Hell's Kitchen, Stereophonic Are Lucky 13 with Tony Noms

Hell's Kitchen dominates the 2024
Tony noms.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Hell's Kitchen, Alicia Keys' semi-autobiographical musical, and Stereophonic, David Adjmi's play about a Fleetwood Mac-like band recording a crucial album, are tied for the most 2023-24 Tony Award nominations with 13 apiece. Both are transfers from Off-Broadway productions earlier this season. The nomination announcement was made by Tony winners Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renee Elsie Goldsberry on April 30, first on CBS Mornings with six major categories and then the remainder on the Tony Awards' YouTube channel. The awards will be presented on June 16 on CBS in a ceremony at the David Koch Theater in Lincoln Center hosted by Oscar winner Ariana DeBose. A pre-show will air on Pluto TV.

Hell's Kitchen and Stereophonic are followed by The Outsiders with 12, Cabaret with 9 and Appropriate with 8. Among currently running shows, The Wiz and The Heart of Rock and Roll were shut out completely. 

Sarah Pidgeon, Juliana Canfield, and Tom Peckina
are all Tony-nominated for
Stereophonic which received 13 noms.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

There were some oddities in the list. Mary Jane, Amy Herzog's play about a single mother dealing with medically changed child, was considered a new play while Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate, concerning a white family finding disturbing racist artifacts in their late father's home, was deemed a revival, even though both have had previous productions Off-Broadway. 

Several designers were double or triple nominees for their work on multiple productions. David Zinn received three nods for the sets of Jaja's African Hair Braiding and Stereophonic and the costumes for An Enemy of the People. Another triple nominee, Dede Ayite was recognized for her costumes for Hell's Kitchen, Appropriate and Jaja's African Hair Braiding.

Here's a complete list of the nominees:

Best Musical
Hell’s Kitchen
Illinoise
The Outsiders
Suffs
Water for Elephants

Illinoise Leads Chita Rivera Nominations

Illinoise leads the Chita Rivera Award noms.
Credit: Liz Lauren

Illinoise, the dance-theater work inspired by Sufjan Stevens' album, received the most nominations for the Chita Rivera Awards for excellence in dance and choreography in theater and film, with seven. Barbie, The Color Purple and Mean Girls were among the film nominees. Bebe Neuwirth, currently starring in the revival of Cabaret, read the nominations on ABC News' GMA3: What You Need to Know, on April 29, less than two hours after Kathleen Turner made a similar announcement about the Drama Desks on WNBC. The Chita Rivera Awards will be presented on May 20 at the NYU Skirball Center. Bernadette Peters will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award to presented by Joel Grey.

Here's a list of the nominees:

Broadway

Outstanding Choreography in a Broadway Show
Camille A. Brown, Hell’s Kitchen
Julia Cheng, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Rick and Jeff Kuperman, The Outsiders
Lorin Latarro, The Heart of Rock and Roll / The Who’s Tommy
Justin Peck, Illinoise
Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, Water for Elephants

Outstanding Dancer in a Broadway Show
Antoine Boissereau, Water for Elephants
Ben Cook, Illinoise
Chloe Davis, Hell’s Kitchen
Gaby Diaz, Illinoise
Tilly Evans-Krueger, The Outsiders
Rachel Lockhart, Illinoise
Phillip Johnson Richardson, The Wiz
Byron Tittle, Illinoise
Ricky Ubeda, Illinoise
Avery Wilson, The Wiz

Dead Outlaw and Outsiders Are Insiders in DD Noms

Dead Outlaw received the most
Drama Desk noms with 11.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Dead Outlaw, the Off-Broadway musical about the mummified corpse of a small-time crook, continues to dominate theater award season, racking up 11 Drama Desk Award nominations which were announced on Mon. April 29 by Kathleen Turner on WNBC's New York Live hosted by Sara Gore. Among Broadway shows, The Outsiders, the new musical based on SE Hinton's classic YA novel about restless youths in 1967 Tulsa, Oklahoma received the most nominations with 9. Unlike the Broadway-only Tony Awards, the DDs consider Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions equally in multiple categories. The awards will be voted on by the Drama Desk membership composed of about 100 theater critics, journalists, editors and published, and will presented on June 10 in a ceremony at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. (On the same day, Bebe Neuwirth read the nominees for the Chita Rivera Awards for dance in theater and film. That will be covered in a separate blog post.)

