Peer Gynt Prize Peer Gynt Prize The Peer Gynt Prize or the Peer Gynt Award ("Årets Peer Gynt" or "Per Gynt-prisen") is a private Norwegian prize presented annually by the private commercial company "Peer Gynt AS" during the Peer Gynt Festival, also organised by the same company. The Peer Gynt Prize is named after the main character in "Peer Gynt" (1867), a five-act play in verse by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. The prize is awarded to people or institutions who has marked themselves in a positive way nationally and internationally. However, the prize has received criticism for misrepresenting the Peer Gynt character, who
Peer Gynt US production of "Peer Gynt" opened at the Chicago Grand Opera House on October 24, 1906, and starred the noted actor Richard Mansfield, in one of his very last roles before his untimely death. In 1923, Joseph Schildkraut played the role on Broadway, in a Theatre Guild production, featuring Selena Royle, Helen Westley, Dudley Digges, and, before he entered films, Edward G. Robinson. In 1944, at the Old Vic, Ralph Richardson played the role, surrounded by some of the greatest British actors of the time in supporting or bit roles, among them Sybil Thorndike as Åse, and Laurence Olivier as