Category Archives: Events

TINA TURNER, ‘QUEEN OF ROCK N ROLL’, DIES AGED 83 IN SWITZERLAND · May 24th

(from Sky News, 5/24; Photo: AP.)

 

Tina Turner – one of rock’s great vocalists and most charismatic performers – has died aged 83, her spokesperson has confirmed.

In a statement, they said: “Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock’n Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.

“With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”

The US-born star was one of the best-loved female rock singers, known for her on-stage presence and a string of hits including The Best, Proud Mary, Private Dancer and What’s Love Got to Do With It.

Go to site

 

OF MICE, AND MEN: NEW ‘AN AMERICAN TAIL’ BRINGS FIEVEL TO THE STAGE · May 18th

(Colette Davidson’s article appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, 5/17; Glen Stubbe Photography/Courtesy of Children’s Theatre Company.)

May 17, 2023|MINNEAPOLIS

Fievel Mousekewitz’s immigration story begins like so many others – a menacing, outside threat. The packing of bags. A tumultuous voyage at sea.

But, as the name suggests, Fievel isn’t a person, he’s a mouse. And the threat is a band of cats.

Fievel’s tale – “An American Tail” – is a story of loss, hope, rebuilding, and family. It is a story shared by many Americans, some recently, some in generations past.

WHY WE WROTE THIS

A story focused on

HOPE

Generations of American kids grew up on the story of Fievel Mousekewitz. At a time when roughly a quarter of Americans are satisfied with immigration levels, a new play looks at what it means to come to America.

Now, the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis is revisiting the 1986 film classic in dramatic form, in a world premiere from Tony-winning playwright Itamar Moses and Obie-winning director Taibi Magar. The tale of Fievel and his Jewish family’s traumatic uprooting from 19th-century Russia – in what is now Ukraine – to the boroughs of New York City is one that members of Generation X will remember from the animated film and a new generation can learn from.

In the opening act, the family of mice sing, “There are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese!” The puns are abundant, but the lessons are universal.

“America is a patchwork of arrivals, but how do we welcome each new wave?” says Mr. Moses in an interview. “There are threats. But if we can work together, a better version of ourselves is always somewhere out there.”

Ultimately, “An American Tail” harks back to an era when immigration was romanticized, not politicized, in films like “West Side Story” (1961) or “Coming to America” (1988). This February, a Gallup Poll showed that Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s level of immigration had dropped to 28%, its lowest in a decade.

“This is reaching back to a happier time, a vision of immigration when it was seen simply as a part of the way this country worked,” says David Itzkowitz, a St. Paul-based historian. “Now, antisemitism is back in the media. … Immigration has become a race issue.”

(Read more)

MEDEA IN MID-AIR: HOW SYRACUSE’S GREEK THEATRE KEEPS THE CLASSICS ALIVE · May 16th

 

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 5/16, 2023; Photo: The Greek theatre in Syracuse. Photograph: Gaspare Urso’ )

Playing in the vast ancient amphitheatre, imaginative new productions of Euripides and Aeschylus find fresh nuance even in this huge space

How best to stage the great Greek classics? The fashion in Britain is for intimacy. But there are other alternatives, as I found on a visit to the ancient Greek theatre in Sicily’s Syracuse where everything is on a massive scale. The auditorium, carved out of a hillside, seats 5,000. The stage is 27 metres wide and 44 deep; acting, direction and design are correspondingly epic. Yet I discovered, in the two productions I saw, that psychological detail is still achievable even in this vast arena.

Seasons of the Greek classics began in Syracuse in 1914, continued spasmodically but only became annual events in this century. Scanning the records, you find that many famous directors, including Peter Stein, Luca Ronconi, Yannis Kokkos and Irene Papas, have worked there. Among the translators, the name of Pier Paolo Pasolini stands out. Each eight-week season blends a well-known title with others less familiar. This year Medea and Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound kicked off the programme, with Peace by Aristophanes and a multi-media spectacle about Ulysses still to come. After July, selected productions will go on tour around Italy.