Last year the Drama Desk, as well as the Outer Critics and the Lortels, eliminated gender-specific categories for performers because of the increasing number of openly non-binary actors. There are double the number of nominees in each of the acting categories with two winners in each. If there is a tie, there may be additional winners. 

In determining the eligibility of productions with runs in prior seasons, the nominating committee considered only those elements that constituted new work. These productions included Appropriate, Cross That River, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Harmony, Here Lies Love, Just For Us, Mary Jane, Prayer for the French Republic, Public Obscenities, Suffs, and Sunset Baby.

Productions deemed not eligible, either because they were considered in their entirety in prior seasons or because they did not invite awards consideration in the current season, included Danny and the Deep Blue Sea , Here We Are, Merrily We Roll Along , The Animal Kingdom , The White Chip , and Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice.

Lizard Boy is nominated for
Outstanding Musical.
Credit: Billy Bustamante

There were a few unusual choices, which is not unusual for the Drama Desks. The all-star Lincoln Center revival of Uncle Vanya was ignored, but the Off-Broadway production of Vanya was nominated for three awards. Lizard Boy, a musical from 2015 which made its Off-Broadway debut last summer in a brief run on Theater Row, was nominated for 3 awards including Outstanding Musical along with Broadway shows Illinoise and The Outsiders and Off-Broadway's Dead Outlaw, Teeth and The Connector.

The Drama Desk Nominating Committee consists of Martha Wade Steketee (Chair; freelance: UrbanExcavations.com); Linda Armstrong (New York Amsterdam News); Daniel Dinero (Theatre is Easy); Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio); Kenji Fujishima (freelance: Theatermania); Margaret Hall (Playbill); and Charles Wright (ex officio)

A complete list of Drama Desk nominations and Special awards follows:

B'way Update: Forbidden B'way Postponed; Theater Award News

The first Broadway production of Forbidden Broadway has been postponed indefinitely. The latest edition of the long-running satirical revue was to have played the Hayes Theater beginning on July 29 with an opening set for Aug. 15. The limited engagement was to have played through Nov. 1. The producers cited the high volume of shows competing for theatergoers' attention and dollars.

“We made the difficult decision today to postpone the upcoming Broadway production of Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song,” said producers Ryan Bogner, Victoria Lang and Tracey McFarland in a statement. “The Broadway landscape is enormously crowded at this moment, and while we adore Forbidden Broadway, we are disappointed that the show will not open at the Hayes on Broadway this summer. New programming for the Hayes Theater this summer will be announced soon.”

The Hayes is currently housing Paula Vogel's Mother Play which is scheduled to run until mid-June. The memory play has received excellent notices and might extend its run depending on cast schedules and if it reaps any Tony Award gold. 

This is the second recent Broadway production to announce a postponement. Rod Madge's solo My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do?) was to have played the Lyceum but plans were scuttled in February.

Bebe Neuwirth and Chita Rivera
Credit: Emilio Madrid-Kuser

Theater Award News: Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth, currently starring in the revival of Cabaret, will announce the nominees for the Chita Rivera Awards on Mon. April 29 on ABC's GMA3 during the 1pm block. This means we will have a double dose of theater award nominations. Earlier the same day, Kathleen Turner will give out the Drama Desk nominations on WNBC's New York Live at 11:30 am.

Then, the next day, April 30, the Tony Award nominations will be read by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renee Elise Goldsberry. A portion of the press conference will be broadcast on CBS Mornings at 8:30am. The full announcement will drop on the Tony Awards' YouTube Channel beginning at 9am.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and
Renee Elise Goldsberry will
announced the 2023-24 Tony nominees.

