UK theater's Olivier Awards back after COVID-enforced hiatus

“Cabaret” stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley are among the acting nominees for British theater’s Olivier Awards, which return Sunday with a live ceremony and a black-tie crowd after a three-year gap imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic

LONDON -- “Cabaret” stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley are among the acting nominees for British theater’s Olivier Awards, which return Sunday with a live ceremony and a black-tie crowd after a three-year gap imposed by COVID-19.

The celebration of London theater, opera and dance is back at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered Britain’s performance venues more than two years ago, weeks before the scheduled 2020 Oliviers show.

Kit Harington, Tom Felton, Emma Corrin and Jonathan Pryce were among the stars expected on the sustainable green carpet, made from reusable grass, on a sunny London afternoon before the glitzy, music-filled ceremony.

Redmayne and Buckley are nominated for their roles as the Emcee and Sally Bowles in an intimate production of “Cabaret” that transformed London’s Playhouse Theatre into the Kit Kat Club in 1930s Berlin. The show has 11 nominations for the Oliviers, Britain’s equivalent of Broadway’s Tony Awards.