This is all the impressive work of the Istituto Nazionale Del Dramma Antico (National Institute of Ancient Drama) but I was relieved to find that a respect for the past was matched by a regard for the present. On a basic level, non-Italian speakers are offered an earpiece translation and a text in English. But my first discovery at Medea was a brilliant essay in the programme-book by the play’s translator, Massimo Fusillo, which suggests that Euripides pioneered the use of the inner monologue allowing us to get inside the protagonist’s head. Fusillo argues that this leads ultimately to Macbeth, Milton’s Satan and modern TV series such as Breaking Bad and Gomorrah. The play’s director, Federico Tiezzi, goes further by saying he sees Medea as “a clash between an archaic society and a post-industrial society” and compares Jason to the “great boisterous Ibsen titans from John Gabriel Borkman to Torvald Helmer in A Doll’s House”.

All this is heady stuff but how does it work in practice? Tiezzi goes out of his way to stress the symbolic nature of the conflict in which Medea is told that she will be forced to leave Corinth never to see Jason or her children again. Medea initially sports a fearsome bird-like headpiece, her children wear fluffy rabbit-heads and Creon, the king of Corinth, a crocodile-mask. The female chorus, meanwhile, are blue-clad skivvies with pails and scrubbing-brushes. But the great revelation comes in the relationship between Medea and Jason.

(Read more)

DAVID TENNANT TO PLAY MACBETH AT DONMAR WAREHOUSE · May 13th

(Chis Wiegand’s article appeaed in the Guardian, 5/5; via Pam Green; Photo: On tomorrow and tomorrow … David Tennant in a publicity shot for the Donmar’s forthcoming Macbeth. Photograph: Charlie Gray.)

The actor will take to the stage as the Scottish king in December, in the last production of the London theatre’s 30th-anniversary season

Hot on the heels of the news that Ralph Fiennes will play Macbeth in a tour of repurposed UK warehouses comes the announcement that David Tennant will also star as the Scottish king at London’s Donmar Warehouse.

It is the Scottish actor’s first Shakespearean stage role since he played Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, on and off, from 2013 to 2016. In 2022 he was Macbeth in a two-part BBC Radio 4 broadcast. The Donmar production will be directed by Max Webster and will conclude the 30th-anniversary season for the London theatre, which was previously home to a banana-ripening warehouse.

(Read more)

RUSSIAN POET GETS FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR RECITING VERSES AGAINST UKRAINE WAR · May 10th

(from Radio Free Europe, 5/10; Photo: Nikolai Daineko.)

Visit Radio Free Europe 

A Moscow court has sentenced a poet to four years in prison for publicly reciting verses condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Tver district court sentenced Nikolai Daineko on May 10 after finding him guilty of “inciting hatred and calling for anti-state activities.” Daineko, who agreed to cooperate with investigators, was arrested along with two other poets, Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba, in September after they presented their anti-war verses in public. Kamardin’s girlfriend has accused police of subjecting the poet to sexual violence during his apprehension. Kamardin and Shtovba will be tried separately. 

SHELTER UNDER THE BIG TOP: A MUSICAL ABOUT THE NAZI ERA · May 9th

(Philipp Jedicke’s article appeared on DW, 5/5; Photo: DW.)

“Waldo’s Circus of Magic and Terror” is about a fictional circus troupe during the Third Reich. This tale of humanity in inhumane times is told by disabled and non-disabled people.

British playwright Hattie Naylor had originally wanted to tell a very different story from the one currently touring successfully through Britain. Her initial plan was for a play based on the cult 1932 horror film “Freaks” by US director Tod Browning, a movie that had made a big impact on her.

“What’s really special about it is that disabled people are the heroes in the film,” said Naylor. But the copyright situation was problematic, and the deeper Naylor delved into the history of circuses of the early 20th century, the more a very different story formed in her imagination — one that would become the musical “Waldo’s Circus of Magic and Terror.”

During her research, Naylor encountered numerous stories of circuses that employed disabled people, both before and during the Nazi regime. She read about people of short stature working as acrobats and clowns, about Jewish circus directors, and about Adolf Althoff, a non-Jewish German circus director who took in the Bento family of Jewish acrobats, hiding them and giving them work. And Naylor learned how several people were able to save themselves from certain death in extermination camps with touring and connections with international circuses. 

Extermination of disabled people

During the Second World War, the Nazis murdered more than 250,000 disabled people. Disabled people were mercilessly persecuted or even turned in by their own relatives. They often met their deaths only after inhumane experiments were performed on them — as in the case of Lya Graf, a world-renowned short-statured circus star who perished in Auschwitz in 1941.

