Jane Krakowski has won the 2006 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance as Miss Adelaide in Guys And Dolls. The American actress beat Guys And Dolls colleague Jenna Russell, Billy Elliot’s Haydn Gwynne and Acorn Antiques’ Julie Walters.
Krakowski won the award for her very first sojourn onto the West End stage, playing wedding-wanting nightclub dancer Miss Adelaide opposite Douglas Hodge’s Nathan Detroit. It is not the first award to adorn the Krakowski mantelpiece though; she also has a Golden Globe for her portrayal of face-bra designing secretary Elaine in television’s Ally McBeal and a Tony Award for her performance in Nine.
The actress was clearly moved by her win, and got a bit teary-eyed on the stage. "I’m amazed, emotional and so thankful," she told us afterwards, adding that she wasn't expecting to win: "I’m slightly stunned. I’m in a category of great women, so I didn’t know how it would go but I’m thrilled that it turned out his way, and I got very emotional up there."
She thoroughly enjoyed her time playing the cabaret girl with a heart of gold and a permanent cold, and went back to see her old mates at the Piccadilly theatre when she returned to London for the awards. "It was an amazing experience the past eight months and to finish it off like this is just absolutely overwhelming. I do hope that people ask me back because I really had one of the best eight months of my life. Our group was so special at our theatre."
Perhaps hoping that you will want to see her back in the capital, Krakowski was also very complementary about you, London's lovely theatregoers, saying: "I love this city and I love the audiences. I was expecting the audiences to be a lot more subdued in England, I was told that they were nothing like American audiences, but every night we had the most reactionary audiences, even more so than in America. I was very surprised that the audiences really came along for the ride."
Although Krakowski has now left the Guys And Dolls cast, the show continues to go from strength to strength. The tale of the struggle to stage “The Oldest Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York” and a $1,000 bet is currently booking until 2 September, with its third cast ready to take the helm. Adam Cooper, Neil Morrissey, Sally-Ann Triplett and Kelly Price take over as the show’s leads from 6 March.
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