Nicole Scherzinger, Happy Ending, Oh Mary! Win Drama League Awards

The Drama League Awards were presented on Fri. May 16 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in a ceremony hosted by NY-1 News theater reporter Frank DiLella.

Nicole Scherzinger of Sunset Blvd.
won the Distinguished 
Performance Drama League Award for 2025.

Nicole Scherzinger won the Distinguished Performance Award for her work in Sunset Boulevard; the well-respected honor can only be won once during the career of an actor. Maybe Happy Ending took home the Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, and Oh, Mary! won for Outstanding Production of a Play. (Maybe Happy Ending has won the Outer Critics and the New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and is the  favorite the Best Musical Tony.) For the first time in 25 years, in any category, Eureka Day and Vanya tied for the honor of Outstanding Revival of a Play, and Outstanding Revival of a Musical was awarded to Sunset Boulevard. In the directing categories, Sam Pinkleton took home the Outstanding Direction of a Play award for Oh, Mary! and Michael Arden took home Outstanding Direction of a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending. 

The competitive awards were presented by previous Distinguished Performance Award Winners Annaleigh Ashford, Norbert Leo Butz, Danny Burstein, Audra McDonald, and Sutton Foster. Previous honoree for the Founders Award for Excellence in Directing, Schele Williams, presented the  Outstanding Direction of a Play & Musical Awards.

Tony Award winner and star of this season’s Old Friends, Bernadette Peters, presented both the Award for Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theater to her co-star, Tony and Olivier Award winner Lea Salonga, and The Gratitude Award to acclaimed theater, television and film producers Robert Greenblatt and Neil Meron, represented on Broadway this season with Smash; Tony Award winner Sam Gold (Romeo + Juliet) presented the Founders Award for Excellence in Directing to Tony and Drama League nominee Whitney White (The Last Five Years, Liberation); and Michael Cruz Kayne (Sorry For Your Loss) presented the Contribution to the Theater Award to Kate Navin and Audible Theater.