Co-stars in contest for best actress at Evening Standard Theatre Awards

Wilton, 62, whose career has stretched from stage to Doctor Who and Shaun Of The Dead, played a woman with a secret past in the Donmar Warehouse's revival of the little-known Enid Bagnold play, The Chalk Garden.

But she will face strong competition from Tyzack, 77, who portrayed a hilariously grandiose grandmother in the same production. Tyzack's long career began with the Royal Shakespeare Company and includes the original Forsyte Saga, I Claudius, and Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange.

Evening Standard critic Nicholas de Jongh said the play, led by their performances, had been "one of the great theatrical rediscoveries of the year".

The best actress shortlist is completed by Clocking Off actress Lesley Sharp, 44, for the tough social drama Harper Regan, at the National.

Richard Wilson, currently in BBC1's Merlin, will host the lunchtime ceremony on Monday 24 November for 250 guests at the Royal Opera House.

Two Shakespeare performances and a Chekhov are in the running for best actor with Chiwetel Ejiofor's noble Othello, David Calder's career-topping King Lear at the Globe and Kenneth Branagh's heartrending Ivanov.

Two best actor nods and two for best actress contribute to a grand tally of six for the Donmar, after its daring expansion into the West End alongside its ongoing programme in Covent Garden.

Its artistic director, Michael Grandage, joins the Royal Shakespeare Company's Michael Boyd on the shortlist for best director. Both directed several top productions. The final director on the shortlist is John Tiffany for Black Watch.

The National Theatre of Scotland's drama about the Scottish regiment is also shortlisted for best play. Its rivals are Now or Later by Christopher Shinn, a topical drama about a fictional American election night, and The Pitmen Painters, Lee Hall's evocation of the true story of Thirties miners who became famous for their art.

Best design will be contested by three radical transformations of theatre spaces. Brief Encounter takes place in a cinema that was a theatre and has been returned to its original use. In The Red And Brown Water has flooded the stage of the Young Vic. And the Old Vic has been turned into a theatre in the round for The Norman Conquests.

The Young Vic also features in the shortlist for most promising playwright with two productions - In The Red And Brown Water and The Brothers Size - by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

But the Royal Court, which is to present the young American's next work, also has contenders with Bola Agbaje's Gone Too Far, a social comedy of identity, and Free Outgoing, Anupama Chandrasekhar's story of scandal in India. None will leave empty-handed as this award comes with a £10,000 cheque for the winner and £2,500 each for the runners-up.

Curtain call: the 2008 shortlist

BEST ACTRESS

Lesley Manville - Her Naked Skin (National's Olivier)

Helen McCrory - Rosmersholm (Almeida)

Phoebe Nicholls - Waste (Almeida)

Lesley Sharp - Harper Regan (National's Cottesloe)

Margaret Tyzack - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)

Penelope Wilton - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)

BEST ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh - Ivanov (Donmar West End at Wyndham's)

David Calder - King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe)

Adam Godley - Rain Man (Apollo)

Chiwetel Ejiofor - Othello (Donmar Warehouse)

Will Keen - Waste (Almeida)

Simon Russell Beale - Much Ado About Nothing (National's Olivier)

Jonathan Slinger - Richard II and Richard III (RSC at the Roundhouse)

Kevin Spacey - Speed-the-Plow (Old Vic)

BEST PLAY

Black Watch - by Gregory Burke (National Theatre of Scotland at Barbican)

Days Of Significance - by Roy Williams (RSC at the Tricycle)

Her Naked Skin - by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (National's Olivier)

Never So Good - by Howard Brenton (National's Lyttelton)

Now Or Later - by Christopher Shinn (Royal Court)

The Pitmen Painters - by Lee Hall (Live Theatre and National Theatre co-production)

THE NED SHERRIN AWARD FOR BEST MUSICAL

La Cage Aux Folles - Menier Chocolate Factory and Playhouse

Eurobeat - Novello

Jersey Boys - Prince Edward

Marguerite - Theatre Royal Haymarket

Street Scene - The Opera Group, Young Vic and Watford Palace Theatre co-production

THE SYDNEY EDWARDS AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR

Lucy Bailey - Timon of Athens (Shakespeare's Globe)

Michael Boyd - The History Cycle (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Roundhouse)

Rupert Goold - Six Characters In Search Of An Author (Gielgud)/No Man's Land (Duke of York's)/The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot (Almeida)

Michael Grandage - Othello/The Chalk Garden/Ivanov (Donmar West End at Wyndham's and Donmar Warehouse)

Katie Mitchell - The Women of Troy (National's Lyttelton)

Emma Rice - Brief Encounter (Kneehigh at Cinema Haymarket Theatre)

Alan Rickman - Creditors (Donmar Warehouse)

John Tiffany - Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland at Barbican)

BEST DESIGN

Miriam Buether - In The Red And Brown Water (Young Vic)

Laura Hopkins - Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland at the Barbican)

Rob Howell - The Norman Conquests (Old Vic)

Neil Murray - Brief Encounter (Kneehigh at Cinema Haymarket Theatre)

Ti Green and Melly Still - The Revenger's Tragedy (National's Olivier)

THE MILTON SHULMAN AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER

Michelle Dockery - Pygmalion (Old Vic)

Luke Evans - Small Change (Donmar Warehouse)

Felicity Jones - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)

Joseph Mawle - The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot (Almeida)

Lex Shrapnel - Henry IV Part I (Royal Shakespeare Company at The Roundhouse)

Ella Smith - Fat Pig (Trafalgar Studios and Comedy Theatre)