AND NOW ... The Drama Desk Nominees for Best of Broadway and Off Broadway

2017 DRAMA DESK AWARD NOMINATIONS

NOTE:  Anything marked with an asterisk (*) also received an Outer Critics Circle nomination, as indicated and to the extent where the categories were the same or overlapped.
Outstanding Play
If I Forget
Indecent*
A Life
Oslo*
Sweat*

Outstanding Musical
Anastasia*
The Band's Visit*
Come From Away*
Hadestown*
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical

Outstanding Revival of a Play
The Front Page*
The Hairy Ape
Jitney*
The Little Foxes*
Master Harold... and the Boys
Picnic

Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Falsettos, Lincoln Center Theater
Hello, Dolly!*
Sweeney Todd*
Sweet Charity, The New Group
Tick, Tick...BOOM!

Outstanding Actor in a Play
Bobby Cannavale, The Hairy Ape
Daniel Craig, Othello*
Kevin Kline, Present Laughter*
David Hyde Pierce, A Life*
John Douglas Thompson, Jitney

Outstanding Actress in a Play
Cate Blanchett, The Present
Laura Linney, The Little Foxes*
Laurie Metcalf, A Doll's House, Part 2*
Amy Ryan, Love, Love, Love
Harriet Walter, The Tempest

Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Nick Blaemire, Tick, Tick...BOOM!
Jon Jon Briones, Miss Saigon
Nick Cordero, A Bronx Tale*
Andy Karl, Groundhog Day*
Jeremy Secomb, Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Christy Altomare, Anastasia*
Christine Ebersole, War Paint*
Sutton Foster, Sweet Charity
Patti LuPone, War Paint*
Bette Midler, Hello, Dolly!*
Laura Osnes, Bandstand

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
Michael Aronov, Oslo*
Danny DeVito, The Price*
Nathan Lane, The Front Page*
Jeremy Shamos, If I Forget
Justice Smith, Yen

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
Jayne Houdyshell, A Doll's House, Part 2*
Randy Graff, The Babylon Line
Marie Mullen, The Beauty Queen of Leenane
Cynthia Nixon, The Little Foxes*
Emily Skinner, Picnic
Kate Walsh, If I Forget

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Gavin Creel, Hello, Dolly!
Jeffry Denman, Kid Victory*
George Salazar, The Lightning Thief 
Ari'el Stachel, The Band's Visit
Brandon Uranowitz, Falsettos

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
Kate Baldwin, Hello, Dolly!*
Stephanie J. Block, Falsettos*
Jenn Colella, Come From Away*
Mary Beth Peil, Anastasia*
Nora Schell, Spamilton

Outstanding Director of a Play
Richard Jones, The Hairy Ape
Anne Kauffman, A Life
Richard Nelson, What Did You Expect?/Women of a Certain Age, 
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jitney
Daniel Sullivan, The Little Foxes*
Daniel Sullivan, If I Forget

Outstanding Director of a Musical
Christopher Ashley, Come From Away*
Bill Buckhurst, Sweeney Todd
Rachel Chavkin, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
David Cromer, The Band's Visit*
Jerry Zaks, Hello, Dolly!*

Outstanding Choreography
Andy Blankenbuehler, Bandstand*
Warren Carlyle, Hello, Dolly!*
Aletta Collins, The Hairy Ape
Kelly Devine, Come From Away*
Denis Jones, Holiday Inn*

Outstanding Music
Stephen Flaherty, Anastasia*
Dave Malloy, Beardo
Richard Oberacker, Bandstand
Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away*
David Yazbek, The Band's Visit*

Outstanding Lyrics
Gerard Alessandrini, Spamilton
GQ and JQ, Othello: The Remix
Michael Korie, War Paint
Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away
David Yazbek, The Band's Visit

Outstanding Book of a Musical
Terrence McNally, Anastasia*
Itamar Moses, The Band's Visit*
Richard Oberacker, Bandstand
Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away*
Joe Tracz, The Lightning Thief

