Saturday, December 30, 2023

THEMES EMERGE AND SOMETIMES CONVERGE IN A LOOK-BACK AT THE FIRST HALF OF THE 2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON







Rather than rehash all of 2023, I'd like focus on some half dozen of the plays and musicals that have opened since the 2022-2023 Broadway season ended and the 2023-2024 season began.

 

Interestingly, that period has been bookended by a pair of haunted house tales, one literal, with literary roots, and the other satirical/allegorical, with historical roots – the latter being far more successful in disturbing an audience’s equilibrium and which, as of now at least, sits high on the list for one or more likely Tony nominations when the season ends next April. 

 

The season’s opener was GREY HOUSE, whose seemingly innocuous title was never explained, something that was true  of the play itself, which went for atmosphere over substance.

Written by Levi Holloway, known mostly for his work as a Chicago-based actor and theater director, GREY HOUSE was an otherworldly excursion built on the familiar trope of travelers stranded during a blizzard, seeking shelter in a mysterious house in the woods. All told, and despite committed performances and excellent direction, this was a mix of predictability and bafflement. 


GRAY HOUSE Photo by MurphyMade



       



On the other hand, there was the final show of the first half of the season, the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ masterful play APPROPRIATE, an Obie Award winner for an Off Broadway run a decade ago.  This play, too, is set in a sort of haunted house, though without the presence of actual ghosts.  Using biting satire, a most unsavory group of characters, and historical references that are far more disconcertedly creepy than anything cooked up in GREY HOUSE, APPROPRIATE makes for a powerful evening of theatergoing.  


Without ever overdoing easy weapons of blame, shame, and guilt, the subject matter gets at the heart of issues of our country’s history of slavery, racism, and white privilege.  APPROPRIATE, sharply directed by Lila Neugebauer and boasting a solid acting company and outstanding design elements, is still running and comes as close to must-see as any show that opened on Broadway in recent months.  (The other is the revival of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, a production I will discuss in an upcoming post, along with Stephen Sondheim's newest and last show, HERE WE ARE, currently having its first run Off Broadway). 


  


APPROPRIATE Photo by Joan Marcus





Another significant revival of a play with a satirical sting aimed at issues of racism is PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH, written by Ossie Davis and originally produced in 1961. The production, under the discerning direction of Kenny Leon, is an outstanding one, funny, astute, and, unfortunately, still utterly timely.  


The play's central character is one Purlie Victorious Judson, an itinerant Black preacher brilliantly played by Leslie Odom Jr., who has returned home to rural Georgia with a grand scheme for buying and revitalizing the community church.  Standing in the way is Ol’ Cap'n, the white landowner who runs his cotton plantation as if the Civil War had never occurred, much less been lost by his forebears. 


As good as Odom is, it is Kara Young as his partner-in-crime Luttiebelle who nearly steals the show with her glorious comic timing and the most expressive eyes you're likely ever to see. Here's another play that is likely to pick up Tony nominations and that sits high on my list of recommendations.


PURLIE VICTORIOUS Photo by Marc J. Franklin



Plays and musicals with themes tied to Judaism and antisemitism have also been occurring with greater frequency, from last season's LEOPOLDSTADT and PARADE to the more recent JUST FOR US and HARMONY.


JUST FOR US marked the Broadway debut of comic Alex Edelman, who has garnered accolades for his solo show, the central set piece being a story of an evening he spent among a group of antisemitic white supremacists. 


My reaction, which admittedly was an outlier to the general praise the show received, was not enthusiastic.  Although I was taken by Edelman's engaging performance style, I was less impressed by the overall content of the evening, which I found to be overly practiced and familar, with stories that reminded me too much of those I've heard from other comics through the years or of situations that I and friends and family experienced growing up in our own Jewish homes. I haven't changed my mind, but I regret my hemming-and-hawing published review in which I failed to adequately explain my rationale. 


JUST FOR US Photo by Matthew Murphy











More to my liking was HARMONY (still playing and well worth seeing), the musical by pop icon Barry Manilow and his longtime writing partner Bruce Sussman.  It is framed as a memory play about the real world of the one-time Germany-based international performing sensation known as the Comedian Harmonists, made up of a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish members whose fame and fall coincided with the emergence of the Nazis. 


Another likely Tony nomination or more for this one, with special kudos to actor Chip Zien, whose character remembers every moment -- the good, bad, and the ugly -- of the group's time together back in the late 1920s and into the 1930s, and to director/choreographer Warren Carlyle, who keeps the show totally focused on the rise and fall of the sextet. 


