Hamilton Nominated For A Record Number of Olivier Awards

Hamilton only rolled into the West End a few months ago, but it is continuing on its mighty streak of world domination with a record number of nominations for this year’s Olivier Awards.

The nominations for the awards, which honour West End theatre, were announced earlier this week and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mighty juggernaut is set to completely dominate them. It has received a record number of thirteen nominations, smashing the record set by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child last year, and Hairspray in 2008 (both got eleven). In the end, Harry Potter also broke the record by winning nine of the awards, whilst Hairspray got four. Could Hamilton be set to break that Harry Potter record too?

It has been nominated in basically all of the major categories it is eligible for, such as Best New Musical, Best Director and Outstanding Achievement in Music, as well as a whole lot of technical awards for choreography, costumes, sound and lighting.

The real achievement though comes in the acting categories, which are full of Hamilton faces. Leading man, Alexander Hamilton himself, Jamael Westman is nominated for Best Actor in a Musical, alongside his on-stage frenemy Giles Terera, who plays Aaron Burr. Three of the four spots in the Best Supporting Actor in a Musical category are taken up by Hamilton actors; Cleve September, Jason Pennycooke and Michael Jibson, who play John Laurens/Philip Hamilton, LaFayette/Jefferson and King George respectively. Meanwhile, Rachel John who plays Angelica is the only woman from the cast nominated, in Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.

With that many nominations, in that many categories, it’s pretty much guaranteed that Hamilton will go home with something. In 2016, it won eleven Tony awards (the US equivalent of the Oliviers), just short of the all-time record of twelve. And if the Oliviers turn out anything like those awards did, Hamilton is just going to keep on smashing more records before it is done.