Outstanding Orchestrations
Doug Besterman, Anastasia*
Bruce Coughlin, War Paint
Benjamin Cox, Sweeney Todd
Bill Elliott and Greg Anthony Rassen, Bandstand*
August Eriksmoen, Come From Away
Jamshied Sharifi, The Band's Visit* 

Outstanding Music in a Play
Daniel Ocanto, Graham Ulicny, and Sean Smith, Alligator N
Marcus Shelby, Notes from the Field
Bill Sims Jr., Jitney

Outstanding Set Design for a Play
David Gallo, Jitney
Nigel Hook, The Play That Goes Wrong*
Laura Jellinek, A Life
Stewart Laing, The Hairy Ape
Douglas W. Schmidt, The Front Page*

Outstanding Set Design for a Musical
Lez Brotherston, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips 
Simon Kenny, Sweeney Todd
Mimi Lien, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812*
Santo Loquasto, Hello, Dolly!
Jason Sherwood, The View UpStairs

Outstanding Costume Design for a Play
Jane Greenwood, The Little Foxes
Susan Hilferty, Present Laughter*
Murell Horton, The Liar
Toni-Leslie James, Jitney
Stewart Laing, The Hairy Ape
Ann Roth, The Front Page

Outstanding Costume Design for a Musical
Linda Cho, Anastasia*
Toni-Leslie James, Come From Away
Santo Loquasto, Hello, Dolly!*
Anita Yavich, The View UpStairs
Paloma Young, Bandstand
Catherine Zuber, War Paint*

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play
Christopher Akerlind, Indecent* 
James Farncombe, The Tempest
Rick Fisher, The Judas Kiss
Mimi Jordan Sherin, The Hairy Ape
Stephen Strawbridge, Master Harold...and the Boys
Justin Townsend, The Little Foxes

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Musical
Jeff Croiter, Bandstand
Mark Henderson, Sunset Boulevard
Bradley King, Hadestown
Bradley King, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812*
Amy Mae, Sweeney Todd
Malcolm Rippeth, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips 

Outstanding Projection Design
Reid Farrington, CasablancaBox
Elaine McCarthy, Notes from the Field
Jared Mezzocchi, Vietgone*
John Narun, Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey
Aaron Rhyne, Anastasia*

Outstanding Sound Design in a Play
Mikhail Fiksel, A Life
Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, The Encounter*
Brian Quijada, Where Did We Sit on the Bus? 
Leon Rothenberg, Notes from the Field 
Jane Shaw, Men on Boats 
Matt Stine, Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical
Simon Baker, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
Peter Hylenski, Anastasia
Scott Lehrer, Hello, Dolly!
Nicholas Pope, Natasha, Pierre and Great Comet of 1812*
Mick Potter, Cats
Brian Ronan, War Paint

Outstanding Solo Performance
Nancy Anderson, The Pen 
Ed Dixon, Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose*
Marin Ireland, On the Exhale*
Sarah Jones, Sell/Buy/Date*
Brian Quijada, Where Did We Sit on the Bus?
Anna Deavere Smith, Notes from the Field 

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.  

OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE Nominees for Best of the 2016-2017 Broadway and Off Broadway Season

Danny Burstein and Jane Krakowski Announce Nominees
for Outer Critics Circle Awards

Broadway stars Danny Burstein (Fiddler on the Roof) and Jane Krakowski (She Loves Me) did the honors at this morning's announcement of the 2016-2017 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for theatrical excellence on Broadway and Off Broadway.  The event took place in the renowned Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel.

The full list of nominees is below. Please note that some shows were deemed ineligible because they had previously been considered for their Off Broadway productions.  Specifically, only new elements of Dear Evan Hansen, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Significant Other, and In Transit were considered. Shuffle Along was considered this season at the request of the producers. Sunday in the Park With George was ineligible at the request of the producers.

