The nominees for this year's Evening Standard Theatre Awards were announced today (Friday 17 November), with NHB plays and authors featured across the various categories.

Three NHB plays are included on the shortlist for Best Play. In the thought-provoking The Children by Lucy Kirkwood, two ageing nuclear scientists, living in an isolated cottage on the edge of a crumbling world, receive a frightening request from an old friend. The play received its premiere at the Royal Court in November 2016, and a New York transfer opens at the Manhattan Theatre Club on 28 November.

The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth is also shortlisted for Best Play. Set in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1981, the Carney family's traditional harvest celebrations are interrupted by the arrival of a visitor, whose shocking news threatens to unravel all they've built. First seen at the Royal Court earlier this year, the play is currently running at the Gielgud Theatre, where it has recently extended until May 2018.

Also nominated for Best Play is Oslo by J. T. Rogers. This darkly funny political thriller about the unlikely forging of the Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine won the Tony Award for Best New Play when it premiered in New York, and is now playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End following a short run at the National Theatre.

Elsewhere, two NHB authors are nominated for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is shortlisted for An Octoroon, his dazzlingly inventive comedy which draws on Dion Boucicault's 1859 original melodrama to explore issues about race and identity in America today. After receiving its European premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, An Octoroon will transfer to the National Theatre in 2018.

Also up for Most Promising Playwright is Katherine Soper for her hard-hitting drama Wish List. Winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, this sensitive, delicate and powerful play, which asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you, premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before transferring to the Royal Court.

NHB is represented in other categories, too. NHB author Dominic Cooke is shortlisted for Best Director for his hit production of Follies at the National Theatre – which is also up for Best Musical Performance (Janie Dee). Mike Bartlett's state-of-the-nation drama Albion is included on the shortlists for the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress (Victoria Hamilton) and Emerging Talent Award (Luke Thallon); both shortlists also include nods for The Ferryman, with Laura Donnelly and Tom Glynn-Carney nominated respectively.

Finally, Andrew Garfield is shortlisted for his performance as Prior Walter in the National Theatre's acclaimed revival of Tony Kushner's epic Angels in America, and Sheila Atim is nominated for the Emerging Talent Award for her role in Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson's beautiful play built around the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan.

The winners of the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2017 will be announced at a ceremony on Sunday 3 December, hosted by actor, Fleabag creator/star and NHB author Phoebe Waller-Bridge. To see the full shortlists, visit the Evening Standard website.