Naylor was especially horrified to read that the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring” was one of the first enacted by Adolf Hitler just six months after he seized power in January 1933. In his racist fantasy of omnipotence, German children were to be “nimble as greyhounds, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel.” That law was only the beginning.

Under the Nazi dictatorship, thousands of disabled or short-statured people and those with psychiatric illnesses were forcibly sterilized, with the aim of “keeping the German national body pure.” Those people were as undesirable to the Nazis as Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, non-conformist artists or political opponents.

The speed with which the measures were implemented in the 1930s convinced Naylor of the importance of telling these stories today. “I am really aware of the rise of fascism in Europe again, and in my own country, and very dubious national and international movements,” she said.

(Read more)

TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS 2023: ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ DOMINATES, FOLLOWED BY ‘& JULIET,’ ‘SHUCKED,’ ‘NEW YORK, NEW YORK’ · May 4th

(From Variety, 5/3/2023; writing and compilation by Rebecca Rubin, Brent Lang, and Marc J. Franklin.)

“Some Like It Hot,” a jazzy re-imagining of the classic comedy film about two musicians on the run, dominated the nominations for the 2023 Tony Awards, which were announced on Tuesday, with 13 nods.

It was followed closely behind by “& Juliet,” “Shucked” and “New York, New York,” which scored nine nominations apiece. All of these productions will vie for best musical honors, facing off against one of the year’s most acclaimed shows, “Kimberly Akimbo,” the story of a teenager who has a medical condition that causes her to age rapidly. “Kimberly Akimbo” is up for eight prizes, including for supporting performers Bonnie Milligan and Justin Cooley, as well as for Victoria Clark’s turn in the title role.

The Jessica Chastain-led revival of a stripped-down “A Doll’s House,” Tom Stoppard’s sprawling “Leopoldstadt,” and the political satire “Ain’t No Mo’” were the most-nominated plays, with six nods each. It’s an important moment of recognition for “Ain’t No Mo’,” which was embraced by critics, but struggled to find its audience, closing last winter after a total of just 28 performances.

But “Ain’t No Mo’” isn’t the only production that faced fierce commercial headwinds. The annual awards show, honoring the best of Broadway, is unfolding as the theater industry is still clawing back from more than a year of COVID-related closures and the chilling impact that had on tourism in New York City, the lifeblood of the business. Winning a Tony could turbocharge the box office of a show like “Some Like It Hot” or “Shucked.”

Despite the challenges, there have been hits, such as an acclaimed re-imaging of “Parade” with Ben Platt (picking up six nominations) and “Sweeney Todd” with Josh Groban brandishing a razor as Fleet Street’s demon barber (eight nominations). And don’t forget “Funny Girl” with Lea Michele subbing in for original star Beanie Feldstein (which is ineligible because it opened last season). Michele may not be getting a Tony, but she did announce Tuesday’s nominations with “MJ” star Myles Frost. 

Among the other major categories, best musical revival will be a race between “Parade,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Into the Woods” — which transferred from New York City Center to Broadway to become a late summer hit — and, in a surprise, Lincoln Center’s critically derided revival of “Camelot.”

“Ain’t No Mo’” and “Leopoldstadt” are up for best play alongside “Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Cost of Living” and “Fat Ham,” which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama. Best revival of a play nominees include “A Doll’s House,” “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” “Suzan Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog,” and “August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.”

Several major Hollywood actors were recognized for their stage work this season, including Chastain, Jodie Comer for “Prima Facie,” Samuel L. Jackson for “”The Piano Lesson” and Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for “Topdog/Underdog.”

But there were some notable omissions, as well. Laura Linney was overlooked even as her “Summer 1976” co-star Jessica Hecht was recognized, LaTanya Richardson Jackson was snubbed for directing “The Piano Lesson,” and Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan for “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” were left off the list of honorees.