HARMONY Photo by Julieta Cervantes



Wrapping up on a final upbeat note, let's recognize the near perfect revival of MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT, Eric Idle and John Du Prez's musical about those unforgettable knights and knaves of the Round Table whose rousing non-sequiturs and merriments remain a high point of theatrical delights. The original Broadway production in 2005 ran for close to 1,600 performances, and I would love to see this revival match or exceed that.  Fun. Silly. Weird. Wacky. And joyful as they come.  SPAMALOT makes a virtue of digressions and tangential meanderings and will send you dancing and whistling out to the street to the tune of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." It seldom gets any better than this. 


SPAMALOT Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman




__________________________________

Links to my full reviews of these shows:


GREY HOUSE: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/GreyHouse.html



APPROPRIATE:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/Appropriate.html



PURLIE VICTORIOUS:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/PurlieVictorious.html



JUST FOR US:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/JustforUs.html


HARMONY:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/Harmony.html



SPAMALOT

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/Spamalot23.html






























Wednesday, June 7, 2023

PREDICTING THE 2023 TONYS







From THE KITE RUNNER to NEW YORK, NEW YORK, Broadway saw 40 new productions during the 2022-23 season,including 15 musicals (9 original, 6 revivals), 24 plays (18 original, 5 revivals, one return engagement), and one special engagement (original). 

Lots of competition for awards, to be sure.

Despite my being a voting member of Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk as well as the lead Broadway critic for Talkin' Broadway (talkinbroadway.com), my ability to predict Tony Award winners is more of a matter of guessing and luck.  Still, who can resist?  No foul, no harm!

So, with no further ado, here are my picks for the winners for the 2023 Tony Awards.  Tune in to CBS on Sunday night, June 11, 2023 to see how things pan out!!!


Best Book of a Musical

Kimberly Akimbo


Best Original Score

Some Like It Hot


Best Performance by Lead Actor in a Play

Sean Hayes


Best Performance by Lead Actress in a Play

Jessica Chastain


Best Performance by Lead Actor in a Musical

J. Harrison Ghee


Best Performance by Lead Actress in a Musical

Victoria Clark


Best Performance by Featured Actor in a Play

Jordan E. Cooper


Best Performance by Featured Actress in a Play

Miriam Silverman


Best Performance by Featured Actor in a Musical

Alex Newell


Best Performance by Featured Actress in a Musical

Bonnie Milligan


Best Scenic Design of a Play

Tim Hatley and Andrzej Goulding (Life of Pi)


Best Scenic Design of a Musical

Scott Pask (Some Like It Hot)


Best Costume Design of a Play

Emilio Sosa (Ain’t No Mo’}


Best Costume Design of a Musical

Gregg Barnes (Some Like It Hot)


Best Lighting Design of a Play

Ben Stanton (A Christmas Carol)


Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Natasha Katz (Sweeney Todd)


Best Sound Design of a Play

Ben and Max Ringham (Prima Facie)


Best Sound Design of a Musical

Kai Harada (New York, New York)


Best Direction of a Play

Patrick Marber (Leopoldstadt)


Best Direction of a Musical

Michael Arden (Parade)


Best Choreography

Casey Nicholaw (Some Like It Hot)


Best Orchestrations

Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter (Some Like It Hot)


Best Play

Leopoldstadt


Best Musical

Kimberly Akimbo


Best Revival of a Play

The Piano Lesson


Best Revival of a Musical

Parade


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Sunday, June 12, 2022

PREDICTING THE TONYS 2022

 Prediction. Businesswoman in a black jacket shows a card with the inscription prediction. Selective focus royalty free stock photo


'Tis a foolish thing to try to read the minds of Tony voters.  But who can resist?  

In any event, here are my predictions of the winners (plus who I would have voted for if anyone had invited me to do so).


Best Play:                  The Lehman Trilogy

Personal Choice:      Clyde's


Best Musical:             Six

Personal Choice:       MJ (but close enough to tie with Six)


Play Revival:              For Colored Girls...

