History
Commonly referred to simply as the Olivier Awards, awards are presented annually across a range of categories covering plays, musicals, dance, opera and affiliate theatre. The majority of the awards are presented for the high profile commercial productions seen in the large theatres of London's West End, which is commonly known as Theatreland.
The awards were first established in 1976 as The Society of West End Theatre Awards, however in 1984, the renowned British actor Lord Olivier gave consent for the awards to be renamed in his honour and they became known as the Laurence Olivier Awards. The awards are managed and financed by The Society of London Theatre. In Broadway theatre, the equivalent of the Olivier Award is the Tony Award.
Read more about this topic: Laurence Olivier Award
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)