Harry Potter graduates Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint are among the nominees shortlisted for the only major UK theatre awards voted for entirely by the public.
Radcliffe is nominated in the best actor category of the 14th WhatsOnStage awards for his performance as Billy in The Cripple of Inishmaan.
He is up against Ben Whishaw for Mojo and Peter and Alice, James McAvoy for Macbeth, Lenny Henry for Fences and Rory Kinnear for Iago in the National Theatre's production of Othello. Kinnear also appears in the best new play category for his writing debut, The Herd.
Grint, making his stage debut as the endearingly dim Sweets in Mojo, is nominated in the London newcomer of the year. The category also includes actors Jack Huston (Strangers on a Train), Kyle Scatliffe (The Scottsboro Boys), Olivia Vinall (Othello) and the musician Tori Amos, who is nominated for her National Theatre musical The Light Princess.
It has been, it is generally agreed, a great year for new musicals and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Book of Mormon, The Light Princess, Once and From Here to Eternity dominate the shortlists and are all in competition for best new musical.
Helen Mirren, winner of an Olivier and an Evening Standard award for her portrayal of the Queen in The Audience, is nominated in the best actress category.
Up against her are Anne-Marie Duff for Strange Interlude, Hayley Atwell for The Pride, Suranne Jones for Beautiful Thing and Tanya Moodie for Fences.
Also nominated from The Audience are Haydn Gwynne for her Margaret Thatcher and Richard McCabe for his Harold Wilson in the supporting categories.
Michael Grandage and his former protege Jamie Lloyd will face each other in the best director category, each nominated for their respective seasons of plays at the Noel Coward Theatre and Trafalgar Studios in London. Also nominated are John Tiffany (Once), Maria Friedman (Merrily We Roll Along) and the outgoing National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner (Othello).
The National's 50th anniversary gala, which was broadcast live on the BBC in November, is nominated in the theatre event of the year category, as is the opening of the company's temporary space, the Shed. Others are the Grandage season – reaching its conclusion at the moment with Jude Law as Henry V –, theatre company Punchdrunk's return to London with The Drowned Man and the Lyric Hammersmith Secret Theatre season.
The shortlists for the 2014 awards were whittled down from more than 80,000 nominations across 27 different categories. Voting – at www.whatsonstage.com – opens on Saturday and closes on 31 January.
