Australian star Peter Carroll will take the night off from performing in Company B’s Happy Days to accept the inaugural Equity Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by FOXTEL at an award ceremony in Sydney tonight. Carroll, a former member of the Sydney Theatre Company’s prestigious Actors’ Company, was nominated by Equity members and chosen by the National Performers Committee.
 

More than 200 actors and industry supporters will gather at The Mint in Sydney’s CBD to celebrate Carroll’s distinguished career, which has spanned more than 30 years and seen him work with every state and commercial theatre company in the country.

This year alone he has worked on The STC’s production of The Crucible, Opera Australia’s Peter Grimes and Company B’s Happy Days and The Book of Everything.  

Equity national director, Simon Whipp, said: “Peter has been a teacher, a mentor and an inspiration to performers all over the country. What better way to launch this award than to celebrate Peter’s enormous contribution to the Australia’s performing arts industry”. 

In April Carroll was named best actor at the 2008 Green Room awards for his cross-dressing portrayal of Girlie Pogson in the smash hit Sarsaparilla, which carried away seven of nine “main stage” theatre awards.

It was just the latest in a string of accolades he has notched up over the course of his career, including Penguin and Variety Awards, Sydney Theatre Critics' Circle Award, two Mo Awards, two Victorian Green Room Awards, a Glug and a Helpmann Award.

Last week Time Out magazine described Carroll as “one of out finest actors….widely loved for his deep and expressive singing voice.”

Performer Mitchell Butel, who has worked with Carroll on a number of productions including the STC’s Republic of Myopia and Harbour said: “I am very pleased this award has been given to the legendary Peter Carroll – my hero, guru, mentor and very good friend.

I have worked with Peter several times now and each time I have been impressed with not only his skill - vocally, physically, emotionally and comically -  but his search for the perfect moment, that is, the clearest and most economic, yet dynamic and interesting,  way of delivering the writers and directors’ visions.

He is a model of a life well lived, in terms of his work, his art, his family and his enduring friendships with so many of us.”

For further details please contact Suzanne Culph, director of the Equity Foundation, on 0421 802 552.

About the Award: The Equity Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by FOXTEL was established to honour the achievements of a leading Australian performer who has had both a distinguished career and has also been a leader and inspiration to other Australian performers. It is a unique award in that it is awarded by performers for a performer.