B'way Update: DD Changes Rules; Critic-Playwright Mario Fratti Dies

The Drama Desk Awards are joining the Outer Critics Circle, the Lortels and the Independent Spirit Awards in eliminating gender distinction in their performance categories. Several regional theatre awards such as the Helen Hayes Awards in Washington, DC, the Barrymores in Philadelphia, and the Jeffs in Chicago have also gone gender-neutral. The Drama Desk is an organization of approximately 100 New York-based theater critics, reporters and editors which presents the only theater awards honoring work on, Off- and Off-Off-Broadway equally in multiple categories. (Full disclosure: I am a Drama Desk member and former President). In a recent email, the DD board informed its members that male and female distinctions for acting awards would be taken away. Previously there were 8 acting categories (four each for plays and musicals) plus one for solo performance which was always gender-neutral. In addition to the solo category, there will now be four acting slots--Outstanding Lead and Featured Performance in a Play and Outstanding Lead and Featured Performance in a Musical. There will be two winners in each category, so the number of acting awardees will remain the same. 

B'way Update: Some Like It Hot to Heat Up the Shubert

Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and
Tony Curtis in the original
Some Like It Hot.
Credit: United Artists

Some Like It Hot, a new musical version of Billy Wilder's 1960 film classic about two musicians who don drag to escape the mob, will be coming to Broadway this winter. Previews begin Nov. 1 at the Shubert Theater prior to an opening of Dec. 11. The book will be Matthew Lopez (The Inheritance) and Amber Ruffin (The Amber Ruffin Show) with music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray). Tony winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, Something Rotten) directs and choreographs. The cast will be headed by Tony winner Christian Borle (Something Rotten) and J. Harrison Ghee (Mrs. Doutfire) as the cross-dressers and Adrianna Hicks in the Marilyn Monroe role of Sugar, the alluring star feature of the all-female orchestra the boys join. Also in the cast will be Kevin Del Aguila as Osgood, NaTasha Yvette Williams as Sweet Sue, Adam Heller as Mulligan and Mark Lotito as Spats. 

The original film starred Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Monroe and is regarded as one of the classic comedies of the tail-end of Hollywood's Golden Age. The American Film Institute voted it "the Funniest American Movie of All Time."

A previous musical incarnation called Sugar opened in 1972, starred Robert Morse, Tony Roberts, and Elaine Joyce and featured a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill. It ran for 505 performances. A revival tour was renamed Some Like It Hot and featured Curtis as Osgood.