Toby Sedgwick, actor and Director of Movement for the National Theatre production of family drama War Horse, has won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer. Sedgwick was the only nominee in this category not to have come from a musical, beating Rob Ashford (Parade), Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray) and Casey Nicholaw (The Drowsy Chaperone) to the coveted statuette.
War Horse, Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s book, told the story of a boy who enters World War I in the hope of finding his horse Joey, who had previously been conscripted to the war effort, and bringing him home.
While the other choreographers were nominated for their dance routines in musical shows, Sedgwick’s win undoubtedly comes for his movement work with Handspring’s life-sized puppet horses which were given startling personalities of their own. The movement director also choreographed one of the most striking images of the theatre year, when a unit of mounted soldiers charged towards a machine-gun post.
After collecting his award, Sedgwick told Official London Theatre "I worked with making the horse look real, and we took things from there. I love horses, and I ride, so I had some knowledge to draw on. They are very specific animals. I’m very happy."
Sedgwick trained at the Jacques Lecoq School, where he founded The Moving Picture Mime Show. He had previously worked at the National Theatre as an actor in Out Of A House Walked A Man and The Magic Olympical Games, and as a Movement Director on Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead and Marat/Sade.
The award was presented by Julian Ovendon, who is soon to be on the West End stage in new musical Marguerite at the Haymarket.
MA
