Winners of The Stage Debut Awards 2025, in association with Netflix, were revealed on September 28 at a star-studded ceremony taking place at 8 Northumberland Avenue, London. Rachel Zegler scooped the prize for Best West End Debut Performer, one of the evening’s most coveted awards, for her tour de force performance as Eva Perón in Jamie Lloyd’s triumphant revival of Evita. She follows in the footsteps of previous winners Jodie Comer, Rose Ayling-Ellis and Jack Wolfe.
Hosted by comedy royalty and actor Julian Clary in front of some of UK theatre’s most influential figures, Zegler’s win – the people’s favourite – was the only award category to have been decided by the public. The starry shortlist also included Zegler’s Evita co-star Diego Andres Rodriguez; both Tosin Cole (Netflix’s Supacell) and his co-star Heather Agyepong for Shifters; Kat Ronney for Titanique; The Devil Wears Prada’s Georgie Buckland; Clueless the Musical’s Emma Flynn and Samuel Brewer in Oedipus.
Gone are the days of the ‘And they lived happily ever after’ trope and reality setting in. Bombarded with representations of love throughout the ages, notions of what love looks like are currently being dismantled. Relationship gurus perhaps the closest we’ll get currently to addressing what it takes to make a relationship last. Back with their second musical which I’m sure will be a hit, Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow of Six the Musical fame pen Why Am I So Single?, a self deprecating reality check of the dating scene in the early 21st century.