The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are the oldest theatrical awards ceremony in the United Kingdom. They are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre, and are organised by the Evening Standard newspaper. They are the West End's equivalent to Broadway's Drama Desk Awards.

The trophies take the form of a modelled statuette, a figure representing Drama, designed by Frank Dobson RA, a former Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art.

Three of the awards are given in the names of former Evening Standard notables:

In 2009, the Special Award was given in the name of Evgeny Lebedev, executive director of the Evening Standard.

In 1980, noting the first use of the Special Award category, Shulman observed that "In 1968 the judges felt that Alan Bennett's work Forty Years On did not fit either the category of a Play or a Musical. But since they liked it so much they gave him the coveted Dobson statuette as a Special Award. In a quarter of a century, only in 1968 had no-one been designated as 'Promising' although it could conceivably be argued that Alan Bennett's Special Award was a reasonable substitute for this category."

The Special Award process came to a climax in 2004 when, in the 50th anniversary year, the category was used to signal peaks of accomplishment by the National Theatre (an institution), Harold Pinter (a playwright) and Dame Judi Dench (a performer).

The Patricia Rothermere Award, presented biennially from 1999 to 2005, was created to honour the memory of Patricia Harmsworth, Viscountess Rothermere, wife of Viscount Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust, which formerly owned the Evening Standard. The two part award recognised those who had given outstanding support to young actors, while also providing a three-year scholarship award for a drama student.

Commencing in 2009, the Best Actress award was renamed in tribute to Natasha Richardson, who died after a skiing accident in Quebec in March 2009.