B'way Update: Oh, Mary!, Crazy Rich Asians, etc.

Cole Escola in Oh, Mary!
will transfer to Broadway this summer.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Mary Todd Lincoln is coming to Broadway. After a sold-out, twice extended run at the Lortel Theater Off-Broadway, Cole Escola's riotous comedy Oh, Mary! starring Escola in the title role, will transfer to the Lyceum Theater this summer. Performances begin June 26 in advance of a July 11 opening for a limited run through Sept. 15. 

Oh, Mary! stars Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (Cole Escola). The show also stars Conrad Ricamora as Mary’s Husband, James Scully as Mary’s Teacher, Bianca Leigh as Mary’s Chaperone, and Tony Macht as Mary’s Husband’s Assistant, with Hannah Solow and Peter Smith completing the cast. 

Mrs. Lincoln has been portrayed on Broadway before in a more serious vein. In the Broadway season of 1972-73, she was portrayed in three productions by Julie Harris in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play), Eva Marie Saint in The Lincoln Mask and Geraldine Page in Look Away.

Dead Outlaw Lives with 9 OCC Noms

Andrew Durand and Jeb Brown
are both nominated for OCC Awards
for Dead Outlaw.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Dead Outlaw, the Off-Broadway musical tracing the true history of a mummified corpse found in an amusement ride, received the most Outer Critics Circle Award nominations with 9. Stereophonic got the most for Broadway productions with 7. The nominations were announced on April 23 by Merrily We Roll Along stars Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez at the Museum of Broadway. Groff and Mendez won OCC awards last year for the show's Off-Broadway run. 

Founded during the 1949-50 Broadway season by respected theater journalist John Gassner, the Outer Critics Circle's membership includes writers working for more than 90 newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations, and online news organizations worldwide. David Gordon leads the group as president, with a board of directors that also includes Richard Ridge, Joseph Cervelli, Patrick Hoffman, David Roberts, Cynthia Allen, Harry Haun, Dan Rubins, Janice Simpson, and Doug Strassler. The board also serves as the nominating committee.

The OCC considers both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, in some categories together and in others separately. Beginning last year, the organization eliminated gender-specific acting categories.

The winners will be announced on May 13 with a ceremony to follow on May 23 at the Bruno Walter Auditiorium of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts.

Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and
Daniel Radcliffe announced the OCC noms
at the Museum of Broadway.
Credit: Matthew Cubillos / The Museum of Broadway

A complete list of the nominees follows:

2024 OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD NOMINATIONS

 
Outstanding New Broadway Play
Jaja's African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh
Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions by Paula Vogel
Patriots by Peter Morgan
Stereophonic by David Adjmi
The Shark Is Broken by Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw
 

Drama League Nominations

Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff, and
Daniel Radcliffe of Merrily We Roll Along
are all nominated for the Distinguished Performance
Drama League Award.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Theater award season is now in full throttle. The nominees for the 90th annual Drama League Awards were announced  by Vanessa Williams and Bebe Neuwirth on Mon. April 22 at the Lincoln Center's NY Public Library for the Performing Arts. The awards for outstanding work on and Off-Broadway, will be presented on May 17 at 12 noon at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. First awarded in 1922 and formalized in 1935, The Drama League Awards are the oldest theatrical honors in America. They are the only major theater awards chosen by a cross-section of the theater community — the industry professionals, producers, artists, audiences, and critics who are Drama League members nationwide. The Outer Critics Circle Award noms will be announced tomorrow and the Drama Desk and Tony noms will be next week.

2024 DRAMA LEAGUE AWARDS NOMINATIONS

 
OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A PLAY
 
THE COMEUPPANCE 
 
FLEX
 
GRIEF HOTEL
 
THE HUNT
 
JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING 
 
MOTHER PLAY
 
OH, MARY!
 
