Little Bear, Ehrenreich, Salesman Win NYDCC Awards

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock in
Little Bear Ridge Road.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Little Bear Ridge Road, Alden Ehrenreich of Becky Shaw, and the ensemble cast of Death of a Salesman were the winners of the 90th annual New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. The group opted to present no award for Best Musical. Costume designer Qween Jean, the playwright-director team of Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, and Lincoln Center Theater's revival of Ragtime were awarded special citations. The critics met on April 30 at the offices of Time Out New York to vote for their top choices of the 2025-26 NY theatrical season. The awards will be presented in a private ceremony on May 7 at 54 Below. 

Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road which had a run on Broadway earlier in the season starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock, was the critics' choice for Best Play. (Metcalf also currently stars in Death of a Salesman and both shows were directed by Joe Mantello.) The play concerns a lonely gay young man connecting with his alienated aunt after the death of his father. Hunter previously won the Circle's award for Best Play in 2022 for A Case for the Existence of God. On the first ballot, Little Bear received the most votes, but not enough of a majority to be declared a winner by the group's by-laws. Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days and Talene Malone's Meet the Cartozians were the runners-up. After voting to give a Best Play award, the critics went to a third, weighted ballot with each member voting for their top three picks. With this ballot, the leading candidates were (in order) Little Bear Ridge Road, Meet the Cartozians, Robert Icke's adaptation of Oedipus, and Moth Days. There was scattered support for Giant, Prince Faggot, Mother Russia, The Balusters, Cold War Choir Practice, and Well, I'll Let You Go. But there were still not enough votes for a clear majority.

A fourth ballot was held with the group only voting for their top three choices of the four leaders on a weighted ballot. Little Bear emerged victorious. This award is accompanied by a cash prize of $2,500, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

NYDCC, OCC and Other Events

With Betsy Aidem of Liberation 
(Best Ensemble) at the NYDCC.

May is theater award time as the 2024-25 Broadway and Off-Broadway seasons end and various critics and professional groups hand out prizes for the best on offer. The New York Drama Critics Circle presented their awards on May 15 at 54 Below. Adam Feldman of Time Out New York, president of the Circle, presided. Cherry Jones presented Cole Escola with his Special Citation for Oh, Mary! and compared him his performance of a deranged Mary Todd Lincoln to the work of Katharine Cornell and Julie Harris. Mona Pirnot, author of I'm Assuming You Know David Greenspan, presented Greenspan with a Lifetime Achievement Award and listed his inspirations during rehearsals as Cyd Charisse, Mae West, Miss Piggy, and watching Judy Garland sing "Smile" on The Ed Sullivan Show on You Tube.

Feldman told the story of the original plaque from the Circle's early years being found and a new version of it was made. The plaque, depicting a scene from The Contrast, the first American comedy staged by a professional troupe, was awarded to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for Purpose. The playwright deliverd his remarks by video since he had a conflicting speaking engagement at Hofstra University.

Cole Escola at the NYDCC
Awards at 54 Below.

I chatted with Betsy Aidem who was part of the award-winning ensemble for Liberation. I was an usher at the Lucille Lortel Theater when Betsy was in the original cast of Steel Magnolias. She reminisced about Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor and Lucille Ball coming to the show. I told her about the time Bob Fosse complained about his seat. 

Andre De Shields presented the special citation to Cats: The Jellicle Ball. He explained the creative process of directors Bill Rauch and Zhailon Levingston: "It was a vivisection. They took the body of the cat and without anesthesia, cut the bitch from head to toe, resuscitated the organs and let the real deal live." 

De Shields also provided one of the highlights of the Outer Critics Circle Awards where we won for Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical (May 22 at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Lincoln Center Public Library.) Pianist Michael Lavine played him on with his number from The Wiz, "So You Wanna See The Wizard." When he got to the podium, De Shields asked if it was in his key and then he launched into a full rendition of the song.

Andre De Shields at the OCC Awards
Brian Stokes Mitchell presented.

Presenter Victoria Clark told of her first NYC acting job in a non-Equity production called Waterfront Madonna. Playwright Kimberly Bellflower upon accepting her award for Outstanding Broadway Play for John Proctor Is The Villain said that when she was in a high school in a rural Georgia town like the one in her play, the nearest bookstore was 30 minutes away. The nearest Barnes and Noble was 45 minutes away and they sold Original Cast CDs. She and her friend would drive home listening to Victoria Clark's voice.

Also this past week, I attended a script-in-hand reading of Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden at the Players Club with Charles Busch in the Dame Edith Evans role and Jennifer Van Dyck in the Deborah Kerr role. What fun.

