Front Row

Sonia Friedman is one of the most prolific and successful producers in the history of the West End and Broadway. This year she has been nominated for 20 Olivier Awards, one more than she has already won. They sit like chess pieces next to the half a dozen Tony Awards she has won, in her office above the shop at the Duke of York's Theatre. In her eyrie she talks to Kirsty Lang about risk and reward, the changing ecology of theatre, how she began producing - at the age of 3- and professionally in her early 20s. She has worked with a catalogue of great actors, directors and writers on, she thinks, about 140 productions, and we hear from three of them: Tom Stoppard, Mark Rylance and Richard Eyre. But has she, the editor of The Stage newspaper muses, perhaps become too dominant? And Sonia explains why she has supported the Good Chance Theatre in the Jungle camp in Calais.Producer: Julian MayImage: Sonia Friedman Image credit: Jason Alden.