See the full nominations list, supplied by the Tonys, below:

Best Play

Ain’t No Mo’

Between Riverside and Crazy

Cost of Living

Fat Ham

Leopoldstadt

Best Musical

& Juliet

Kimberly Akimbo

New York, New York

Shucked

Some Like It Hot

Best Revival of a Play

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

A Doll’s House

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog

Best Revival of a Musical

Into the Woods

Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot

Parade

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Book of a Musical

& Juliet
David West Read

Kimberly Akimbo
David Lindsay-Abaire

New York, New York
David Thompson & Sharon Washington

Shucked
Robert Horn

Some Like It Hot
Matthew López & Amber Ruffin

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre

Almost Famous
Music: Tom Kitt
Lyrics: Cameron Crowe & Tom Kitt

Kimberly Akimbo
Music: Jeanine Tesori Lyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire

KPOP
Music & Lyrics: Helen Park & Max Vernon

Shucked
Music and Lyrics: Brandy Clark & Shane McAnally

Some Like It Hot
Music: Marc Shaiman
Lyrics: Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog

Corey Hawkins, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog

Sean Hayes, Good Night, Oscar

Stephen McKinley Henderson, Between Riverside and Crazy

Wendell Pierce, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

Jessica Chastain, A Doll’s House

Jodie Comer, Prima Facie

Jessica Hecht, Summer, 1976

Audra McDonald, Ohio State Murders

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

Christian Borle, Some Like It Hot

Harrison Ghee, Some Like It Hot

Josh Groban, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Brian d’Arcy James, Into the Woods

Ben Platt, Parade

Colton Ryan, New York, New York

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Annaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sara Bareilles, Into the Woods

Victoria Clark, Kimberly Akimbo

Lorna Courtney, & Juliet

Micaela Diamond, Parade

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

Jordan E. Cooper, Ain’t No Mo’

Samuel L. Jackson, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

Arian Moayed, A Doll’s House

Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt

David Zayas, Cost of Living

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play

Nikki Crawford, Fat Ham

Crystal Lucas-Perry, Ain’t No Mo’

Miriam Silverman, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

Katy Sullivan, Cost of Living

Kara Young, Cost of Living

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

Kevin Cahoon, Shucked

Justin Cooley, Kimberly Akimbo

Kevin Del Aguila, Some Like It Hot

Jordan Donica, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot

Alex Newell, Shucked

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical

Julia Lester, Into the Woods

Ruthie Ann Miles, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Bonnie Milligan, Kimberly Akimbo

NaTasha Yvette Williams, Some Like It Hot

Betsy Wolfe, & Juliet

(Read more)

 

2023 DRAMA DESK NOMINATIONS · Apr 27th

(via Scott Klein, Keith Sherman Associates.)

www.DramaDesk.org

The 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards (www.DramaDesk.org) will be held on Tuesday afternoon, June 6 at Sardi’s Restaurant, it was announced today by Drama Desk co-presidents David Barbour and Charles Wright. The cutoff for this year’s Awards is April 26.

 

The nominations will be announced on April 27 in the 12pm noon hour by NY1 “On Stage” host Frank DiLella and Broadway icon Donna McKechnie on Spectrum News NY1’s “News All Day” with anchor Ruschell Boone.

 

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater awards for which productions on Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway compete against each other in the same categories.

 

For the first time, all performance categories will be gender-free. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Leading Performance in a Play, Outstanding Leading Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical. 

 

Each of these categories will have twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.

 

Additional details will be announced shortly.

 

What sets the Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by theater critics, journalists, editors, and publishers covering theater. The Drama Desk Awards honor all aspects of New York’s professional theater.

 

The 2022-2023 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed 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.

 

*   *  *

 

About The Drama Desk

 

The Drama Desk was founded in 1949 to explore key issues in the theater and to bring together critics and writers in an organization to support the ongoing development of theater in New York. The organization began presenting its awards in 1955, and it is the only critics’ organization to honor achievement in the theater with competition among Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway productions in the same categories.

Nominations for the 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards were announced today and the full list of nominees is available below.

April 27, 2023: In keeping with the Drama Desk’s mission, the nominators considered shows that opened on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway during the 2022-2023 New York theater season, with the Drama Desk cut-off being April 26, 2023. Only shows with 21 or more unique performances are eligible.

In determining eligibility of productions with recent Off-Broadway runs in prior seasons, the nominating committee considered only those elements that constituted new work. These productions included A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Ain’t No Mo’, Between Riverside and Crazy, Catch as Catch Can, Cost of Living, Dog Man: The Musical, Kimberly Akimbo, KPOP, The Thanksgiving Play, Wolf Play, and Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom.

