The theatre section of The Profile Awards is judged by eight of the UK’s leading theatre, dance and opera critics. Every single new production we see is automatically eligible for consideration.

At our lengthy judging session we drew up a long list of thirty pieces of outstanding lighting design from the literally hundreds of productions we saw in person across the year. That list was then whittled down to a shortlist of eighteen.

From there, we chose to salute the work of eight of the most exciting teams in the industry whose names were revealed on the night.

Theatre Awards Chair, David Benedict – Variety