2014 Annual Drama Desk Awards Nominations Announced

Nominations for the 2014 Annual Drama Desk Awards were announced April 25 at 54 Below by Academy Award winners Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and two-time Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Fran Drescher.

Nominators considered shows that opened on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway during the 2013-14 New York theatre season.

The new musical comedy A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder earned 12 nominations, the most of any production of the season. The new Jason Robert Brown-Marsha Norman musical The Bridges of Madison County also fared well, garnering nine nominations. The Off-Broadway musical

Fun Home

, which was recently named a Pulitzer Prize finalist, received eight nominations, while the Broadway musicals Aladdinand Rocky earned seven nominations apiece.

 

The 59th Annual Drama Desk Awards, hosted by Tony winner Laura Benanti, will take place June 1 at 8 PM at The Town Hall in Manhattan.

The nominations for the 59th Annual Drama Desk Awards follow:

Outstanding Play
Nell Benjamin, The Explorers Club 
Steven Levenson, Core Values
Conor McPherson, The Night Alive 
Richard Nelson, Regular Singing
Bruce Norris, Domesticated
Robert Schenkkan, All The Way
John Patrick Shanley, Outside Mullingar

Outstanding Musical
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Aladdin
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Fun Home
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Rocky
The Bridges of Madison County

Outstanding Revival of a Play
I Remember Mama
London Wall
No Man’s Land
Of Mice and Men
The Cripple of Inishmaan 
The Model Apartment 
Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe Production)

Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Hedwig and the Angry Inch 
Les Misérables
Violet

Outstanding Actor in a Play
Bryan Cranston, All The Way
Hamish Linklater, The Comedy of Errors
Ian McKellen, No Man’s Land
David Morse, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin 
Chris O’Dowd, Of Mice and Men
Daniel Radcliffe, The Cripple of Inishmaan
Denzel Washington, A Raisin in the Sun

Outstanding Actress in a Play
Barbara Andres, I Remember Mama
Tyne Daly, Mothers and Sons
Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill 
Laurie Metcalf, Domesticated
J. Smith-Cameron, Juno and the Paycock
Harriet Walter, Julius Caesar

Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Neil Patrick Harris, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Adam Jacobs, Aladdin
Andy Karl, Rocky
Jefferson Mays, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Steven Pasquale, The Bridges of Madison County
Bryce Pinkham, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Sutton Foster, Violet
Idina Menzel, If/Then
Jessie Mueller, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical 
Kelli O’Hara, The Bridges of Madison County 
Margo Seibert, Tamar of the River
Barrett Wilbert Weed, Heathers: The Musical

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
Reed Birney, Casa Valentina
Chuck Cooper, Choir Boy
Peter Maloney, Outside Mullingar 
Bobby Moreno, Year of the Rooster 
Bill Pullman, The Jacksonian
Brian J. Smith, The Glass Menagerie

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
Betty Buckley, The Old Friends
Julia Coffey, London Wall
Diane Davis, The Model Apartment
Celia Keenan-Bolger, The Glass Menagerie 
Jan Maxwell, The Castle
Sophie Okonedo, A Raisin in the Sun

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Danny Burstein, Cabaret
Nick Cordero, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical 
Joshua Henry, Violet
James Monroe Iglehart, Aladdin
Rory O’Malley, Nobody Loves You
Bobby Steggert, Big Fish

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
Stephanie J. Block, Little Miss Sunshine
Anika Larsen, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Adriane Lenox, After Midnight
Sydney Lucas, Fun Home
Laura Osnes, The Threepenny Opera
Jennifer Simard, Disaster!
Lauren Worsham, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Outstanding Director of a Play
Joe Calarco, A Christmas Carol 
Tim Carroll, Twelfth Night 
Thomas Kail, Family Furniture 
Bill Rauch, All The Way
Anna D. Shapiro, Domesticated
Julie Taymor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Outstanding Director of a Musical
Sam Gold, Fun Home
Michael Mayer, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Bartlett Sher, The Bridges of Madison County
Susan Stroman, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical 
Alex Timbers, Rocky
Darko Tresnjak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Outstanding Choreography
Warren Carlyle, After Midnight
Steven Hoggett, Kelly Devine, Rocky
Danny Mefford, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Casey Nicholaw, Aladdin
Susan Stroman, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical 
Sonya Tayeh, Kung Fu

Outstanding Music
Jason Robert Brown, The Bridges of Madison County 
Andrew Lippa, Big Fish
Steven Lutvak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Alan Menken, Aladdin
Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe, Heathers: The Musical 
Jeanine Tesori, Fun Home

Outstanding Lyrics
Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, and Chad Beguelin, Aladdin
Jason Robert Brown, The Bridges of Madison County
Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Michael Friedman, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Michael Korie, Far from Heaven
Lisa Kron, Fun Home

Outstanding Book of a Musical
Chad Beguelin, Aladdin
Robert L. Freedman, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, Murder for Two
Lisa Kron, Fun Home
Douglas McGrath, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical 
Marsha Norman, The Bridges of Madison County

Outstanding Orchestrations
Jason Robert Brown, The Bridges of Madison County 
John Clancy, Fun Home
Larry Hochman, Big Fish
Steve Sidwell, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical 
Michael Starobin, If/Then
Jonathan Tunick, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Outstanding Music in a Play
Lewis Flinn, The Tribute Artist
Elliot Goldenthal, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Rob Kearns, The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle 
Tom Kochan, Almost, Maine
Nico Muhly, The Glass Menagerie
Duncan Sheik, A Man’s a Man

Outstanding Revue
After Midnight
I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond 
Le Jazz Hot: How the French Saved Jazz
Til Divorce Do Us Part
What’s It All About? Bacharach Reimagined