Personal Choice:       Trouble in Mind


Musical Revival:         Company

Personal Choice:        Company


Lead Actor, Play:        David Morse

Personal Choice:        David Morse


Lead Actress, Play:    LaChanze

Personal Choice:        LaChanze


Lead Actor, Musical:  Jaquel Spivey

Personal Choice:        Jaquel Spivey


Lead Actress, Musical:  Sharon D Clarke

Personal Choice:           Sharon D Clarke


Featured Actor, Play:    Jessie Tyler Ferguson

Personal Choice:           Chuck Cooper


Featured Actress, Play:      Uzo Aduba

Personal Choice:                 Uzo Aduba


Featured Actor, Musical:      Matt Doyle

Personal Choice:                   Matt Doyle


Featured Actress, Musical    Patti LuPone

Personal Choice:                    Patti LuPone


Book of Musical:                    A Strange Loop

Personal Choice:                    A Strange Loop 


Score:                                      Six

Personal Choice:                    Flying Over Sunset


Scenic Design, Play:            Es Devlin

Personal Choice:                  Es Devlin


Scenic Design, Musical:    Beowulf Boritt

Personal Choice:                Beowulf Boritt


Costume,  Play:                Jennifer Moeller

Personal Choice:              Jennifer Moeller


Costumes,  Musical:       Gabriella Slade

Personal Choice:              Gabriella Slade


Lighting, Play:               Jon Clark

Personal Choice:         Jon Clark


Lighting, Musical:        Bradley King

Personal Choice:        Bradley King


Sound, Play:                Mikhail Fiksel

Personal Choice:         Mikhail Fiksel


Sound, Musical:            Paul Gatehouse

Personal Choice:        Paul Gatehouse


Direction, Play:            Sam Mendes

Personal Choice:        Camille A. Brown 


Direction, Musical:    Marianne Elliott

Personal Choice:        Christopher Wheeldon


Choreography            Christopher Wheeldon

Personal Choice:        Christopher Wheeldon


Orchestrations:          David Cullen

Personal Choice:        David Cullen







Monday, September 27, 2021

THE TONYS: Monday Morning Quarterbacking

 

Danny Burstein, Tony Winner for Moulin Rouge

Photo by Matthew Murphy



It has been a confusing and anxious time for everyone involved in the theater, and the very fact that the Tonys for 2019-2020 were presented last night marks an important milestone in terms of Broadway's return.

So no recriminations or second-guessing here.  Just some observations.

To begin with, I successfully predicted 15 of the 25 winners, largely owing to my thinking that Moulin Rouge would walk away with a Tony in pretty much every category for which it was nominated. Since the show picked up 10 Tonys, you can see that my crystal ball did me a service.

Regarding musicals, it does seem a shame that all three shows that were up for awards in that category were what we call "jukebox musicals," including the winner.  The others were Jagged Little Pill, and Tina -- a show whose star, Adrienne Warren, gave an extraordinarily powerful Tony-garnering performance.  

Unfortunately, with no original musicals in the mix, all of the shows that were nominated for Best Original Score were actually non-musicals (though, of course, with supporting music). My thinking is that the category itself should be confined to actual musicals with original scores.  Since there were none this go-round, that category should have been eliminated.  

And speaking of categories with too few nominees, there was the case of Best Lead Actor in a Musical, in which Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge) was the only nominee.  The Tony voters were directed to vote  yea or nay.  Fortunately, enough of them voted yea, so that Mr. Tveit picked up his award, but, really, this category should have been eliminated.  

By the way, for the record and from my perspective, the actual best performance in this category was given by Isaac Powell in West Side Story, a show that -- while it did open in February of 2020, prior to the Covid shutdown -- unfortunately did not make the cutoff date for the Tonys.  

Overall, there were few surprises, even among those categories where I failed to successfully predict the winner.  

I did wonder that the highly touted Slave Play, which garnered a dozen nominations and is returning for another run on Broadway, failed to win any Tonys.  I especially admired the performance in that play of Joaquina Kalukango, but I will say that Mary-Louise Parker's performance in The Sound Inside (itself a small, esoteric play) was stunning and deserving of the Tony she won for Best Lead Actress in a Play. 

I was also very happy to have erred in the category of Best Revival of a Play, since the winner, A Soldier's Play, was my favorite for the season.  In that, I especially admired the performance by David Alan Grier, and I was delighted that he, too, won a Tony (for Best Featured Actor).  I did have a difficult time choosing between A Soldier's Play and Betrayal, which was given a truly stellar production.

Apart from the awards themselves, I was somewhat puzzled by the televised two-hour "Celebration of Broadway" show, which seemed geared toward the in-crowd of the industry rather than an audience of potential Broadway theater-goers.  There were very few performances from the 2019-2020 season and none from the current season (other than that of David Byrne's American Utopia, which is returning to Broadway for another run).  