Additional productions on and Off Broadway deemed not eligible as they were considered in their entirety in prior seasons included A Sherlock Carol, Cheek to Cheek, Fiddler on the Roof, Hitler’s Tasters, Just for Us, Take Me Out, The Jungle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Winnie the Pooh.

Winners will be announced the week of May 29 and the Awards will be presented during a ceremony at Sardi’s (234 West 44th Street) on Tuesday, June 6 from 3:00 – 6:00PM. 

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater awards for which productions on Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway compete against each other in the same categories. David Barbour and Charles Wright are The Drama Desk co-presidents.

In accordance with a decision by the Drama Desk board of directors, this year all performance categories will be gender-free, as they were for the first 19 years of the awards’ existence. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical.

Each of these categories has twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.

What sets the Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by critics, journalists, editors, and publishers covering theater. The Drama Desk Awardshonor all aspects of New York’s professional theater.

“Congratulations to the nominees of the 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards!,” said Commissioner Anne del Castillo of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. “These long-standing awards celebrate the tremendous talent of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway, both on stage and behind the scenes, as voted on by an esteemed group of critics, journalists and publishers who cover the NYC theatre industry.”

The 2022-2023 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of: Martha Wade Steketee (Chair; freelance: UrbanExcavations.com), Linda Armstrong (New York Amsterdam News), Dan Dinero (Theatre is Easy), Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio), Kenji Fujishima (freelance: Theatermania), Margaret Hall (Playbill) and Charles Wright, Drama Desk co-president, ex-officio.

About The Drama Desk

The Drama Desk was founded in 1949 to explore key issues in the theater and to bring together critics and writers in an organization to support the ongoing development of theater in New York. The organization began presenting its awards in 1955, and it is the only critics’ organization to honor achievement in the theater with competition among Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway productions in the same categories.

2023 DRAMA DESK NOMINATIONS

Outstanding Play

A Case for the Existence of God, by Samuel D. Hunter, Signature Theatre

Fat Ham, by James Ijames, The Public Theater and National Black Theatre

Leopoldstadt, by Tom Stoppard

Love, by Alexander Zeldin, Park Avenue Armory

Prima Facie, by Suzie Miller

Wish You Were Here, by Sanaz Toossi, Playwrights Horizons

Outstanding Musical

& Juliet

Between the Lines

F*ck7thGrade, The Wild Project

Shucked

Some Like it Hot

White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Outstanding Revival of a Play

A Raisin in the Sun, The Public Theater

Death of a Salesman

Endgame, Irish Repertory Theatre

The Piano Lesson

Ohio State Murders

Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Outstanding Revival of a Musical

A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Into the Woods

Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Parade

Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play

Hiran Abeysekera, Life of Pi

Kyle Beltran, A Case for the Existence of God, Signature Theatre

Will Brill, A Case for the Existence of God, Signature Theatre

Brittany Bradford, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Jessica Chastain, A Doll’s House

Sharon D Clarke, Death of a Salesman

Sean Hayes, Good Night, Oscar

Denise Manning, Amani, National Black Theatre and Rattlestick Theater

Audra McDonald, Ohio State Murders

Wendell Pierce, Death of a Salesman

John Douglas Thompson, Endgame, Irish Repertory Theatre

Kara Young, Twelfth Night, The Classical Theatre of Harlem

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical

Annaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd

Nicholas Barasch, The Butcher Boy, Irish Repertory Theatre

Sara Bareilles, Into the Woods

Andrew Burnap, Camelot

Micaela Diamond, Parade

Andrew Durand, Shucked

Callum Francis, Kinky Boots, Stage 42

J. Harrison Ghee, Some Like it Hot

Jonathan Groff, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Somi Kakoma, Dreaming Zenzile, New York Theatre Workshop

Lindsay Mendez, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Anna Uzele, New York, New York

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play

Emily Bergl, Good Night, Oscar

Danielle Brooks, The Piano Lesson

Amelda Brown, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Ray Fisher, The Piano Lesson

K. Todd Freeman, Downstate, Playwrights Horizons

Francis Guinan, Downstate, Playwrights Horizons

Nick Holder, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Arian Moayed, A Doll’s House

Brian Quijada, Wolf Play, MCC Theater and Soho Rep

Miriam Silverman, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt

Kara Young, Cost of Living

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical

Kevin Cahoon, Shucked

Kevin Del Aguila, Some Like it Hot

Robyn Hurder, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Mark Jacoby, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Tarra Conner Jones, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Julia Lester, Into the Woods