NYDCC Awards Purpose, Maybe Happy Ending, Scott, Liberation Cast

Helen J. Shen and Darren Criss in
Maybe Happy Ending,
Best Musical winner from the NYDCC.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and 
Evan Zimmerman

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose and Will Aronson and Hue Park's Maybe Happy Ending were voted Best Play and Best Musical of the 2024-25 season by The New York Drama Critics Circle on May 5. Purpose had won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Theater Critics Association's Steinberg Award earlier the same day. The 89th meeting of the Circle took place at the offices of Time Out New York and lasted three and a half hours. The group introduced two new categories this year with Best Individual Performance going to Andrew Scott for Vanya and Best Ensemble to the cast of Liberation. Special citations were awarded to Cole Escola, performer and playwright for Oh, Mary!, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and to David Greenspan for Lifetime Achievement. (There are rumors this production of Cats will transfer to Broadway next season, but nothing has been confirmed.) The awards will be presented on May 15 in a private ceremony at 54 Below. The Best Play prize includes a $2,500 check from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

The New York Drama Critics’ Circle comprises 23 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines, wire services and websites based in the New York metropolitan area. The New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, which has been awarded every year since 1936 to the best new play of the season is the nation's second-oldest playwriting award, after the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Adam Feldman of Time Out New York serves as President, Zach Stewart of Theatermania is Vice-President, and Helen Shaw of The New Yorker is treasurer.

In addition to Feldman, Stewart and Shaw, the members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle are David Barbour, David Cote, Joe Dziemianowicz, Greg Evans, Rhoda Feng, David Finkle, Elysa Gardner, Robert Hofler, Sara Holdren, Charles Isherwood, Chris Jones, Soraya Nadia McDonald, Jackson McHenry, Johnny Oleksinski, Brittani Samuel, Frank Scheck, David Sheward, Tim Teeman, Elisabeth Vincentelli and Matt Windman. Emeritus members include Melissa Rose Bernardo, Brian Scott Lipton, Michael Sommers, Steven Suskin and Linda Winer. Four members (Cote, Evans, Holdren, and McDonald) voted by proxy and one member (Windman) attended via Zoom. All other voting members were present.

NYDCC and OCC Awards

Two major theater critics' groups, the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle, handed out their annual awards last week. At both ceremonies, the winners were known in advance, so everyone could relax. The NY Drama Critics Circle was held at 54 Below on Tues. May 21 with Circle president Adam Feldman of Time Out New York presiding. Jim Walton of the original cast of Merrily We Roll Along presented the special award to Maria Friedman, director of the revival. Walton said he imagined when Stephen Sondheim got to heaven, God said to him, "Steve, I think I know how to fix Merrily." This is because the show has gone through so many iterations and revivals since its infamous 1981 flop run on Broadway. 

Guy Davis and Hasna Muhammad
with their sister Nora Day on the phone
accepting the NYDCC award for
their father's play Purlie Victorious.

Jonathan McCrory, artistic director of the National Black Theater, presented the special award for the Purlie Victorious revival to Guy Davis and Hasna Muhammad, the children of playwright Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee who co-starred with her husband in the original 1961 Broadway production. Guy was carrying his cell phone so that their sister Nora Day could join in on Face Time. 

Hasna related how their dad originally wrote the play in anger in reaction to what was happening to black people in the South at the time. Davis and Dee were working on a production of The World of Sholom Alcheim and the actor-playwright was inspired by the humor of the Alcheim stories to use satire and wit to address the injust situation. She also told that their mother was not originally chosen for the role of Lutiebelle since she was primarily a dramatic actress. She had to audition for her husband's play.

Stereophonic, Dead Outlaw Top NYDCC Awards

Dead Outlaw was voted Best Musical
by the New York Drama Critics Circle
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Stereophonic and Dead Outlaw were named Best Play and Best Musical by the New York Drama Critics Circle during its 88th annual meeting on May 13 to chose the top productions of the season. The awards, which will be presented during a private ceremony on Tuesday, May 21, include a cash prize of $2,500 for best play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

A joint special citation was awarded to the revivals of Merrily We Roll Along and Purlie Victorious. A joint special citation was also awarded to married actors Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. Sanders for lifetime achievement; Ms. Plunkett appeared this season in The Notebook and Deep Blue Sound, Mr. Sanders in Primary Trust and Purlie Victorious. They also appeared in Richard Nelson's Rhinebeck Panorama cycle of plays at the Public Theater and on Zoom during the COVID pandemic. A third special citation was awarded to writer-composer Heather Christian, whose Terce: A Practical Breviary premiered this season.

Jay O. Sanders and Maryann Plunkett
seen here in What Happened: The Michaels Abroad
will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award
Credit: Jason Ardizzone-West

2022 Theater Award Season Roundup

The past few days have been a crazed marathon of theater awards, from the Tony and Drama Desk nominations, to the New York Drama Critics Circle voting to the announcement of the winners of the Outer Critics Circle. COVID has caused delays and postponements for announcement dates, so that many of these events were smashed close together. There were also the winners and nominees for the Lortel Awards (for Off-Broadway), the Theater World honorees (for performers making their on or Off-Broadway debut), and the Chita Rivera nominees (for top dancers).
Here's a breakdown on the major accolades and a few thoughts on the choices:

Tony Nominations
The nominees for Broadway's biggest awards were announced by Tony winner Adrienne Warren (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and Tony nominee Joshua Henry (Carousel, Violet, The Scottsboro Boys) on May 9. A Strange Loop shockingly received the most nominations with 11. I say "shockingly" because this Pulitzer-Prize-winning musical previously presented Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons focuses on a black, gay musical-theater writer and includes graphic sex, liberal use of the "n" word and a little number called "AIDS Is God's Punishment." Not your typical Broadway fare. I'm just wondering what number they will do on the Tony telecast and will the network have to censor any of the lyrics like they did with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Spring Awakening. I want the show to win for Best Musical, but the top prize might go to the more commercial choice of Six. 