I have the fondest memories of growing up, watching the performances on the Tony show each year, looking forward to the day when I could get to New York and take in a Broadway show myself.  Who knew that someday I would live here and be able to attend Broadway and Off Broadway shows to my heart's content!

________________


Here are links to my reviews of all the shows I have mentioned above:


Jagged Little Pill

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/JaggedLittlePill2019.html


Moulin Rouge

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/MoulinRouge2019.html


Tina

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/Tina2019.html


Slave Play

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/SlavePlay2019.html


West Side Story 

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/WestSideStory.html


A Soldier's Play

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/SoldiersPlay.html


The Sound Inside

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/SoundInside2019.html


Betrayal

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/Betrayal2019.html


David Byrne's American Utopia

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/AmericanUtopia2019.html

 











Sunday, September 26, 2021

TONY AWARDS. Long delayed but here we go...


There has been lots of mischigas about the on again-off again Tony Awards.  And, really, it's all understandable under the circumstances.  

Now is a time to celebrate the reopening of Broadway and to honor the hard work that went into the productions that did make it into the 2019-2020 Broadway season prior to the shutdown.

So, yes, tonight, it's on, though how it's being presented for public viewing is rather convoluted.

From 7-9 PM,  eastern time, you'll have to watch all but three of the awards being distributed on a streaming service, Paramount+.  To lure people in, they are offering a free week of viewing before the fee kicks in.  Up to you.  I'm not biting.

But starting at 9 PM, tune in to CBS for "The Tony Awards Presents Broadway's Back," a celebration filled with performances and the final three awards:  for best play, best play revival, and best musical.

For the record, I am posting my predictions here:

Best Play:  SLAVE PLAY

Best Musical:  MOULIN ROUGE

Best Play Revival:  BETRAYAL

Best Book of a Musical:  JAGGED LITTLE PILL

Best Original Score:  THE ROSE TATTOO

Best Lead Actor, Play:  TOM HIDDLESTON

Best Lead Actress, Play:  JOAQUINA KALUKANGO

Best Lead Actor, Musical: AARON TVEIT

Best Lead Actress, Musical:  ADRIENNE WARREN

Best Featured Actor, Play:  DAVID ALAN GRIER

Best Featured Actress, Play: LOIS SMITH

Best Featured Actor, Musical:  DANNY BURSTEIN

Best Featured Actress, Musical:  LAUREN PATTEN

Best Scenic Design, Play:  CLINT RAMOS

Best Scenic Design, Musical: DEREK McLANE

Best Costume Design, Play: DEDE AYITE (for Slave Play)

Best Costume Design, Musical:  CATHERINE ZUBER

Best Lighting Design, Play:  JIYOUN CHANG

Best Lighting Design, Musical:  JUSTIN TOWNSEND (for Moulin Rouge)

Best Sound Design, Play:  Daniel Kluger (for The Sound Inside)

Best Sound Design, Musical:  PETER HYLENSKI

Best Director, Play: ROBERT O'HARA

Best Director, Musical:  ALEX TIMBERS

Best Choreography: SONYA TAYEH

Best Orchestrations: KATIE KRESEK, CHARLIE ROSEN, MATT STINE &  JUSTIN LEVINE


Let's all find out together how well my predictions hold up.



 

WELCOME BACK! A consideration of the start of the 2021-22 New York theater season.

 It's been a while!

New York theaters are nervously moving forward with a new season that everyone hoped we could call "post-pandemic," or at least "pandemic-under-control."

Alas, neither of these defines the current state of things.  So, let's call it "nervously moving forward anyway, with fingers crossed and hoping for the best."  

It's hard to believe, but I have already seen seven shows on and off Broadway.  So let's chat a bit about them.

Things began for me in April, when I saw a production of Blindness at Off Broadway's Daryl Roth Theatre. The theater is named for the producer Daryl Roth, to whom I give a lot of credit for taking this early leap into the unknown.  


Blindness at the Daryl Roth Theatre

Photo by Helen Maybanks


Wisely or foolishly, I felt perfectly safe attending.  Given all that was at stake, I know that everything that could be done to ensure the health and well-being of all in attendance would be taken care of.  Indeed, the theater was super scrubbed, the audience was seated in a socially-distanced space, we were escorted individually to our seats, and everyone was masked.  

A little about the play itself:  Blindness was adapted by Simon Stephens from José Saramago's 1995 novel of the same title, It is a gripping tale about a plague of sightlessness that spreads rampantly among the inhabitants of an unspecified city and brings social order to its knees.  

