A triumphant year

Best Actress

The judges considered eight fine performances before coming up with their top three. Among them, Diana Quick, "looking quite mad as she walked down her terrible memory lane", as novelist Jean Rhys in After Mrs Rochester, and Natasha Richardson for her yearning Ellida in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea.

De Jongh backed up Brown's plea for Kristin Scott Thomas's "beautiful and fragile" Masha in one of two productions of Chekhov's Three Sisters this year. Taylor argued for Frances de la Tour, a perfect partner for Ian McKellen in Dance of Death. De Jongh and Edwardes were very keen on Janet McTeer's "husky, hunky" Petruchio in Phyllida Lloyd's all-female The Taming of the Shrew.

The short list finally fixed on Ann Mitchell, playing poor, put-upon Martha in Through the Leaves, with "a combination of vulnerability and authority"; Eileen Atkins, who brought "complexity of meaning" to the sardonic, abandoned wife in Honour; and Sandy McDade's "raddled murderess" in Iron.

Eventually persuading the majority of judges, and so carrying the vote was McDade, who "showed what was institutionalised in the character, what was desperate, what was hard, what was vulnerable, regret, the fury and an innocence too, and a capacity for love", said Nightingale.

The Sydney Edwards Award for Best Director

The judges fought long and hard over whom to name Best Director.

Honourable mentions were made of Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R&J, set in a boys' boarding school; Robin Lefevre's production of Hotel in Amsterdam; Peter Gill's Scenes from the Big Picture; Ed Hall's "bewitching" all-male A Midsummer Night's Dream; the "visceral impact" of Ian Rickson's Fallout; Trevor Nunn's Edwardian Love's Labour's Lost, with its First World War framing; Alan Lyddiard and Mark Murphy's hi-tech 1984; and Katie Mitchell's Three Sisters at the National.

First to make the short list was Simon McBurney - "one of the greatest men of theatre that this country has ever produced" - for the techno wizardry of his Elephant Vanishes. Polly Teale and Michael Blakemore were also nominated, and the real debate about who should win was fought over these two.

Taylor, Edwardes and Nightingale argued for Blakemore's "brilliant piece of directing" in Democracy and his great achievement in bringing such clarity to a difficult script. De Jongh agreed but, supported by Brown and Clapp, preferred to honour Teale for her "remarkable expressionistic staging" of After Mrs Rochester.

It took a last-minute change of heart by Edwardes finally to declare Teale Best Director for her Shared Experience production, which most agreed deserved recognition.

Carlton Television Award for Best Musical

There were only four shows that made a strong impression this year, and discussion among the often fractious panel took an unusually harmonious turn.

While Nightingale was keen to mention Ragtime, which "caught the excitement of a changing era" in turn-of-the-20th-century America, everyone else voted to short-list Josette Bushell-Mingo's revival of Simply Heavenly with its "bewitching American gospel and blues".

Trevor Nunn's version of the Thirties romance Anything Goes, first at the National and now at Drury Lane, was unanimously praised and immediately added to the short list. "Beautifully put together", said Edwardes; a "shipshape musical" (Brown); "spiffing fun" (de Jongh).

Despite such admiration, all agreed that Best Musical should be, as Edwardes put it, "the one which has moved the genre forward", and each swiftly added their voice for Jerry Springer - The Opera.

Clapp proclaimed the satire on high and low culture "important" for the way it "opens a new world for musicals"; Brown was "excited" by it; Edwardes enjoyed its "cleverness of the lyrics and great atmosphere"; and Nightingale noted that, as well as being fun, it had points to make about contemporary "celebrity culture, confessional television, American contempt for failures".

The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright

Competition was fierce for this award, which comes with a £30,000 cheque, jointly donated by Lord Rothermere and Anna Wintour, in memory of her father, Charles, a former Evening Standard editor.

Clapp was first to speak up for the half-Iranian Presnyakov playwrighting brothers from Siberia, whose Terrorism was produced at the Royal Court. Also under discussion was Richard Bean for his play about inheritance, Under the Whaleback, which dealt "wonderfully with the curiously British pattern of secrecy in the family", said de Jongh.

Equally impressive, the panel decided, and narrowly beating Bean on to the short list, was 22-year-old Lucy Prebble for The Sugar Syndrome, about a thirty-something paedophile and a teenage bulimic who make contact on the internet. Clapp particularly admired her "on-the-button dialogue"; "a name to remember", agreed Taylor.

