2022 Theater Awards--ALL the Acting Winners and Nominees

With award season over after Sunday night's presentation of the Tony Awards and Tuesday's Drama Desk ceremony, here's a summary of all the NY theater acting nominees and winners for 2021-22. Winners are capitalized and nominees are in lower case. Some performances such as Phylicia Rashad in Skeleton Crew and Jesse Tyler Ferguson in Take Me Out have been placed in different categories (lead or featured) by different groups. That is noted in the parentheses. The only awards not yet presented are the Chita Rivera Awards for outstanding dance performances which will be given out on June 20, so only nominees are listed. There were a few nominees for the Chitas from previous seasons such as Adrienne Warren in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. I only included nominees for the current 2021-22 season. The only major award missing is the Obie Awards. According to the Obie Awards website, they will not take place until November 2022 and will include Off and Off-Off-Broadway productions from July 1, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2022. 

Guide to abbreviations=
Bayfield=St. Clair Bayfield Award for performance in a Shakespearean role
Calloway=Joseph Calloway for performance in a classic play
CD=Clarence Derwent Awards for newcomers in featured roles
CR=Chita Rivera Awards for dance performances (nominees only)
DD=Drama Desk
DL=Drama League
L=Lortel Awards for Off-Broadway
OCC=Outer Critics Circle
RS=Richard Seff Awards for veteran performers
TW=Theater World Awards, for newcomers and those making their Broadway or Off-Broadway debuts.

Outstanding Actor in a Play
Patrick J. Adams, Take Me Out (occ, TW)

Simon Russell Beale
in The Lehman Trilogy.
Credit: Mark Douet

Simon Russell Beale, The Lehman Trilogy (OCC, TONY)
W. Tre Davies, Tambo and Bones (l)
Brandon J. Dirden, Skeleton Crew (dd--lead, occ--featured)
Adam Godley, The Lehman Trilogy (occ, tony)
Adrian Lester, The Lehman Trilogy (occ, tony)
Jacob Ming-Trent, Merry Wives (dd)
David Morse, How I Learned to Drive (tony)
Sam Rockwell, American Buffalo (occ, tony)
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Lackawanna Blues (DD, tony)
John Douglas Thompson, The Merchant of Venice (dd)
David Threlfall, Hangmen (tony)

Theater Memories Part 8: London

Simon Russell Beale 
in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers

Our next category of theater memories after summer stock, national tours, out-of-town try-outs, regional and ushering is London. I have been to the British capital five times from the 1990s into the 2000s and tried to cram in as much theater as possible every time I went. The first time was only a few days before I went on to Paris and Amsterdam. The second time was during a heat wave and I got stuck at the airport on the way back because Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait, throwing everything into chaos. The fourth time, my husband Jerry and I went and then toured Scotland and the Lake district. Then I went with my dad on the first stop on a trip around the world. We were only there for two days, but I did see two shows. When I went with my whole family the fifth time, they couldn't understand why I wanted to see 8 or 9 shows in a week instead of visiting museums and having high tea at Claridge's. Here are the shows I can recall:

Tom Stoppard's Jumpers with Simon Russell Beale (pictured) when it transferred to Broadway, I was surrounded by matinee ladies who couldn't make head or tail of it, but I thought it was brilliant.

A Madhouse in Goa with Vanessa Redgrave; Hamlet with Toby Stephens (Maggie Smith's son); Richard III/King Lear in rep with Brian Cox and Ian McKellen (saw both on the same day and felt like someone had taken a club marked "Shakespeare" and hit me over the head with it); Guys and Dolls with Imelda Staunton as Adelaide and Clarke Peters as Guy Masterson (really loved it); His Girl Friday, John Guare's adaptation of The Front Page and the movie script for His Girl Friday (Margaret Tyzack stands out in my memory); The Shaughran with Stephan Rea; Absolutely! Perhaps (an adaptation of Pirandello's Right You Are!) with Joan Plowright; Glenda Jackson as Mother Courage (pictured); Maxim Gorky's Barbarians with Louise Jameson (Leela from Doctor Who); The Man Who Came to Dinner with John Wood; Stoppard's The Invention of Love; The Misanthrope; The School for Scandal with Prunella Scales of Fawlty

Glenda Jackson as Mother Courage

Towers as Mrs. Candour; a revival of Absurd Person Singular; Jerry Springer: The Opera with David Soul's understudy; Richard Nelson's Some Americans Abroad (also enjoyed it when Lincoln Center did it); John Doyle's Sweeney Todd set in a madhouse (worked slightly better than on Broadway because there were more cast members as doctors so it was clearer we were in a nuthouse); The Madness of George W., a satire on the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq, mostly modeled on Dr. Strangelove; Festen, a drama about incest which worked much better in London than on Broadway; Playhouse Creatures, a play about the Restoration; a musical version of Metropolis which stopped only 20 into the performance because the massive mechanical scenery broke down, Brian Blessed announced the show had to be cancelled; Ibsen's The Wild Duck with Lionel Jeffries.

At Stratford-on-Avon: a wonderful production of The Tamer Tamed, a sequel to the Taming of the Shrew.

In the Lake District in Keswick: a so-so production of Blithe Spirit.