So, not exactly a fun topic, but it was very well done nonetheless.  If you want to know more, here is a link to my review:  

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/04_06_21.html

 ___________________


Next up for me was another Off Broadway show, this one at the Cell Theatre.  Now we are into July.  Protocol for admission was proof of vaccination -- though after admission, seating was not socially distanced, and masks were not required.

This one was a seriocomic play called Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings).  If the name "Fruma Sarah" rings a bell, it's the character of the deceased wife of the butcher Lazar Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof.  We never actually meet the real Fruma Sarah in Fiddler;   instead, she appears in an imaginary dream cooked up by Tevye in order to convince his wife that they should break the agreement with Lazar Wolf to let him marry their daughter.  Remember?  Good.

Jackie Hoffman and Kelly Kinsella

 Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings) at the Cell 

Photo by Hunter Canning


Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings) is a two-character play about a community theater actress waiting backstage to go on in the role of the dream version of Fruma Sarah. The part was performed with great Ã©lan by the comic actress Jackie Hoffman.  

Written by E. Dale Smith, the play gives us a woman whose own life is on the skids, but who lives for those moments when she can figuratively and literally soar as an actress.  If you want to know more, here is a link to my review:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/07_08_21.html 

 ___________________


Third show, taking me into August.  This one marked the re-opening of the Delacorte Theatre, aka Shakespeare in the Park, the Public Theater's stadium-like open-air performance space in Central Park.  

Covid protocol: proof of vaccination and photo IDs to get in.  Masks required until and unless seated.  Special section set aside, socially distanced, for the unvaccinated and masked.

Before we get into the show itself, a comic romp titled Merry Wives, I want to take a moment to recognize all of the hard work by everyone involved to pull it off.  From the start, the production was plagued by a string of delays, canceled performances, an injured lead actor, and storm washouts -- not to mention the nerve-jangling specter lurking in the shadows.  And yet, the show prevailed and successfully ran until just last week when it closed on schedule.  


 

The Cast of Merry Wives at the Delacorte

Photo by Joan Marcus


Merry Wives is a modern take of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, adapted by playwright Jocelyn Bioh and   removed from England to Harlem among a population of African immigrants.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review:


https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/08_09_21.html


 ___________________


Then later in August, Broadway saw its first show of the season, and, yes, I was there.  It was Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's play Pass Over, transferred from its previous Off Broadway production, with a revised ending, still on view at the August Wilson Theatre,  with masks, vaccinations, and IDs all around.  Now might also be a good time for me to mention that, thus far, audiences I've encountered have been compliant and well-behaved and considerate of one another.  

Namir Smallwood and Jon Michael Hill

in Pass Over at the August Wilson Theatre

Photo by Joan Marcus

Pass Over borrows imagery from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and from the Old Testament Book of Exodus to relate the story of two young Black men who are trapped in a stretch of urban space.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review:



 ___________________



Lenny Grossman and Francesca Ravera 

in Blackbird at the New Ohio Theatre

Photo by Bjorn Bolinder

September saw an off Broadway production at the New Ohio Theatre of David Harrower's disturbing play, Blackbird, which deals with the toxic fallout from a heinous act of pedophilia, a three-month-long sexual relationship between a 40-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl that took place 15 years before the play opens.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review: 



 

  ___________________


There are two other plays I have seen since, Sanctuary City at Off Broadway's Lucille Lortel Theatre and Lackawanna Blues, on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.  But I have not yet written those reviews, so you'll have to wait.











Sunday, June 14, 2020

DRAMA DESK AWARDS: Honoring the best of the 2019-2020 New York Theater Season





Undaunted after being moved from a formal, ticketed live-on-stage event to a low-key prerecorded ceremony, the Drama Desk, of which I am a voting member, last night announced the winners of its 65th annual awards honoring the best of Broadway and Off Broadway for the 2019-2020 season.

Although New York theater was forced to come to a TEMPORARY halt due to the global pandemic, there was an exciting and rich theater season prior to the March 12 lockdown, with a great many plays and musicals to be considered for these awards.  

Below is the list of winners, but before we go there, I would like to draw your attention to this message of support for racial equality from the organization:  

"The Drama Desk is committed to honoring all that's outstanding in the work of New York's diverse theater artists and craftspeople.  We regret the postponement of our awards ceremony, but, as an organization committed to the principle that all voices must be heard, we stand with the global Black Lives Matter movement, decrying the racial injustice and violence in our nation and city."


