Rush beats Radcliffe to Drama Desk Award

Geoffrey Rush has been named most outstanding actor in a play at the 54th Drama Desk
Awards in New York, given to honour achievements in the theatre.
Rush took the award for his role playing King Berenger in the Broadway production of
Exit The King.

The Australian actor beat the likes of Thomas Sadoski, Simon Russell, Reed Birney,
Raul Esparza, Bill Irwin and Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who was nominated
for Equus.
Directed by Australian Neil Armfield and also starring Susan Sarandon, Exit the King
is about a ruler who refuses to give up governing a diminishing kingdom.
The Armfield-Rush adaptation of the play ran in Sydney and Melbourne in 2007.
It missed out on the award for outstanding revival of a play, which went to The
Norman Conquests.
Billy Elliot, the joyous story of a coal miner's son who dreams of dancing, was the
big winner, picking up 10 prizes including best musical.
Ruined was named best play in the awards announced on Sunday.
The drama by Lynn Nottage set against the backdrop of an African civil war already
has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as the best play award from the New
York Drama Critics' Circle.