Mrs. Doubtfire, first casualty
of the Tony Wars.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Coming in second for number of nominations was MJ and Paradise Square with 10 each, two so-so musicals with fantastic choreography. Totally screwed over was Mrs. Doubtfire, receiving only one nomination--for Rob McClure's stellar lead performance. This show was superior to MJ and Paradise in that its book and score were totally integrated and provided a solid two and half hours of entertainment. After the Tony announcement, Doubtfire promptly posted a closing notice for May 29. I hope McClure wins, he deserves it after brightening up numerous other short-lived tuners such as Chaplin and Honeymoon in Vegas.

Theater Awards and Streaming in the Age of COVID

Theater and the arts continue despite the coronavirus pandemic. Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday was

Performers in Take Me to the World:
A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration
Credit: Broadway.com

commemorated with Take Me to the World, a spectacular web-based quilt of performances presented by Broadway.com on April 26 and now available on YouTube. Though live performances on or Off-Broadway may not return for months, the annual award-dispensing free-for-all goes on, in different forms. The only prize-giving entity not heard from as of yet is the biggest of them all, the Tony Awards. This shows the fundamental difference between the Tonys and all other awards. While the Drama Desks, Outer Critics, Obies and Lortels are voted on by relatively small groups of Gotham-based critics and some industry insiders who will have seen all the eligible shows, a significant portion of the Tony electorate is made up of out-of-town road producers who come into New York at the end of the season to view as many candidates as possible. With no shows on, these people can't vote for anything. (The rest of the Tony voters are NYC producers, the board members of the various theatrical unions and about 20 members of the New York Drama Critics Circle.) In addition, the Tonys are not only a ceremony to honor artistic excellence, they are also a commercial TV venture to push Broadway's product. Again if there are no shows to push, CBS and the producers have no reason to put on a show, even a digital one with presenters and winners Zooming in.

NYDCC Vote 'Heroes' and 'Loop' Top Shows

Heroes of the Fourth Turning and A Strange Loop, two Off-Broadway productions presented by Playwrights Horizons, were voted Best Play and Best Musical respectively by the New York Drama Critic Circle. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the organization of New York-based theater critics met for the first time on the Zoom platform on April 15 and considered productions which opened before

This year's NYDCC Meeting on Zoom.
I'm on the extreme left, second row
Credit: Zach Stewart

March 12, when all Broadway theaters were closed. (Off-Broadway soon followed.) Both Broadway and Off-Broadway shows were considered. Sixteen voting members were present with four absent. The awards will be presented in a virtual ceremony on April 28. Special citations were voted to David Byrne and the Broadway production of American Utopia; Deirdre O’Connell for career excellence including her performance in Dana H.; and the New York theater community for perseverance in the face of loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning, written by Will Arbery and directed by Danya Taymor, had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons on Oct. 7, 2019 and closed on Nov. 17, 2019. The play focuses on a reunion of graduates from a conservative Christian university in Wyoming

A Strange Loop, book, music and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, directed by Stephen Brackett, had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons on June 17, 2019 and closed on July 28, 2019. The musical follows a young African-American gay man as he explores his past while working at his day job as an usher at The Lion King and writing an autobiographical musical.

NY Drama Critics Circle Awards: Fast and Funny at 54 Below

Shalita Grant and Sigourney Weaver of
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at
the NY Drama Critics Circle Awards

The New York Drama Critics Circle Awards are usually held in a crowded bar with all the honorees, critics, friends, and cast members standing up and pushed up against each other as if they were in the subway. This year, the ceremony, held on Mon. May 13, was moved to the more spacious 54 Below cabaret room. Critics mingled with actors, playwrights, directors, producers, and press agents and there was no bloodshed.

The Circle was founded in 1935 in reaction to the press's dissatisfaction with choices made by the Pulitzer Prize committee and gives awards for the Best Play, Best American or Foreign Play (depending on the nationality of the Best Play choice), Best Musical, and whatever special citations the members choose for that season. I've been a voting member for many years and this was probably the most entertaining and fun Circle presentation in recent memory. Before the ceremony started I found myself chatting with Sigourney Weaver and Linda Winer of Newsday on the mating habits of gorillas and lions. We were talking about Weaver's role in Gorillas in the Mist; I mentioned I had been in Namibia and one of the attractions at the lodge where I stayed was watching a pride of lions at feeding time. The pride consisted of one male and eight females one of whom was in heat. The male mated with her three times during the course of the meal. "How long did each encounter take?," Linda asked. "About 30 seconds," I answered. Sigourney confirmed that it was about the same for gorillas.

Peter Bartlett and Harriet Harris
of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella
hosting the NY Drama Critics Circle Awards