PATRIOTS
 
PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
 
STEREOPHONIC
 
WET BRAIN

Dudley Malone: Supporting Character in Two Musicals

Dudley Field Malone who appears
in Suffs and whom I played
in an Off-Off-Bway musical

In April of 2022, at the end of a marathon of theatergoing to catch up with all the shows opening before the cut-off before Tony and Drama Desk eligibility, I was watching Shaina Taub's musical Suffs at the Public Theater. This inventive historical pageant follows the sweeping story of the Women's Suffrage Movement of the early 20th century. All of the many roles, both male and female, are played by an all-woman cast. One of the male roles was that of Dudley Malone, President Woodrow Wilson's Chief of Staff, who resigns in protest over Wilson's opposition to the women's cause and eventually marries Doris Stevens, one of the leaders of the movement. Taub has rewritten and revised the show and now it has just opened on Broadway in another crowded season. I loved it even more this time and hope it survives the Tony nominations.

As I watching this supporting character,  I remembered where I had heard the name before. Malone later served as co-counsel to Clarence Darrow in the Scopes Monkey trial, defending Tennessee school teacher John T. Scopes for daring to teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in the Bible Belt state. Ironically, Malone was also a character in an obscure musical based on that trial, called--wait for it--Sodom and Gorilla (get it?) And I played that role in an Off-Off-Broadway production.

Tsilala Brock as Dudley Malone and 
Grace McLean as President Woodrow Wilson
in Suffs.
Credit: Joan Marcus

He later specialized in international divorce cases and established an office in Paris. After declaring bankruptcy in 1935, he moved to Hollywood, serving as legal consultant to 20th Century Fox and even appearing in a few films. His resemblance to Winston Churchill got him cast as the British Prime Minister in Mission to Moscow (1943). He is listed on imdb.com as making an unbilled appearance as Churchill in An American in Paris, but I don't remember it. I have to look at the film again. After divorcing Stevens in 1929 in Paris, he married actress Edna Louise Johnson in London in 1930. He died in 1950 in Los Angeles.

Dudley Malone as Winston
Churchill with unbilled
actor as Stalin in
Mission to Moscow

Book Review: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

(Bought with the remainder of a Barnes and Noble Christmas gift card): I saw this on the counter at Barnes and Noble and the subject matter grabbed me. This actually happened: Ellen and William Craft escaped from slavery in 1848 Macon, Georgia by disguising themselves a young white man and his slave. Ellen was light enough to pass as white and was a clever seamstress. She made herself a suit of clothes and wearing scarves and bandages was able to impersonate a young, white man in ill-health. This was the only disguise that would work. A black man traveling with what appeared to be a white woman would have gotten them both killed. They got on board a series of trains to Philadelphia, then settled in Boston, supposedly beyond the reach of slave catchers. But the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 forced them to move again, all the way up to Canada and then to England. 

Ilyon Woo's narrative reads like a Netflix mini-series with Ellen and William on the verge of being discovered at every moment. Woo details what their trip would have been like with research on what trains, ships, and stagecoaches were like at the time. She also provides context and background with histories of the Crafts' families and their enslavers. Gender issues are also explored. Ellen defied so many rules of the day, but when the couple escaped the Great Britain and went on the lecture circuit, she did not speak. William did the talking because it was considered unseemly for a lady to appear to show agency and speak about it in public. A fascinating read and deep dive into the history of slavery and those who escaped from it.