Outstanding New Broadway Play

A Doll's House, Part 2

Indecent

Oslo

Sweat

Outstanding New Broadway Musical

Anastasia

A Bronx Tale — The Musical

Come From Away

Groundhog Day

Holiday Inn

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play

If I Forge

Incognito

A Life

Linda

Love, Love, Love

John Gassner Award

(Presented for an American play, preferably by a new playwright)

Men on Boats

Small Mouth Sounds

Tell Hector I Miss Him

Vietgone

The Wolves

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical

The Band's Visit

Hadestown

Himself and Nora

Kid Victory

Spamilton

Outstanding Revival of a Play

(Broadway or off-Broadway)

The Front Page

Jitney

The Little Foxes

Othello

The Price

Outstanding Revival of a Musical

(Broadway or off-Broadway)

Finian's Rainbow

Hello, Dolly!

Miss Saigon

Sunset Boulevard

Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Actor in a Play

Michael Emerson, Wakey, Wakey

Daniel Craig, Othello

Kevin Kline, Present Laughter

David Oyelowo, Othello

David Hyde Pierce, A Life

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play

Michael Aronov, Oslo

Danny DeVito, The Price

Nathan Lane, The Front Page

Richard Thomas, The Little Foxes

Richard Topol, Indecent

Outstanding Actress in a Play

Janie Dee, Linda

Sally Field, The Glass Menagerie

Allison Janney, Six Degrees of Separation

Laura Linney, The Little Foxes

Laurie Metcalf, A Doll's House, Part 2

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play

Johanna Day, Sweat

Jayne Houdyshell, A Doll's House, Part 2

Katrina Lenk, Indecent

Nana Mensah, Man From Nebraska

Cynthia Nixon, The Little Foxes

Outstanding Actor in a Musical

Christian Borle, Falsettos

Nick Cordero, A Bronx Tale

Andy Karl, Groundhog Day

David Hyde Pierce, Hello, Dolly!

Tony Shalhoub, The Band's Visit

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical

John Bolton, Anastasia

Gavin Creel, Hello, Dolly!

Jeffry Denman, Kid Victory

Shuler Hensley, Sweet Charity

Andrew Rannells, Falsettos

Outstanding Actress in a Musical

Christy Altomare, Anastasia

Christine Ebersole, War Paint

Katrina Lenk, The Band's Visit

Patti LuPone, War Paint

Bette Midler, Hello, Dolly!

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical

Kate Baldwin, Hello, Dolly!

Stephanie J. Block, Falsettos

Jenn Colella, Come From Away

Caroline O'Connor, Anastasia

Mary Beth Peil, Anastasia

Outstanding Solo Performance

Ed Dixon, Georgie: My Adventures With George Rose

Marin Ireland, On the Exhale

Sarah Jones, Sell/Buy/Date

Judith Light, All the Ways to Say I Love You

Simon McBurney, The Encounter

Outstanding Book of a Musical

(Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Terrence McNally, Anastasia

Itamar Moses, The Band's Visit

Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale

Danny Rubin, Groundhog Day

Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away

Outstanding New Score

(Broadway or off-Broadway)

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Anastasia

Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, A Bronx Tale

Tim Minchin, Groundhog Day

Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away

David Yazbek, The Band's Visit

Outstanding Director of a Play

Lila Neugebauer, The Wolves

Jack O'Brien, The Front Page

Daniel Sullivan, The Little Foxes

Rebecca Taichman, Indecent

Kate Whoriskey, Sweat

Outstanding Director of a Musical

Christopher Ashley, Come From Away

David Cromer, The Band's Visit

Darko Tresnjak, Anastasia

Matthew Warchus, Groundhog Day

Jerry Zaks, Hello, Dolly!

Outstanding Choreographer

Andy Blankenbuehler, Bandstand

Kelly Devine, Come From Away

Warren Carlyle, Hello, Dolly!

Savion Glover, Shuffle Along

Denis Jones, Holiday Inn

Outstanding Scenic Design

(Play or Musical)

Alexander Dodge, Anastasia

Nigel Hook, The Play That Goes Wrong

Mimi Lien, Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812

Scott Pask, The Little Foxes

Douglas W. Schmidt, The Front Page

Outstanding Costume Design

(Play or Musical)

Linda Cho, Anastasia

Susan Hilferty, Present Laughter

Santo Loquasto, Hello, Dolly!

