Live @ The 27th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards

Do not adjust your browser.  This is indeed my site.  I'm doing something a little different on Sunday night.  I will be blogging LIVE from The 27th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards at NYU's Skirball Center in Greenwich Village - hosted this year by the incomparable Mario Cantone.   For some background information on the awards - click here - and you can read all about the organizations and talent behind the awards.  The short version is: The Lortel Awards are to off-Broadway what the Tony Awards are to Broadway - they represent the BEST of the BEST of the broader, often more innovative and risk taking genre known as off-Broadway.

What you see below is the official nomination ballot with each category and the nominees in that category.   I'll be updating this page each time a winner is announced live-on-stage and you'll see that winner light up in Pink.

I not sure the awards ceremony will actually go in this order so there may be some scrolling up and down and juggling as I doubt I'll be able to watch the program, applaud, gawk and gossip along with the new responsibility of having to edit the blog page every 3 minutes all the while tweeting and answering fan mail too!

Outstanding Play

• Blood and Gifts - by J. T. Rogers (LCT)
• Milk Like Sugar  - by Kirsten Greenidge (PH)
• Sons of the Prophet  - by Stephen Karam (Roundabout)
• The Big Meal - by Dan LeFranc (PH)
• The School For Lies  - by David Ives (CSC)

Outstanding Musical

• Once (NYTW)
• Queen of the Mist - (Transport Group)
• SILENCE! The Musical -  (Independent)
• The Blue Flower - (2ST)
• The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World - (NYTW/PH) 

Outstanding Revival

• Blood Knot - by Athol Fugard - (Signature)
• The Lady from Dubuque - by Edward Albee (Signature)
• Look Back in Anger  - by John Osborne (Roundabout)
• The Cherry Orchard - by Anton Chekhov/Translated by John C. Jones (CSC)
• The Maids - by Jean Genet/Translated by Bernard Frechtman (Red Bull)

Outstanding Solo Show

• An Iliad - by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson (CSC)
• The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith - by Angelo Parra (Penguin Rep +)

Outstanding Director

• Jo Bonney, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark 
• David Cromer, Tribes
• Sam Gold, Look Back in Anger
• Sam Gold, The Big Meal
• John Tiffany, Once 

Outstanding Choreographer

• Chase Brock, The Blue Flower
• Bill Castellino, Ionescopade
• Christopher Gattelli, SILENCE! The Musical 
• Steven Hoggett, Once
• Annie-­B Parson, The Broken Heart

Outstanding Lead Actor

• Santino Fontana, Sons of the Prophet 
• Russell Harvard, Tribes
• Hamish Linklater, The School For Lies 
• Jefferson Mays, Blood and Gifts
• Jay O. Sanders, Titus Andronicus

Outstanding Lead Actress

• Sanaa Lathan, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark 
• Cristin Milioti, Once
• Carey Mulligan, Through a Glass Darkly 
• Molly Ranson, Carrie
• Mary Testa, Queen of the Mist

Outstanding Featured Actor

• David Wilson Barnes, The Big Meal
• Adam Driver, Look Back in Anger
• Alvin Epstein, The Cherry Orchard
• Peter Francis James, The Lady from Dubuque
• Jeff Perry, Tribes

Outstanding Featured Actress

• Anita Gillette, The Big Meal
• Kimberly Hébert Gregory, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark 
• Marin Mazzie, Carrie
• Tonya Pinkins, Milk Like Sugar
• Mare Winningham, Tribes

Outstanding Scenic Design

• Bob Crowley, Once
• Lauren Helpern, 4000 Miles
• Andrew Lieberman, Look Back in Anger 
• Adrianne Lobel, Galileo
• David Zinn, The Select (The Sun Also Rises)

Outstanding Costume Design

• ESosa, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark 
• Toni-­Leslie James, Milk Like Sugar 
• William Ivey Long, The School For Lies 
• Ilona Somogyi, Maple and Vine 
• Catherine Zuber, Death Takes a Holiday

Outstanding Lighting Design

• Natasha Katz, Once
• Keith Parham, Tribes
• Justin Townsend, Unnatural Acts 
• David Weiner, Through a Glass Darkly 
• Scott Zielinski, An Iliad

Outstanding Sound Design

• Mark Bennett, An Iliad
• Clive Goodwin, Once
• Daniel Kluger, Tribes
• Matt Tierney and Ben Williams, The Select (The Sun Also Rises) 
• David Van Tieghem, Through a Glass Darkly

Lifetime Achievement Award - Richard Frankel and Richard Foreman

Service to Off-­‐Broadway Award - Fire Department of the City of New York

Outstanding Alternative Theatrical Experience - Voca People (Independent) 

Applause

A classic film, All About Eve, staring Bette Davis, begot this Comden & Green musical in 1970 at the Palace Theater staring Lauren Bacall (and later in 1973 on TV starring Bacall and Larry Hagman). In it's endeavors to bring the less-known musicals back to the stage, Encores! ended up with something less than brilliant, bombastic, super and fantastic.

Don't get me wrong - even recovering from the Asian bird flu (or something like that), Christine Ebersole was above average in the leading role. It certainly was a disappointment to see her at less than "full speed". However, the problem was casting, not performance. As a good friend of mine said, "Could Christine Ebersole have been more mis-cast in the role of the aging Margo Channing?" I think not.

Certainly a brief but memorable performance from Mario Cantone and Kate Burton, but nothing in all of this would suggest it's anywhere close to a Broadway revival ala Gypsy with Lupone - (the last success story from Encores!) My favorite scenes were perhaps the full cast numbers -the show's title number "Applause" and "But Alive". Ebersole seemed to be having as much fun mixing it up with the gays as Bacall in this 1973.

It seemed appropriate for an "all star" semi-staged reading, but I'm going to guess that we won't be seeing Applause on Broadway again any time soon.

Laugh Whore

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