“A Strange Loop,” Michael R.

Scott and Ian McKellen were among acting winners as Britains Laurence Olivier Awards celebrated the best of the London stage in bittersweet fashion Sunday night, Oct. 25, 2020 - most U.K. theaters remain closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)LONDON – Andrew Scott and Ian McKellen were among acting winners as Britain’s Laurence Olivier Awards celebrated the best of the London stage in bittersweet fashion Sunday night — most U.K. theaters remain closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. McKellen won a special Olivier — his seventh — for his one-man 80th birthday tour of the U.K., staged before the pandemic as a fundraiser for regional theaters. A handful of theaters have reopened to reduced, socially distanced audiences, but many are still shut and relying on emergency funding from the government to stay afloat. Olivier organizers say the next awards ceremony will likely not be until 2022, because so little work has been staged this year.