Ann Roth, Shuffle Along

Catherine Zuber, War Paint

Outstanding Lighting Design

(Play or Musical)

Christopher Akerlind, Indecent

Donald Holder, Anastasia

Natasha Katz, Hello, Dolly!

Bradley King, Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812

Kenneth Posner, War Paint

Outstanding Projection Design

(Play or Musical)

Duncan McLean, Privacy

Jared Mezzochi, Vietgone

Benjamin Pearcy for 59 Productions, Oslo

Aaron Rhyne, Anastasia

Tal Yarden, Indecent

Outstanding Sound Design

(Play or Musical)

Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, The Encounter

Gareth Owen, Come From Away

Nicholas Pope, Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812

Nevin Steinberg, Bandstand

Matt Stine, Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Orchestrations

(Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Doug Besterman, Anastasia

Larry Blank, Holiday Inn

Bill Elliott and Greg Anthony Rassen, Bandstand

Larry Hochman, Hello, Dolly!

Jamshied Sharifi, The Band's Visit


Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.  

GROUNDHOG DAY: Frenetic Production Misses the Shaggy Charm of the Original Movie

You might remember a 1993 movie called Groundhog Day, a little gem of a comedy that has only grown in popularity with the passage of time. It starred Bill Murray as a jaded and disgruntled TV weatherman who gets caught in a time loop, in which he relives the same day over and over and over until he finally learns to redeem himself. Think Ebenezer Scrooge transported to an especially quirky episode of The Twilight Zone.     

The great strength in Mr. Murray's performance was his ability to inject layers of humanity into the Grinch-y character of Phil, whose job requires him to make an annual trek to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual Groundhog Day events, and who finds himself forced to repeat that miserable February 2 for what may very well be all of eternity.  

Now, two decades later, we've got Groundhog Day: The Musical, a frenetic work that tries, with mixed success, to capture the elusive blend of darkish humor and redemption that made the movie a lasting pleasure. 

Phil is played by Andy Karl, a hard-working charmer of an actor who is coming off a highly touted London production of the show, for which he received the 2017 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.  Mr. Karl has been busy on the Broadway scene for nearly two decades, garnering praise for his work in such musicals as The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Rocky, and On the Twentieth Century. In the latter, he played Kristin Chenoweth's boy toy lover and picked up a featured actor award from the Outer Critics Circle. 

So big expectations for Mr. Karl and for the show itself. It boasts a book by Danny Rubin, the screenwriter who gave us the original movie script, and it reunites composer/lyricist Tim Minchin with director Matthew Warchus after their joint collaboration on the hit musical Matilda.  

Unfortunately, success does not repeat itself with Groundhog Day. Indeed, the best way to sum up the production might be to reference the title of another of Mr. Murray's films: Lost In Translation. Whatever magic everyone was able to pull off with the movie has pretty much vanished with the musical. Rapid-fire action on a very busy multi-turntable set cannot cover up the clumsy crudeness of the enterprise.  

To begin with, would someone please buy Mr. Minchin a rhyming dictionary. Because I cannot recall my ear ever being assaulted by a worse set of dissonant near rhymes in well over a half century of theatergoing. Scribbling in the dark, I came up with such gems as:  vistas/spinsters; years/beavers; gluten/solution; creases/Jesus. And there were plenty more where these cringe-worthy juvenile efforts came from.  

Or maybe I'm missing an intended irony here - a lyricist's way of contributing to the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard portrait of the altogether infantile and sleazy central character we see throughout the entire first act and well into the second.  

