By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent Last Updated: 4:32PM GMT 24 Nov 2008
The Telegraph
The Hollywood actor, turned London theatre director, was recognised at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards "for bringing new life to the Old Vic".
He took over at the theatre, near Waterloo Station, five years ago to the bemusement of some critics.
Speaking at yesterday's (Mon) ceremony, he said: "I can't quite believe what has happened to the Old Vic."
He said he remembered when some critics were "asking me to pack my bags and get the hell out of town," he told the Evening Standard.
The Old Vic was the home of the National Theatre until it moved into its current premises on the South Bank in 1976.
A decade ago it went though a period of deep uncertainty after being put up for sale. Suggestions were mooted to turn it into a themes pub or bingo hall, but after a public outcry it was bought by a charitable trust in 2000.
Three years later came the announcement that The Old Vic would once again become a producing house, with Spacey as the first artistic director of The Old Vic Theatre Company. He vowed to bring in new talent and famous names from film.
Yesterday the LA Confidential and American Beauty actor, 49, said he had told staff that "if we kept our heads down, kept focused on the vision, we would eventually emerge and establish ourselves".
The awards panel was particularly impressed with his company's revival of the Norman Conquests trilogy by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, for which it built a special circular theatre.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, who acted alongside Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington in American Gangster, won Best Actor for his Othello at the Donmar Warehouse. Penelope Wilton and Margaret Tyzack shared Best Actress for their performances in The Chalk Garden, again at the Donmar.
The Best Play went to Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters at the National Theatre, about a group of 1930s miners who took up art.
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