Woody Allen's Coup de Chance

Niels Schneider and Lou de Laage
in Woody Allen's
Coup de Chance

The main reasons to see Woody Allen's Coup de Chance are the gorgeous shots of Paris and the French countryside in autumn, and, if you are completist like me, to be able to say you've seen all 50 of his films. Otherwise, this latest and perhaps final effort from Allen is another retread of his suspense, trick-ending efforts such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, Scoop, Match Point, You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, Irrational Man, and Cassandra's Dream, except it lacks the humor of the first two. A woman embarks on an affair with her high school classmate she happens to bump into on the street. Her husband discovers her infidelity and hires underworld goons to "eliminate the problem." Sound familiar? So many of Allen's "suspense" films seem to be about creating plot twists and story problems to solve rather than examining human beings and their foibles. Coup de Chance most closely resembles the Martin Landau plot arc of Crimes and Misdemeanors, which I felt was the weakest part of that film. Allen is fascinated with guilty people operating outside the law and sometimes getting away with it. Perhaps this parallels his subconscious feelings of guilt over the Soon-Yi affair/marriage and his daughter Dylan's accusations of child abuse. Although I don't see the comparisons clearly. Maybe he wants to exact his own form of justice? I saw this at the Quad at 11:30 am on the Monday of the solar eclipse. The film was gorgeous to look at (I didn't look at the eclipse because I had no special glasses), but it felt as empty as Rifkin's Festival, Allen's last film. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters as I did in Radio Days, recently viewed on TCM. There are reports Allen will be filming another movie in Italy this fall. I will probably see it, but not expect anything great.

B'way Update: Duelling Romeo and Juliets????

Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler 
will star in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway
this fall. 

A new production of Romeo and Juliet is coming to Broadway this fall, but not the one with Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers that is opening in London this May. A totally different Romeo and Juliet, starring Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and Rachel Zegler (Steven Speilberg's West Side Story) featuring music by Grammy winner Jack Antonoff and direction by Tony winner Sam Gold (Fun Home) has been announced to open this fall 2024. The UK Mail had reported the London R&J, directed by Jamie Lloyd, was planning to transfer to Broadway after its sold-out West End, but this has not been confirmed. 

So we might have two Romeo and Juliets on Broadway in 2024-25. It's not unprecedented. There were two major simultaneous productions of R&J in NYC in 2013: one on Broadway with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, and one Off-Broadway at CSC with Elizabeth Olsen and Julian Cihi.

Director Sam Gold said, “With the presidential election coming up in November, I felt like making a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger young people feel about the world they are inheriting."

The press release explains the story thusly: "The youth are fucked. Left to their own devices in their parents’ world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers hurtle towards their inescapable fate. The intoxicating high of passion quickly descends into a brutal chaos that can only end one way."

I Wake Up Streaming, Part 1: Manhunt, Ripley, Gentleman, Franklin

A few weeks ago, I thought this title would be great for a podcast to review everything that's streaming now (A parody of the film I Wake Up Screaming). But I'm too lazy to set up a podcast, so I just jotted down my thoughts on what shows I'm viewing via the various platforms which have replaced cable.

Brandon Flynn and Tobias Menzies in
Manhunt. 

Manhunt (Apple TV): Tobias Menzies stars as Action Cabinet Secretary Edward Stanton persuing Abe Lincoln's killer John Wilkes Booth in this adaptation of a non-fiction book. I love historical series, but this one tries to cram too much into too short a space. The actual hunt for Booth and his accomplice David Herrold took place over 12 days, but so much happens in each day in this series it's ridiculous. For example, Dr. Mudd's slave Mary, gets a land grant, sets up a school, starts teaching and loses her land thanks to mean old President Andrew Johnson all in two days. It's still a fascinating look at a volatile time in our history.

Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn and Andrew Scott
in Ripley.
Credit: Netflix.

Ripley (Netflix): Andrew Scott, now plays the polar opposite of the sensitive screenwriter in All of Us Strangers. He is the sociopathic Tom Ripley in an elegant adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, the first of her five novels about killer-grifter with no scruples about murdering anyone who interferes with his pursuit of wealth and luxury. Previously filmed with Matt Damon and Jude Law, this series is filmed in black and white, much to the annoyance of certain young viewers. Not used to the subtlety of grey, they complained about the lack of color and dropped off after one or two episodes. Scott is perfect as the deadly Ripley. Steve Zaillian wrote and directed the entire series brilliantly, creating taut suspense worthy of Hitchcock. Gen-Zers and millennials don't know what they're missing. There are rumors Zaillian plans to adapt the remaining Ripley novels but Scott wants a break first. This will give me a chance to read the books first.