Outstanding Set Design
Christopher Barreca, Rocky
Alexander Dodge, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Richard Hoover, Small Engine Repair
Santo Loquasto, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical
Ian MacNeil, A Doll’s House
Donyale Werle, The Explorers Club

Outstanding Costume Design
Constance Hoffman, A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
William Ivey Long, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical 
Zane Pihlstrom, Nutcracker Rouge
Loren Shaw, The Mysteries
Jenny Tiramani, Twelfth Night
David C. Woolard, The Heir Apparent

Outstanding Lighting Design
Christopher Akerlind, Rocky 
Jane Cox, Machinal
David Lander, The Civil War 
Peter Mumford, King Lear 
Brian Tovar, Tamar of the River 
Japhy Weideman, Macbeth

Outstanding Projection Design
Robert Massicotte and Alexis Laurence, Cirkopolis 
Sven Ortel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Aaron Rhyne, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Shawn Sagady, All The Way
Austin Switser, Sontag: Reborn Ben Rubin, Arguendo

Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical
Kai Harada, Fun Home
Peter Hylenski, Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical
Peter Hylenski, Rocky
Brian Ronan, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Dan Moses Schreier, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
Jon Weston, The Bridges of Madison County

Outstanding Sound Design in a Play
M.L. Dogg, The Open House
Katie Down, The Golden Dragon
Paul James Prendergast, All The Way 
Dan Moses Schreier, Act One 
Christopher Shutt, Love and Information 
Matt Tierney, Machinal

Outstanding Solo Performance
David Barlow, This is My Office
Jim Brochu, Character Man
Hannah Cabell, Grounded
Debra Jo Rupp, Becoming Dr. Ruth
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned 
John Douglas Thompson, Satchmo at the Waldorf

Unique Theatrical Experience
Charlatan Cirkopolis
Mother Africa
Nothing to Hide
Nutcracker Rouge
The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill Vol. 2

PRODUCTIONS WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS:
12 A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder 
9 The Bridges of Madison County
8 Fun Home
7 Aladdin
7 Rocky
6 Beautiful: The Carole King Musical 
6 Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical
5 All The Way
4 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
3 After Midnight
3 Big Fish
3 Domesticated
3 Hedwig and the Angry Inch
3 London Wall
3 Love’s Labour’s Lost
3 The Glass Menagerie
3 Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe Production)
3 Violet
2 A Raisin in the Sun
2 Cirkopolis
2 Heathers: The Musical
2 I Remember Mama
2 If/Then
2 Machinal
2 No Man’s Land
2 Nutcracker Rouge
2 Of Mice and Men
2 Outside Mullingar
2 Tamar of the River
2 The Cripple of Inishmaan
2 The Explorers Club
2 The Model Apartment

Special Awards: Each year, the Drama Desk votes special awards to recognize excellence and significant contributions to the theatre.

For 2013-2014, these awards are:

To Soho Rep: For nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection.
To Veanne Cox: For her ability to express the eccentricities, strengths, and vulnerabilities of a range of characters, and notably for her comedic flair as evidenced in this season’s The Old Friends and The Most Deserving.
To Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, the Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award: For his visionary directorial excellence. This season’s The Golden Dragon and The Mysteries exemplify his bold and strikingly original imagination.
To the ensembles of Off-Broadway’s The Open House and Broadway’s The Realistic Joneses and to the creator of both plays, Will Eno: For two extraordinary casts and one impressively inventive playwright.
The Open House: Hannah Bos, Michael Countryman, Peter Friedman Danny McCarthy, and Carolyn McCormick
The Realistic Joneses: Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei

A few notes from the Drama Desk: “As the current revival of Cabaret replicates the 1998 production, the Board deemed the show ineligible in the Outstanding Revival of a Musical category, as were performers, creative team members, and technical personnel associated with the earlier incarnation in their respective categories. Soul Doctor was considered for its Off-Broadway production in the 2012-13 season. Under Drama Desk rules, only new elements in its transfer to Broadway were eligible this season. Finally, Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays was deemed ineligible because it was a return engagement of the 2005 Drama Desk winning show.”

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The 2013-14 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of Barbara Siegel, Chairperson, (Author and Freelance Critic); Morgan Jenness (Dramaturg; Columbia & Pace University Professor); Samuel L. Leiter (Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theatre, CUNY); Sandy MacDonald (freelance; TheaterNewsOnline.com); Chad McArver (Lighting and Set Designer; Professor, Fordham University); Martha Wade Steketee (Editor and Contributor, Chance Magazine; UrbanExcavations.com); and James Wilson (Theatre Professor, CUNY; Co-Editor of JADT).

Gretchen Shugart is managing executive producer of the Drama Desk Awards. Joey Parnes Productions will produce and manage the show. The president of Drama Desk is Isa Goldberg, and Randie Levine Miller is director of special events.

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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.”

The 2013-2014 Board of Directors of the Drama Desk is composed of Isa Goldberg (The Broadway Channel), Leslie (Hoban) Blake (City Arts; Two on the Aisle), Charles Wright (A+E Networks), Richard Ridge (BroadwayWorld), Arlene Epstein (South Shore Record & Herald Community Newspapers), Elysa Gardner (USA Today), Randy Gener (USA Editor, Critical Stages; Contributor, NPR), John Istel (Freelance), Edward Karam (offoffonline.com), David Kaufman (Author & Freelance), William Wolf (Adjunct Professor, NYU & wolfentertainmentguide.com), and Lauren Yarger (Manchester Journal-Inquirer & reflectionsinthelight.com).

 

by Andrew Gans
Playbill.com
April 25, 2014