Alex Newell, Shucked

Daniel Radcliffe, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Phillipa Soo, Into the Woods

Mare Winningham, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Outstanding Direction of a Play

Zi Alikhan, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Miranda Cromwell, Death of a Salesman

Adam Meggido, Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Max Webster, Life of Pi

Alexander Zeldin, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Outstanding Direction of a Musical

Jeff Calhoun, Between the Lines

John Doyle, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Maria Friedman, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Thomas Kail, Sweeney Todd

Jack O’Brien, Shucked

Outstanding Choreography

Andy Blankenbuehler, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Tislarm Bouie, the bandaged place

Edgar Godineaux, The Harder They Come, The Public Theater

Casey Nicholaw, Some Like it Hot

Susan Stroman, New York, New York

Jennifer Weber, KPOP

Outstanding Music

Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, Shucked

Michael R. Jackson, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Tom Kitt and AnnMarie Milazzo (vocal designer), Almost Famous

Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, Between the Lines

The Kilbanes, Weightless, WP Theater

Outstanding Lyrics

Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, Shucked

Jonathan Hogue, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Michael R. Jackson, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Adam Schlesinger, The Bedwetter, Atlantic Theater Company

Scott Whitman and Marc Shaiman, Some Like it Hot

Outstanding Book of a Musical

Jonathan Hogue, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Robert Horn, Shucked

Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, Some Like it Hot

Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue, Titanique

David West Read, & Juliet

Outstanding Orchestrations

Bruce Coughlin, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Jason Howland, Shucked

Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter, Some Like it Hot

Kenny Seymour, The Harder They Come, The Public Theater

Daryl Waters and Sam Davis, New York, New York

Outstanding Music in a Play

Ben Edelman, Zane Pais, and Sinan Refik Zafar, Letters from Max, a ritual, Signature Theatre

Mauricio Escamilla, the bandaged place, Roundabout Theatre Company

Suzan-Lori Parks, Plays for the Plague Year, The Public Theater

Ian Ross, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

Daniel Schlosberg, Montag, Soho Rep

Outstanding Scenic Design of a Play

Jason Ardizzone-West, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Beowulf Boritt, Ohio State Murders

dots, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Tim Hatley, Life of Pi

Natasha Jenkins, Love, Park Avenue Armory

John McDermott, Chains, Mint Theater Company

Outstanding Scenic Design of a Musical

Beowulf Boritt, New York, New York

David Korins, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Scott Pask, Shucked

Walt Spangler and Brendan McCann (production props), Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Michael Yeargan, Camelot

Outstanding Costume Design of a Play

Kara Branch, According to the Chorus, New Light Theater Project

Enver Chakartash, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Qween Jean, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Sarah Laux, Wish You Were Here, Playwright Horizons

Emilio Sosa, Ain’t No Mo’

Roberto Surace for Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Outstanding Costume Design of a Musical

Gregg Barnes, Some Like it Hot

Tilly Grimes, Shucked

Jennifer Moeller, Camelot

Clint Ramos and Sophia Choi, KPOP

Anita Yavich, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Donna Zakowska, New York, New York

Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play

Isabella Byrd, Epiphany, Lincoln Center Theater

Jiyoun Chang, The Far Country, Atlantic Theater Company

Natasha Chivers and Willie Williams (video), Prima Facie

Allen Lee Hughes, Ohio State Murders

Cha See, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Japhy Weideman, The Piano Lesson

Outstanding Lighting Design of a Musical

Ken Billington, New York, New York

Jeff Croiter, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Heather Gilbert, Parade

David Grill, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’

Natasha Katz, Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Projection and Video Design

Simon Baker, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, and National Theatre

Andrzej Goulding, Life of Pi

Caite Hevner, Between the Lines, Tony Kiser Theater

Josh Higgason, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Nicholas Hussong, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Johnny Moreno, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Outstanding Sound Design of a Play

Justin Ellington, Ohio State Murders

Tom Gibbons, Hamlet, Park Avenue Armory

Josh Anio Grigg, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Lee Kinney and Daniel Kluger, You Will Get Sick, Roundabout Theatre Company