This is a real problem. The character of Phil is so off-putting for so long, that his turnaround is a matter of too little, too late. Are we supposed to be amused when Phil sings about his "pointless erection" in one song, and masturbation in another, or when he brags about the way he has coerced half the women (and, when he was bored, one man) of Punxsutawney into having sex with him? He mocks and insults everyone he comes into contact with, including a down-and-out town drunk, who doesn't help the situation when, at one point, he sings, "I think I pooped my dungaree." The level of frat boy humor (not to mention the grammatical faux pas) is simply not funny or clever or wry or ironic; it is simply unpleasant. 

And while there is a certain degree of well-staged magic involved in Phil's outlandish attempts at breaking the curse through suicide, these efforts are not cartoonish enough to avoid being disturbing. 

So, yes, it's nice to see Phil make a turnaround in Act II when he finally figures out that it's not such a bad idea to treat people with decency. In one sense, Phil's last-minute series of good deeds works, because the townspeople have no idea how he has been treating them up to this point. The breakout day is a new day for all of them. The problem is, however, that we in the audience have had to witness all of Phil's idiotic and offensive actions through the many iterations of his repeated day.  

There is no denying that Andy Karl gives it his all in a very demanding role, and the rest of the cast gamely bear up under the brunt of being presented as they are seen through Phil's condescending eyes. But, really, I'd suggest that the creative team enter a time loop themselves until they can figure out what went so right with the movie that they have not be able to capture here.  

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.  

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG: More Fun Than a Barrel of You-Know-Whats

absurd, amusing, antic, blithe, comical, delightful, diverting, droll, enormously entertaining, gelastic*, good-humored, hilarious, hoot, humdinger, hysterical,  jocular, jolly, knee-slapper, laugh riot, ludicrous, merry, mirthful, playful, priceless, rich, ridiculous, a scream, side-splitting, silly, uproarious ** 

If you are a true fan of exquisitely timed, perfectly performed slapstick comedy - the kind that leaves you rolling in the aisles with laughter -  then let me say this about The Play That Goes Wrong, opening today at the Lyceum Theatre: It is deserving of all of the adjectives listed above. 

The show, a presentation of Mischief Theatre and written by three of its members (Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields), is also clever as all get-out (and by that I mean Tom Stoppard clever; it's that good), without resorting to the kind of visible-seams cleverness that separates slapstick from classic farce, a form I admire but that rarely gets me laughing out loud. 



Of course it is a matter of taste, but I've always been a sucker for grand pie-in-the-face physical comedy:  Charlie

Chaplin roller skating while blindfolded in Modern Times; Laurel and Hardy attempting to move the piano in The Music Box; Harold Lloyd clinging to the clock on the upper stories of a high-rise, dangling over a busy street in Safety Last. 

This is inordinately funny stuff.  You know that no one really gets hurt in such scenes, which is what gives you permission to laugh as heartily and openly as you like. And, really, they are acts of sheer genius.  

The Play That Goes Wrong, an Olivier Award-winning British import, also manages to surmount the difficulties that often plague transfers of shows that hold mega-hit status in London but somehow lose their way in translation to New York. There is nothing arch about The Play That Goes Wrong, no in-jokes that only a native Brit could appreciate. It's just damn funny.

The conceit of the show is that we are there to watch a third-rate theater troupe putting on a hoary old British mystery: The Murder At Haversham Manor. As the play proceeds, everything -- and I mean every conceivable thing -- goes wrong:  missed cues, injuries to actors, last-minute substitutions, mistakes in line readings, lighting problems, missing props, and the gradual but total collapse of the set.  It is all just awe-inspiring!  

The three creators of all of this mayhem appear in the play, with Mr. Shields playing the director of the "mystery" that is falling apart before our (and his) very eyes. At one point, he admonishes us for being distractingly noisy: "This isn't like television. I can see you as well. Bloody Americans!"  

Dave Hearn is a standout as an actor who is tickled with glee at every "brilliant" ad lib he manages and at every moment of applause coming from the audience. The real director, Mark Bell, and the rest of the company (Bob Falconer, Greg Tannahill, Charlie Russell, and Nancy Zamit) all deserve the highest praise for this glorious romp!


____________________


*Bet you didn't know this one!

** Thank you, Mr. Roget!




Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.