It was a close call, too, between the other two short-listed, Owen McCafferty and Kwame Kwei-Armah. First the judges had to decide whether the already prolific McCafferty was eligible, but Edwardes persuasively argued that far from disqualifying him, his small-scale, studio productions should convince of the playwright's commitment. The judges agreed and went on to commend his Scenes from the Big Picture: "human detail from a real talent", said Nightingale. "It is," concluded Taylor, "Short Cuts, Ulysses, Under Milk Wood - and yet itself."

By the smallest of margins, however, Kwame Kwei-Armah was finally pronounced Most Promising Playwright for his Elmina's Kitchen, judged "passionate, potent writing" (Brown), "highly significant" (de Jongh), "terrifically plotted" (Clapp).

Best Designer

Commendations were made to Robert Jones (Dance of Death), Bob Crowley (His Girl Friday), Vicki Mortimer (Three Sisters at the National), Hildegard Bechtler (Terrorism), Nicolai Hart Hansen (Playing the Victim) and William Dudley (Hitchcock Blonde).

But the short list was fairly easily arrived at. Three judges shared Nightingale's admiration for John Gunter's design of Love's Labour's Lost at the National: a "ravishing arcadia invaded by death". There was strong support, too, for two production designs by Ultz, Fallout at the Royal Court and Hobson's Choice at the Young Vic. Fallout, in particular, said Taylor, made "extraordinary use of the space".

Christopher Oram, "one of the best working in London", was the third nominee, for his "clever and surreptitious" set of Caligula at the Donmar. And in the end, he was clear choice for winner. Clapp summed up: "He created a world of reflections, and glimmers and shadows, with just a pool of water, and a golden light on the wall, never interfering with the action, always enabling it."

Oustanding Newcomer

Individual judges were anxious to record fine performances from a list of newcomers: David Bedella (Jerry Springer - The Opera), Claire Price (Brand and The Tempest), Fraser Ayres (The People Next Door), Stephanie Leonidas (The Sugar Syndrome), Stephen Webb (Trestle at Pope Lick Creek), Madeleine Potter (After Mrs Rochester).

Lisa Dillon's "utterly candid and direct" performance in The Master Builder earned her a place on the short list, though the real struggle for this award was between the other two, Amanda Drew, who "ran away with the play" in the RSC's Jacobethan production of Eastward Ho!, and Tom Hardy (Blood and In Arabia We'd All Be Kings. Drew " really lifted Eastward Ho!" (Nightingale) with what Clapp described as her "light, crisp, utterly poised comic presence".

In the end, the title was just snatched from her by Hardy. De Jongh and Taylor praised his best efforts in the flawed Blood, and agreed with Clapp that, as the young junkie forced into prostitution in In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, "you could almost smell the dampness and despair when he came on stage".

Special Award

For their discretionary Special Award, the judges this year chose to honour director Max Stafford-Clark, for his lifetime contribution to theatre and devotion to new writing.

Taylor spoke for everyone when he said that Stafford-Clark "has been unflagging in his support of new playwrights for the past 30 years. He has been at the forefront of every new wave of theatre: feminism with Caryl Churchill, Irish writing with Sebastian Barry, In Yer Face with Mark Ravenhill. His antennae seem to be permanently attuned to the Zeitgeist."

The Patricia Rothermere Award and Scholarship

Founded by the late Lord Rothermere in memory of his first wife, Patricia, an actress, who died in 1992, this award is presented every two years. It comes in two parts: the first in recognition of outstanding support and encouragement for young actors, and the second, which the winner presents, a three-year drama scholarship.

This year's winner was Lord Attenborough, chairman of Rada - which celebrates its centenary in 2004 - for 32 years. He presented the scholarship to Elif Yesil, whose audition piece, from Terence McNally's Cuba Si!, was shown at the ceremony.

Judging Panel

The judges were Nicholas de Jongh (Evening Standard), Georgina Brown (The Mail on Sunday), Susannah Clapp (The Observer), Jane Edwardes (Time Out), Benedict Nightingale (The Times), and Paul Taylor (The Independent). Veronica Wadley, editor of the Evening Standard, chaired the meeting.