Ben & Max Ringham, A Doll’s House

Mikaal Sulaiman, Fat Ham, The Public Theater and National Black Theatre

Outstanding Sound Design of a Musical

Peter Hylenski, Almost Famous

Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann, Into the Woods

John Shivers, Shucked

Joanna Lynne Staub, Weightless, WP Theater

Jon Weston, Parade

Outstanding Wig and Hair

Campbell Young Associates, Almost Famous

Cookie Jordan, The Piano Lesson

Mia M. Neal, Ain’t No Mo’

Earon Nealey, Twelfth Night, The Classical Theatre of Harlem

Mitsuteru Okuyama, Chushingura 47 Ronin

Luc Verschueren, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Outstanding Solo Performance

Jodie Comer, Prima Facie

David Greenspan, Four Saints in Three Acts, Lucille Lortel Theatre

Jessica Hendy, Walking With Bubbles, AMT Theater

Anthony Rapp, Without You

Tracy Thorne, Jack Was Kind, Irish Repertory Theatre

Unique Theatrical Experience

Asi Wind’s Inner Circle

Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Plays for the Plague Year, The Public Theater

Zephyr, Cirque Mechanics at The New Victory Theater

Outstanding Fight Choreography

B.H. Barry, Camelot

Rocio Mendez, Día Y Noche, LAByrinth Theater Company

Rocio Mendez, How to Defend Yourself, New York Theater Workshop

Unkledave’s Fight-House, soft, MCC Theater

Outstanding Adaptation

A Doll’s House, by Amy Herzog

Arden of Faversham, by Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat, Red Bull Theater

black odyssey, by Marcus Gardley, Classic Stage Company

Oresteia, by Robert Icke, Park Avenue Armory

Wuthering Heights, by Emma Rice, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

Outstanding Puppetry

John Leader, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

James Ortiz (design), Kennedy Kanagawa (as Milky White), Into the Woods

Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, Life of Pi

Kirjan Waage, The Immortal Jellyfish Girl, Wakka Wakka and Nordland Visual Theatre at 59E59

SPECIAL AWARDS

Harold Prince Lifetime Achievement Award

Stephen McKinley Henderson has been bringing in-depth, gripping portrayals of memorable characters to the stage for over four decades. With his return to Broadway this season as Pops in Between Riverside and Crazy, which the Drama Desk previously nominated in 2015, this year’s Harold Prince Lifetime Achievement Award marks Henderson’s role in this powerful production as a celebration of his brilliant career.

Ensemble Award

The cast of Soho Rep’s Public Obscenities – Tashnuva Anan, Abrar Haque, Golam Sarwar Harun, Gargi Mukherjee, NaFis, Jakeem Dante Powell, and Debashis Roy Chowdhury – embodied the transnational world of Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s bilingual play with memorable authenticity, remarkable specificity, and extraordinary warmth.

Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award

From his standout performance in american (tele)visions, to writing and performing the autobiographical Dark Disabled Stories, Ryan J. Haddad’s work this season has expanded on and interrogated what the idea of “accessibility” really means. Whether riding a shopping cart like a throne, or relating his experiences on a “gay, pink bus,” Haddad shared with audiences an unabashed queer fabulosity that was both unforgettable and deeply human.

Productions with multiple nominations:

Shucked: 12

Some Like it Hot: 8

Into the Woods: 6

New York, New York: 6

Life of Pi: 5

Love: 5

Merrily We Roll Along: 5

Ohio State Murders: 5

The Piano Lesson: 5

White Girl in Danger: 5

A Doll’s House: 4

A Man of No Importance: 4

Between the Lines: 4

Camelot: 4

Death of a Salesman: 4

Only Gold: 4

Parade: 4

Public Obscenities: 4

Sweeney Todd: 4

Wedding Band: 4

Wuthering Heights: 4

A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical: 3

A Case for the Existence of God: 3

Almost Famous: 3

On That Day in Amsterdam: 3

Peter Pan Goes Wrong: 3

Prima Facie: 3

Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical: 3

& Juliet: 2

Ain’t No Mo’: 2

Downstate: 2

Endgame: 2

Fat Ham: 2

Good Night, Oscar: 2

KPOP: 2

Leopoldstadt: 2

Plays for the Plague Year: 2

the bandaged place: 2

The Far Country: 2

The Harder They Come: 2

Twelfth Night: 2

Weightless: 2

Wish You Were Here: 2

www.DramaDesk.org

www.DramaDesk.org

Like us on FACEBOOK and Follow us on TWITTER

HARRY BELAFONTE, ACTIVIST AND ENTERTAINER, DIES AT 96 · Apr 25th

(Hillel Italie’s article appeared on AP News, 4/25; via the Drudge Report; Photo: Vanity Fair.)

