The Laurence Olivier BBC Award for Best New Play has been won by Dublin playwright Conor McPherson for his play The Weir. The announcement was made on BBC 2 television last night.
The Weir was nominated alongside The Blue Room by David Hare, Copenhagen by Michael Frayn and The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza.
Most of the Olivier Awards, presented by the Society of London Theatre, were announced on Friday at the Royal National Theatre, London.
The Weir also won a Best Supporting Performance Olivier for Irish actor Brendan Coyle, which was presented by comedian Dave Allen at the Duke of York Theatre on Friday. The winning production of The Weir, first performed upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in July 1997, is still running with its original cast at the 500-seat Duke of York Theatre. A UK touring production starts this week in Bath and the Duke of York production will be recast at the end of this month.
The original cast will then move to New York for the Broadway production, which previews from March 23rd and opens on April 1st.
The venue on Broadway will be the Walter Kerr Theatre, where The Weir will replace Druid and Martin McDonagh's Beauty Queen of Leenane, which has been running for just under a year.
The 27-year-old McPherson is the author of a number of plays, including This Lime Tree Bower, St Nicholas and the screenplay for the film I Went Down, directed by Paddy Breathnach for the Irish-based Treasure Films in conjunction with BBC.
McPherson's latest film project, Salt Water, which he wrote and plans to direct, goes into production on March 22nd. It is an adaptation of his play This Lime Tree Bower and it will also be produced by Treasure Films, with funding from the BBC, the Irish Film Board and RTE.
Commenting on the award in Dublin yesterday, McPherson, who is still casting and reconnoitring locations for Salt Water, said: "A playwright can have the luxury of being quite distant from all of this but the award is a great boost for the cast, who've had to live with the thing for the last year and a half and are now off to New York. But of course I'm delighted.
"The success of the thing has been a kind of gradual slow burn, starting off in the summer of 1997 from a three-week run in a 60-seater venue to Broadway - and now this.
"It has all seemed very organic, somehow."
McPherson, who is still based in Dublin, confirmed yesterday that his latest play will be unveiled next October, again directed by Ian Rickson and under the auspices of the Royal Court. A venue has yet to be established, while the Royal Court itself is being renovated.
McPherson also confirmed some of the cast for Salt Water: Brian Cox and Peter McDonald (who played Git in I Went Down) with a supporting cast which includes playwright Billy Roche, Maria MacDermottroe, Gina Moxley, Marion O'Dwyre and Hugh O'Connor.