Established in 1994, during a delightful ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, the Gielgud Award is a celebration of distinguished achievements in the dramatic arts. Its festivities have graced such venues as the British Embassy in Washington, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the National Arts Club in New York, and the Gielgud Theatre, the Guildhall, and Middle Temple Hall in London.
In its tributes to Sir John's artistry, and to the theatrical luminaries who've done the most to perpetuate his legacy and keep it vibrant, the Guild has honored a select company of the most eminent actors, directors, and producers of our era. We cherish them all, and we're deeply indebted to the four distinguished Gielgud laureates who took part in our recent homage to Sir John himself.
Assisting the Dean of Westminster Abbey as he presided over a memorable event in Poets'
Corner, they helped consecrate a beautiful floor monument that now lies adjacent to the Abbey's iconic Shakespeare, an elegant portrayal of the poetic and theatrical genius whose spirit has long presided over that sacred space.
A WESTMINSTER ABBEY CEREMONY IN HONOR OF SIR JOHN GIELGUD
One of the most venerable features of the Abbey, Poets' Corner is where Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and other authors
are honored, along with such legendary performers as
Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted, and
Laurence Olivier, a legend in whose name each season's award-worthy
efforts are now recognized by the Society
of London Theatre.
The focus of our April 2022 proceedings was a new memorial stone, carved by WAYNE
HART and placed at the foot of the Abbey's famous Shakespeare statue, to commemorate the life and legacy of
SIR JOHN GIELGUD. By design the month selected for the occasion linked two birthdays,
Shakespeare's 458th (the playwright was baptized on April 26, 1564) and
Gielgud's 118th (the actor who did so much to keep Shakespeare relevant for modern audiences was born on April 14, 1904).
To give viewers a foretaste of the Abbey festivities, actress and singer Shana
Farr of The Players
and Guild president John
Andrews hosted an online conversation in February of 2022 that permitted Mr.
Hart to outline his approach to this unique commission and allow viewers
to observe his first incisions in the marble slab that would soon be positioned
in Poets' Corner. To revisit that special moment, click
here.
For background on a ceremony that would prove to be deeply moving, you'll
enjoy an April 11th article in The
Stage, where Sir Stanley Wells of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
discusses Sir John's
life and career and alludes to an October 2019 conversation at the Gielgud
Theatre between John Andrews of the Guild and Reverend Paul Edmondson of the Trust, an exchange about Poets' Corner memorials that prepared the way for what occurred two and a half years later at the Abbey.
Participants in the proceedings included
DAME JANET SUZMAN, who serves as a member of the
Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust, vocalist SHANA
FARR, and four distinguished recipients of the Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts: producer and filmmater SIR RICHARD EYRE, playwright
SIR DAVID HARE, and performers DAME JUDI DENCH and SIR IAN MCKELLEN.
To view the event's "Order of Service," adorned with a delightful caricature of Sir John by Clive
Francis, click here. And click on the blue links that follow for photographs of (a)
the printed booklet, (b)
The Very Reverend DR. DAVID HOYLE, Dean of Westminster, as he opens
the proceedings, (c) DAME JANET SUZMAN
as she reads Psalm 19:1-6, (d) SIR
RICHARD EYRE as he pays tribute to Sir John, (e) SIR
IAN MCKELLEN as he recites a Shakespearean passage from "The Book of
Sir Thomas More," (f) SIR DAVID HARE as
he extols the ease with which Sir John made the transition from classical
roles at the beginning of his career to more contemporary ones as he matured,
(g) DAME JUDI DENCH as she recites Sonnet
29, (h) SHANA FARR as she introduces her
rendering of "Jerusalem," and (i)
DAME JUDI as she unveils the memorial stone.
Not surprisingly, there was significant media coverage. For a sampling of
stories on television's BBC One and in London newspapers such as the Daily
Mail, the Evening Standard, the Telegraph, and the
Times, click here.
And for additional highlights, including video links to key moments in the
service, see the articles in the Irvine
Times, in Yahoo
News, in Lynn
News, and in the
Bishop's Stortford Independent.
Attendees included Guardian critic Michael
Billington, who shared his reactions to the event on Twitter
and said that the evening "struck just the right note: a mix of admiration
for Gielgud and delight in his humour." Also on hand for the occasion were
such notables as actor and director
Keith Baxter (a close friend of Sir John's who conveyed messages from him at more than one award ceremony), writer
Giles Brandreth (who shrewdly suggested that Wayne Hart draw on Sir John's distinctive signature as he carved the Gielgud memorial stone), arts consultant
Stephen Browning and his wife Julia, theatre critic
Michael Coveney, Gielgud biographer
Jonathan Croall, BBC radio host
Billy Differ, who also serves as Director of Operations for Delfont
Mackintosh Theatres, actress
Kate Gielgud, producers Piers
and Suzanne Gielgud, producer Thelma
Holt, actors Sir Derek Jacobi and
Richard Clifford, actress
Kathryn Meisle, film producer
David Parfitt, former Old Vic executive director Vivien
Wallace, actors
Timothy West and
Prunella Scales, and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust leaders
Sir Stanley Wells, Honorary President, and
Paul Edmondson, Head of Research.