*********************************


Here is the list of the winners: 


Outstanding Play
The Inheritance

Outstanding Musical
A Strange Loop

Outstanding Revival of a Play
A Soldier’s Play

Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Little Shop of Horrors

Outstanding Actor in a Play
Edmund Donovan, Greater Clements

Outstanding Actress in a Play
Liza Colón-Zayas, Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven

Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Larry Owens, A Strange Loop

Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Adrienne Warren, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
Paul Hilton, The Inheritance

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
Lois Smith, The Inheritance

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Christian Borle, Little Shop of Horrors

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
Lauren Patten, Jagged Little Pill

Outstanding Solo Performance
Laura Linney, My Name is Lucy Barton

Outstanding Director of a Play
Stephen Daldry, The Inheritance

Outstanding Director of a Musical
Stephen Brackett, A Strange Loop

Outstanding Choreography
Sonya Tayeh, Moulin Rouge!

Outstanding Music
Dave Malloy, Octet

Outstanding Lyrics
Michael R. Jackson, A Strange Loop

Outstanding Book of a Musical
Michael R. Jackson, A Strange Loop

Outstanding Orchestrations
Tom Kitt, Jagged Liittle Pill

Outstanding Music in a Play
Martha Redbone, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf

Outstanding Set Design of a Play
Clint Ramos, Grand Horizons

Outstanding Set Design for a Musical
Derek McLane, Moulin Rouge!

Outstanding Costume Design for a Play
Rachel Townsend and Jessica Jahn, The Confession of Lily Dare

Outstanding Costume Design for a Musical
Catherine Zuber, Moulin Rouge!

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play
Heather Gilbert, The Sound Inside

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Musical
Justin Townsend, Moulin Rouge!

Outstanding Sound Design in a Play
Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid, The Inheritance

Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical
Peter Hylenski, Moulin Rouge!

Outstanding Projection Design
Luke Halls, West Side Story

Outstanding Wig and Hair Design
Campbell Young Associates, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical

Outstanding Fight Choreography

Thomas Schall, A Soldier’s Play

Outstanding Puppet Design
Raphael Mishler, Tumacho

Unique Theatrical Experience
Is This A Room

Outstanding Adaptation
A Christmas Carol

Special Awards
Ensemble Award: “To the eight pitch-perfect performers in Dave Malloy’s a cappella musical Octet: Adam Bashian, Kim Blanck, Starr Busby, Alex Gibson, Justin Gregory Lopez, J.D. Mollison, Margo Seibert and Kuhoo Verma proved instrumental in giving a layered look at modern forms of addiction.”

Sam Norkin Award: “To actress Mary Bacon, who continued her versatile career of compassionate, searing work for such companies as The Mint, Primary Stages, The Public Theater and The Actors Theater Company, with two of Off-Broadway’s most humane performances this season in Coal Country at the Public Theater and Nothing Gold Can Stay presented by Partial Comfort Productions.”

“To The Actors Fund, Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley for connecting members of the theater community and lifting spirits during the coronavirus crisis. The Actors Fund has worked tirelessly to provide financial and health resources to those impacted by the pandemic; Rudetsky and Wesley’s semi-daily Stars in the House webcast is raising funds for The Actors Fund, while providing performances, reunions, and medical updates.”

“To The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit, a reinvention of Joseph Papp’s “Mobile Theater” that began in 1957 and evolved into the New York Shakespeare Festival and The Public Theater. The current Mobile Unit tours free Shakespeare throughout the five boroughs, including prisons, homeless shelters and community centers, reminding audiences new and old that the play really is the thing. ”

“To WP Theater and Julia Miles, the company’s founder who died this spring. Formerly known as The Women’s Project and Productions, the company began in 1978 at American Place Theatre, where Miles served as associate to visionary artistic director Wynn Handman, who also died this spring. WP is the largest, most enduring American company that nurtures and produces works by female-identified creators. Over a little more than four decades, it has changed the demographics of American drama through an unwavering focus on women writers, directors, producers, performers and craftspeople.”

“To Claire Warden for her pioneering work as an intimacy choreographer in such recent projects as Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune and Linda Vista and her leadership in the rapidly emerging movement of intimacy direction. As part of the creative team of Intimacy Directors & Coordinators and Director of Engagement for and co-founder of Intimacy Directors International, she is helping create theater experiences that are safer for performers and more authentic for contemporary audiences.”



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