NEW YORK (AP) — Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said publicist Ken Sunshine.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one of the first Black performers to gain a wide following on film and to sell a million records as a singer; many still know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its call of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he forged a greater legacy once he scaled back his performing career in the 1960s and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”

Belafonte stands as the model and the epitome of the celebrity activist. Few kept up with his time and commitment and none his stature as a meeting point among Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not only participated in protest marches and benefit concerts, but helped organize and raise support for them. He worked closely with his friend and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., often intervening on his behalf with both politicians and fellow entertainers and helping him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set high standards for younger Black celebrities, scolding Jay-Z and Beyoncé for failing to meet their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and many others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly cast as an elder statesman schooling young activists about the country’s past.

Belafonte’s friend, civil rights leader Andrew Young, would note that Belafonte was the rare person to grow more radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, willing to take on Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would remember asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

Belafonte had been a major artist since the 1950s. He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring role in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and five years later became the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV special “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a popular breakthrough for an all-Black cast. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in several Southern cities, where theater owners were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

(Read more)

SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A WILY PLAYWRIGHT OF LIGHT DRAMAS AND WEIGHTY MORALS · Apr 24th

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 4/24; Photo: Deeply deceptive dramas … W Somerset Maugham, 1957. Photograph: Jane Bown/The Observer.)

A new revival of The Circle is a reminder of a dramatist who smuggled vital messages into broad crowdpleasers

Never trust what dramatists say about themselves. Noël Coward spent decades disclaiming he had any purpose beyond entertainment while giving us finger-wagging lectures. The case of Somerset Maugham is remarkably similar. He once wrote that “prose drama is one of the lesser arts, like wood-carving or dancing, but in so far as it is an art at all, its purpose is to afford delight. I do not think it can usefully concern itself with the welfare of humanity or the saving of civilisation.” Yet this is the man who in For Services Rendered, first seen in 1932 and since much revived, wrote a blistering attack on the ruinous aftermath of the first world war and the creation of a society unfit for heroes.

You could argue that play is a special case. I would suggest, however, that Maugham is a deeply deceptive dramatist. His plays look as if they are dated old crowdpleasers, yet often challenge conventional ideas. There is a prime example in The Circle, shortly to be revived at the Orange Tree with a cast headed by Jane Asher, Olivia Vinall, Clive Francis and Nicholas Le Prevost. On the surface, it may seem like a piece of pure escapism. It even has French windows before which a young hero enquires, “I say, what about this tennis?” Yet, without spoiling the fun for potential theatregoers, I would say the play is not only expertly constructed but morally unexpected. Showing what happens in old age to a pair of once-romantic lovers, it ends with a palpable message that is not easily predicted and that prompted boos at the 1921 premiere.

“Sincerity in society,” says a character in The Circle, “would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.” The subversive nature of sincerity is shown to even greater effect in The Constant Wife, which flopped badly in 1926 but now looks like one of Maugham’s best works. It shows the resourceful heroine publicly acknowledging what she has long known: that her husband has been having an affair with her best friend. Her reaction is twofold: to assert her economic independence and to head off on an adulterous Italian jaunt with a devoted admirer. When the play was buoyantly revived in 2002 with Jenny Seagrove, it struck me that, even if its arguments no longer shocked us, there was still a frisson to the heroine’s claim that “the modern wife is a prostitute who doesn’t deliver the goods” and that, as she finally returns to her husband, “I may be unfaithful but I am constant”.

My point is that Maugham was a wily old bird: he knew how to operate within commercial parameters while disturbing complacent audiences. Sometimes his eye for the market short-circuits moral debate. I feel that about The Sacred Flame (1928) which deals with the sudden death of a disabled war hero whose vivacious wife has fallen in love with his brother: Maugham raises big issues about assisted dying and amorous transience without leaving room to discuss them properly. But I refuse to accept Maugham’s estimate of himself as a harmless entertainer.

(Read more)