The Sixth Annual David Desk Awards

Pocatello at Playwrights Horizons, winner of the David Desk Award
for one of the best plays of the 2014-15 season.

Now that the Tonys, Drama Desks, Lortels, Outer Critics, and Obies are over, I have made the choices for my own awards--the David Desks--for the best in NY theater, on or Off-Broadway. This is totally unofficial and all about my own preferences of everything I've seen for the season. Like the DDs, Broadway and Off-Broadway are together. The DDs have now stretched their categories from six to seven in some cases, and so have the Emmys. So I have too. You may see many repeats from the other awards but I have a few faves of my own including Samuel D. Hunter's Pocatello which had a relatively brief run at Playwrights Horizons. I was the only member of the NY Drama Critics Circle to vote for it for Best Play on the first ballot. The play deals with the lonely manager of a chain restaurant in the titular Idaho city. His story and those of his employees symbolize the struggle of most Americans with few marketable skills and a loss of community. I had also actually eaten in the Pocatello Ruby Tuesdays in the parking lot of the Best Western, similar to the play's Olive Garden. Rob McClure of the short-lived Honeymoon in Vegas was unfairly overlooked as well in the other awards.

So here they are the David Desks, enjoy, let me know if you love or hate them:   

Play

Airline Highway (Lisa D’Amour)

Between Riverside and Crazy (Stephen Adly Guirgis)

The City of Conversation (Anthony Giardina)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Simon Stephens)

Indian Ink (Tom Stoppard)

Pocatello (Samuel D. Hunter)

Wolf Hall, Parts One and Two (Mike Poulton)

Lucy Carmichael: TV's Worst Mother

The Lucy Show cast. After the third season,
 everyone but Lucy herself disappeared.

Recently I've been watching reruns of The Lucy Show on YouTube. I don't know why, maybe because it's comforting. Lucille Ball was on TV constantly during my childhood. The Lucy Show and I Love Lucy were on during the day while Here's Lucy was on at night. When I stayed home sick from school, the morning was taken up with repeats of Lucy and then game shows in the afternoon. So I guess seeing these shows makes me feel like a little kid wearing pajamas and lying in bed.

Deja Vu on Broadway for 2015-16

Jessica Lange will star in
Long Day's Journey Into Night on Broadway in 2016.

I recently saw the first show of the 2015-16 Broadway season, An Act of God, and from here on it's looking like deja vu all over again. (After the refreshing new show Fun Home took all the Tonys, you would have thought we'd get some exciting different shows, but oh no.) Not only are we getting the usual amount of revivals--seven of the announced shows--but three of them were revived just a little over ten years ago. Fiddler on the Roof will be directed by Barlett Sher for its sixth Broadway run, but the last one was in 2004. Long Day's Journey Into Night will be getting its sixth incarnation, the most recent was in 2003. Noises Off has been seen in 1983 and again in 2001. The GIn Game's two Broadway outings was slightly longer ago--1977 and 1997. Several Off-Broadway shows will be making their Broadway debuts including Fool for Love, Sylvia, and Dames at Sea. Of course, the big hit will be Hamilton which just swept all of the eligible theater awards for its sold-out Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater. A year from now, it will probably do the same at the Tonys, so with Fun Home it will be two smash-hit musicals in a row for the Public. So far there are only two new American plays on the roster: David Mamet's China Doll and Our Mother's Brief Affair from Manhattan Theater Club. Scary fact: there are no commercial productions of a new American play planned for the new season. That will probably change, but it is a sobering thought. Here's a breakdown of the coming season:   

June 29--Shows for Days (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)

July 12--Penn and Teller (Marquis)
July 16--Amazing Grace (Nederlander)
Aug. 6--Hamilton (Richard Rodgers)
Oct. 8--Fool for Love (Friedman/MTC)
Oct. 13--The Gin Game (Golden)

Oct. 15--Old Times (Roundabout)
Oct. 22--Dames at Sea (Helen Hayes)

Oct. 29--Therese Racquin (American Airlines/Roundabout)
Oct.--Sylvia (Shubert theater TBA) 
Nov. 1--King Charles III (Music Box)
Nov. 5--On Your Feet (Marquis)
Nov. 8--Allegiance (Longacre)
Nov. 19--China Doll (Gerald Schoenfeld)
Fall 2015--Misery, American Psycho
Dec. 6--School of Rock (Winter Garden)
Dec. 10--The Color Purple (Jacobs)
Dec. 17--Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway)
Jan. 14, 2016--Noises Off (Roundabout)
Jan. 20--Our Mother's Brief Affair (Friedman/MTC)

2015-16--Children of a Lesser God, Houdini, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Gotta Dance
April 17--Tuck Everlasting (Shubert theatre TBA)
April 19--Long Day's Journey Into Night (Roundabout/American Airlines)
April 21--Shuffle Along (Music Box)
Spring 2016--She Loves Me (Roundabout), Falsettos
2016-17--The Wiz
March 9, 2017--Groundhog Day
2017--Sherlock Holmes

Future--Bandstand, Disney's Frozen, Soul Train, Pretty Woman, The First Wives Club, Magic Mike, Freaky Friday, King Kong, Miss Saigon, The Visitor 

Last Minute Tony Predictions

With less than one hour to go before the Tony pre-show when the present the technical awards here are my predictions for tonight (which are also on GoldDerby.com):

Play: Curious Incident

Musical: An American in Paris

Revival (Play): You Can't Take it with You

Revival (Musical): The King and I

Actor (Play): Alex Sharp, Curious Incident

Actress (Play): Helen Mirren, The Audience

Actor (Musical): Robert Fairchild, American in Paris

Actress (Musical): Kristin Chenoweth, On the 20th Century

Feat. Actor (play): Richard McCabe, The Audience

Feat. Actress (play); Annaleigh Ashford, You Can't Take It With You

Feat. Actor (musical): Christian Borle, Something Rotten!

Feat, Actress (musical): Sydney Lucas, Fun Home

Dir. (Play): Marianne Elliott, Curious Incident

Dir. (musical): Christopher Wheeldon, American in Paris

Choreo.: Christopher Wheeldon, American in Paris

Book: Lisa Kron, Fun Home

Score: Jeanine Tesori, Lisa Kron, Fun Home

Set Design (play): Curious Incident

Set Design (musical): An American in Paris

Costume Design (play); Wolf Hall

Costume Design (Musical): King and I

Lighting Design (Play): Curious Incident

Lighting Design (Musical): An American in Paris

Orchestrations: An American in paris

This is who I think will win, not who I voted for. I want Fun Home to win Best Musical, but I think the more commercial American in Paris will win and they will give Home the consolation prizes of Score and Book (sort of like Thoroughly Modern Millie and Urinetown or Jersey Boys and Drowsy Chaperone). I also voted for K. Todd Freeman (Drama Desk winner) and Julie White to take Featured Actor and Actress in a Play for Airline Highway, but it will probably go to Richard McCabe (Outer Critics Circle) and Annaleigh Ashford (OCC, DD).

Looking forward to the show and particularly Ted Cruz's reaction to the number with Fun Home with an 11-year-old girl singing about her awakening sense of being a lesbian.