One invitee who couldn't join us for the service, Garry Wills, the author of "Lincoln at Getttysburg" and other classics, shared a memory that captured how awestruck other actors could be by the performances of Sir John and his leading contemporaries. In the mid-1970s, during the inteval of a Broadway production of Sir Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land," Professor Wills chatted with American television star Peter Boyle, who was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson that he couldn't help insisting that "They can't do that! Nobody can do that!"
The occasion provided vivid reminders that Sir John
will always be revered for his extraordinary career as an actor, director,
and producer. These achievements were extolled with particular eloquence in the riveting remarks that were delivered
by SIR
RICHARD EYRE and SIR
DAVID HARE.
But it's important to remember that Sir John will also be cherished
for his witty repartee, and for his gifts as a memoirist, a critic, and a theatre historian. Among his most lasting contributions
to our cultural lives will be the charming books and articles he wrote,
among them several that he produced, along with a memorable interview that
was televised from his stately home in Wotton Underwood, with journalist,
arts presenter, and biographer John
Miller. Unfortunately, John and his wife Aileen were unable to join us at the Abbey, and he died a few months later. Click here for the lovely obituary that apppeared shortly thereafter in The Guardian.
In 1976 while "No Man's Land" was delighting audiences at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sir John visited the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Andrews, who was serving as the institution's Director of Academic Programs, had the pleasure of guiding him through an exhibition about "Shakespeare in America" that included archival material about a famous, record-breaking 1964 Broadway "Hamlet" that starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and was directed by Gielgud. Nearly two decades later Sir John generously contributed an incisive overview about "Tradition,
Style, and the Shakespearean Actor Today" to William
Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, a 3-volume reference
set that was compiled by Mr. Andrews and published in 1985 by Scribners.
A few years later Sir John kindly provided illuminating forewords to the editor's Everyman Shakespeare
volumes of Julius Caesar and
The Tempest. And in 1994
he graciously permitted the Shakespeare Guild to establish a new
Award in his name.
For all they did to ensure the success of the Abbey's Poets' Corner commemoration of Sir John, which was underwritten by the Guild and its generous contributors, we're
deeply indebted to The
Very Reverend Dr. David Hoyle, Dean of Westminster, to architect Ptolemy
Dean, 19th Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, to Ian
Bartlett, Clerk of the Works at the Abbey, to The
Reverend Robert Latham, Sacrist at the Abbey, and to Eleanor
Lovegrove, the Abbey's Press and Communications Officer.
The Guild is also grateful for the indispensable support of Catherine Allen,
Eric and Annika Andrews, Sue Bellars, Letitia Chambers, Jan Denton, Jeffrey Hardy,
Lisa Andrews Hobart, and Gerry Ohrstrom.
THE GUILD'S 2019 GIELGUD AWARD TO SIR CAMERON MACKINTOSH
Our most recent Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts,
presented on Monday, October 28, 2019, paid tribute to the extraordinary
achievements of Sir Cameron Mackintosh.
Our Award
festivities took place in conjunction with the UK
Theatre Awards Luncheon, and our Award selection
was featured in publications such as Broadway
World. As it happened, however, the most important aspects of this celebration occurred, not
as had by then become usual, in London's venerable Guildhall on Sunday, October 27, but at the
beautiful Gielgud
Theatre the following afternoon. As you'll see if you peruse our brief
overview about the gathering,
it proved to be a memorable occasion, paying tribute not only to that year's
distinguished Award recipient but to Clive
Francis, the actor and visual artist whose caricatures are among the
highlights of a beautiful venue that is now a shrine to the Gielgud legacy.
Fifteen years previously, on April 19, 2004, the Guild had joined the RSC
and RADA in that resonant setting for a remarkable Gielgud
Centenary Gala. Our 2019 gathering vividly recalled that occasion.
But it also commemorated two anniversaries that dated back a quarter of
a century: (a) the establishment of a new
award in Sir John's name, which was announced on April 24, 1994, at
the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, and (b) the renaming of a
venue
on Shaftesbury Avenue that had been known as the Globe prior to November
2, 1994, when it became the Gielgud Theatre in recognition of Sir John's
exemplary accomplishments, not least among them fifteen major productions
in that prestigious setting.
