The winners of The Stage Awards 2021 have been announced, with the industry’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic being congratulated.

This year’s awards featured the same seven accolades as 2020, with the winners selected for their achievements during a challenging year for theatre with Theatr Clwyd, London’s Jermyn Street Theatre, Belarus Free Theatre and the Theatre Support Fund + being recognised. 

Editor of The Stage and chair of the judging panel Alistair Smith said that this year’s awards recognise the “extraordinary achievements of teams up and down the country who – faced with the biggest challenge of their lifetimes – responded with creativity, determination and, in many cases, utter brilliance. At times, we discussed whether we should present the awards at all this year. Would it be right, we reasoned, to recognise theatres for their output in a year when so many had been prevented from putting on any live shows at all? I am so glad we did. In the more than a decade that I have been judging these awards, our panel’s discussion was the longest, toughest and most inspiring I can remember. It is genuinely awe-inspiring what so many have achieved given the enormous obstacles placed in their paths”. 

Winners include the Kiln Theatre as London Theatre of the Year and Theatr Clwyd taking the award for Regional Theatre of the Year, with Derby Theatre and Pitlochry Festival Theatre given highly commended honours in the regional category and Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre for the London Award. 

London’s Jermyn Street Theatre was named Fringe Theatre of the Year, whilst Producer of the Year was won by Nica Burns for her work in bringing live theatre back to the Nimax Theatre Group. The Theatre Support Fund +, founded by Chris Marcus and Damien Stanton, who created ‘The Show Must Go On!’ campaign took home the prize in the Innovation category. Belarus Free Theatre was recognised with the International award for its tireless work to shine a light on the political situation in Belarus. 

Technical director of Emma Rice’s theatre company Wise Children, Simon Baker, won for achievement in technical theatre category for his work on the company’s new live-digital approach. 

Congratulations to all of the winners, greatly deserved.