his presence on April 27, when he joined a previous Gielgud recipient. Dame Judi Dench, in a gathering at which an English Heritage plaque was placed on the Cowley Street residence that had been Sir John's home from 1945 to 1976. The man behind this memorial to Sir John's legacy was John Miller, a distinguished biographer and arts presenter who serves on the Guild's Advisory Council; he presided over a festive occasion that included eloquent remarks not only by Sir David and Dame Judi, but by actor Michael Pennington. Click here to watch the unveiling in a Facebook video that has been kindly made available by Christian Bace of English Heritage.
This was the Guild's fourth Gielgud presentation at the Guildhall. On Sunday, October 19, 2014, we presented a posthumous award to Sir Donald Sinden as part of a UK Theatre Awards ceremony at which Sir Donald's son, producer Marc Sinden, accepted the trophy from its designer, actor and visual artist Clive Francis.
Our 2015 festivities occurred on Sunday, October 18, when the Guild took part in another festive UK Theatre Awards luncheon, this time with Sir Patrick Stewart presenting the trophy to Dame Eileen Atkins, an extroardinarily versatile artist with distinguished credits as a scriptwriter to match her many gifts as an acclaimed performer. For details about a gathering that proved deeply moving, click here and see the stories in "What's On Stage" and in BBC News.
Dame Eileen was back at the Guildhall a year later, on Sunday, October 9, 2016, to present that year's UK Theatre Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre to Sir Ian McKellen, who had received the inaugural Gielgud Award in 1996 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. Both honorees were delighted to welcome Vanessa Redgrave to a select company that also included her late sister Lynn, who'd been recognized with a Gielgud trophy in 2003 at the National Arts Club in New York. Vanessa was accompanied by three members of her family: her son, film producer Carlo Nero, his wife, actress Jennifer Wiltsie, and their charming daughter Lilli (all of whom are shown here, standing with Guild president John Andrews in the Crypt for a photograph by David M. Benett). Bestowing the 2016 trophy was director Rupert Goold, who had just directed Ms. Redgrave in a stellar Almeida Theatre production of Richard III that had been shared with a global audience by means of HD technology.
The Gielgud Award dates back to an April 1994 reception at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, a gathering that featured remarks by Robert MacNeil, Tony Randall, and Susan Stamberg. On that occasion the Shakespeare Guild established a new award that would preserve the heritage of Sir John Gielgud and pay tribute to the actors, directors, producers, and writers who are doing the most to perpetuate his legacy and that of the poet whose work he did so much to convey to succeeding generations.
The Guild returned to the Folger in 1996 to bestow its inaugural Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts on Sir Ian McKellen, who made the occasion memorable by reciting the title character's stirring defense of "strangers" in the manuscript for a multi-author play about Sir Thomas More. Sir Ian related this speech, which is widely credited to Shakespeare, ro a Supreme Court decision that was announced that day, and he has returned to it frequently in recent times. Our Gielgud festivities remained at the Folger for two years more, for salutes to Sir Derek Jacobi in 1997 and to Zoe Caldwell in 1998.
In 1999 the Guild held its first Gielgud event in New York, honoring Dame Judi Dench at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre. In 2000 the Guild crossed the Atlantic for a toast to Kenneth Branagh in London’s historic Middle Temple Hall. The Guild repaired to the U.K. once more in 2004, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for a Gielgud Centenary Gala at the West End theatre that had been renamed for Sir John a decade earlier. Other Gielgud festivities have placed the spotlight on Kevin Kline (in 2002 at Lincoln Center in Manhattan), Lynn Redgrave (in 2003 at the National Arts Club in New York), Christopher Plummer (in 2006 at the NAC), Michael Kahn (in 2007 at a reception hosted by Ambassador Sir David Manning at the British Embassy in Washington), Patrick Stewart (in 2008 at the NAC in New York), and F. Murray Abraham (in 2010 at the NAC).
Click here for more information about the history of an award that is now regarded as one of the most coveted accolades in the profession it was designed to celebrate.