Bestowing our 2019 trophy was Sir
Richard Eyre, who was busy directing a revival of Mary Poppins
at London's Prince
Edward Theatre. In addition to his many achievements in the profession
for which he is best known, Sir Richard is a distinguished producer, filmmaker,
and author, and it was he who received our 2018
Gielgud Award at the previous October's UK Theatre Awards luncheon. Sir Richard's riveting television
production of King Lear, with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role, had debuted
a few weeks earlier 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, was
gripping moviegoers around the globe. And if those credits were not enough,
Sir Richard was also directing
Laura Linney in My Name Is Lucy Barton, a "beautifully nuanced
solo performance" (to quote Michael Billington of The Guardian)
that would open on Broadway in early 2020.
THE GUILD'S 2018 GIELGUD PRESENTATION TO SIR RICHARD EYRE
Our 2018 award had been presented by Sir
Ian McKellen, the Guild's inaugural Gielgud laureate, who was
himself appearing in a West End staging of King Lear that had been
shared cinematically with audiences throughout the world. When he'd received
his own trophy, during a ceremony
at the Folger Shakespeare Library on May 20, 1996, Sir Ian had graced the
occasion not only with praise for Sir John, but with a powerful recitation
from The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore, relating the words that Shakespeare
had composed for the script's title
character to remarks that Justice Anthony Kennedy had uttered earlier
that day when he delivered a pivotal Supreme Court ruling that "no state
may 'deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.'"
As he bestowed the 2018 Gielgud trophy, Sir Ian recalled how much
Sir John did, not only to exemplify meticulous standards in his own presentations
of Shakespeare and other playwrights, but to encourage and support the efforts
of other performers, among them those who were just beginning their careers.
Sir Ian extolled Richard Eyre for the same qualities, and he emphasized
how much everyone who cherishes the dramatic arts has benefited from his
many contributions to our cultural lives.
In response, Sir Richard praised McKellen as "a wonderful actor and a very
good friend, and the natural artistic son of John Gielgud." And he amplified
Sir Ian's remarks about Sir John, observing that Gielgud's focus on building
strong repertory ensembles prepared the way for such extraordinary institutions
as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. With this in
mind he noted, in an aside that was fervently applauded by an appreciative
UK Theatre audience, that he was "constantly bewildered by the fact that
local authorities and government can't see what an extraordinary, unique
asset" such treasures are, not only in London but throughout the United
Kingdom.
Among the media accounts of the festivities were stories in BBC
News,
Irish
News, and York
Press. Click here
for some visual highlights of what turned out to be a deeply moving occasion.
THE GUILD'S 2017 GIELGUD PRESENTATION TO SIR DAVID HARE
Looking back to 2017, we're still relishing a Guildhall ceremony that occurred on
October 15 of that year, 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 that year's beautiful
Clive Francis trophy.
The ceremony culminated a UK Theatre Awards luncheon in one of London's most legendary institutions,
an edifice Shakespeare refers to in Richard III. And as expected,
it received extensive media coverage, with illustrated stories in such news
sources as Broadway World and Theatre News.
Among the things that made the presentation special was that it reinforced
an event that Sir David had graced with his presence a few months earlier
on April 27, 2017, 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.
PREVIOUS CEREMONIES AT THE GUILDHALL
Our first Gielgud presentation at the Guildhall took place on Sunday,
October 19, 2014, when 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 Guildhall festivities occurred on Sunday, October 18, 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 then delighted to welcome
Vanessa Redgrave to
a select company of Gielgud Award recipients 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.
BACKGROUND ON THE AWARD
As noted above, 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
an honor that would preserve the heritage of Sir
John Gielgud and pay tribute to all the actors, directors, producers, and writers
who are perpetuating his legacy and that of the poet and dramatist whose masterpieces 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.
Ms. Caldwell, a dear friend and a frequent guest in our SOS
series, died on February
16, 2020, and we dedicated that year's programming to her memory. As Washington
Post critic Peter Marks noted a few weeks later in the context of a March 25th tribute to playwright Terrence
McNally, she mesmerized us with the charisma she brought not only to classic
roles such as Euripides' Medea and Shakespeare's Cleopatra but to McNally's
Maria Callas, the diva she portrayed so brilliantly in Master
Class.
In 1999 the Guild held its first Gielgud
event in New York, honoring Dame Judi Dench
at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre. And in 2000
the Guild crossed the Atlantic for a toast to Kenneth
Branagh in London’s historic Middle Temple Hall.
Four years later the Guild returned to the U.K., joining the Royal Shakespeare
Company and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for a Gielgud
Centenary Gala in 2004 at the
West End theatre that had been renamed for Sir
John a decade earlier.
More recent Gielgud festivities have focused spotlights 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
as part of a special "Shakespeare in Washington" celebration
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 additional detail about the award's early history.
