Award for Associate Director

A musical co-written by the Theatre Royal’s Associate Director, Nick Stimson, has won an Off West End Award for Best New Musical.

Nick wrote the libretto for A Winter’s Tale with the distinguished composer Howard Goodall, based on the Shakespeare play.  The musical was produced at the Landor Theatre in Clapham and has now won an ‘Offie’ – an award launched in 2010 to recognise and celebrate the excellence, innovation and ingenuity of independent theatres in London.

Nominations for awards are proposed by 40 Off West End Assessors, with finalists and winners chosen by a panel of theatre critics including The Stage’s Mark Shenton and the Financial Times’ Ian Shuttleworth.

The winners will be officially announced on Sunday 24 February at a ceremony in London hosted by Simon Callow.  Despite other nominations in the category, A Winter’s Tale was the only production shortlisted for Best New Musical, and so it is the automatic winner.  The panel noted that the shortlist should be as short as it needs to be.

Nick said, “This award came completely out of the blue, and it’s nice to be recognised in this way.  Winning an ‘Offie’ will help us to move the play forwards.”

Nick’s role as Associate Director at the Theatre Royal means he works with the theatre regularly, bringing his ideas, meeting with the Artistic Director and his staff and representing the interests of the theatre to the outside world wherever possible.  This relationship has resulted in the commissioning and production of several new plays including Korczak, Union Street and NHS The Musical.

He is currently writing and directing Sailors and Sweethearts, a Theatre Royal Plymouth People’s Company production inspired by the works of Beryl Cook, which will run at the Drum Theatre in March.