The All-Black version of Tennessee Williams' classic play 'A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' may have been passed over by American Tony Award voters when it played a limited 20-week engagement on Broadway in 2008, but the star-studded revival fared much better overseas.

Directed by Debbie Allen and produced (and championed) by former Wall Street financier Stephen C. Byrd, 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' won the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival of a play at Sunday night's lavish ceremony, which was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Starring Tony Award winners James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and Anika Noni Rose with Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard, the play won rave reviews at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre in 2008.

For its West End run, Jones and Rashad returned for their roles as Big Daddy and Big Mama, with British actor Adrian Lester stepping into the role of Brick, and Tony Award winner Sanaa Lathan took over the role of Maggie the Cat.

The additions were just the jolt the production needed. When 'Cat' opened at the Novello Theatre in London's West End, the critics – across the board – raved about the show. The Telegraph newspaper gave it a four star review, while the Guardian called it "exhilarating."

"What is remarkable, though, about Allen's compelling, sensitive and acerbically comic production is how swiftly you become so absorbed by the universal elements in the story that you almost completely forget about the counter-intuitive color of the actors," exclaimed The Independent newspaper's theater critic Paul Taylor.

"We're at a moment of change ...Yes, skin color is a factor, but it's about so more than that," Lester said in an interview shortly before the opening night.

"We are the first and presently the only African American producers on London's West End, and it is our mandate to seek out people of color over there who have never had the opportunity to work on the West End to be a part of our team," Byrd told Black Voices as the show before the show was announced for its run.

"I think the British audience enjoys it," Rashad recently told Broadway.com. "I've found the British audience very open-and vocal. Sometimes, I think I'm in Parliament. Somebody on stage says something, and suddenly it's, "Ooooh, ahhhh, ooooh, that's not right!" That sounds like the people in Parliament."

Winning one of London's theater most prestigious awards, black 'Cat' beat out stiff competition including Lindsay Posner's rendition of 'Three Days of Rain' and Thea Sharrock's take on 'The Misanthrope.' Another Williams revival was also in the running for the prize: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' directed by Rob Ashford starring Rachel Weisz, who subsequently won the award for Best Actress.