(Don’t know the difference between the Drama Desk and the Drama League and the Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle awards? Check out my New York Theater Awards 2022: Guide and Calendar)
Outstanding Play
Prayer for the French Republic, by Joshua Harmon, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Musical
Kimberly Akimbo, Atlantic Theater Company
Outstanding Revival of a Play
How I Learned to Drive, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Company
Outstanding Actor in a Play
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Lackawanna Blues, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Actress in a Play
Phylicia Rashad, Skeleton Crew, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Jaquel Spivey, A Strange Loop
Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Joaquina Kalukango, Paradise Square
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
Ron Cephas Jones, Clyde’s, Second Stage Theater
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
Francis Benhamou, Prayer for the French Republic, Manhattan Theatre Clu
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Matt Doyle, Company
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
Patti LuPone, Company
Outstanding Director of a Play
Rebecca Recall, Sanctuary City, New York Theatre Workshop
Outstanding Director of a Musical
Marianne Elliott, Company
Outstanding Choreography
Bill T. Jones, Garrett Coleman, and Jason Oremus (Irish + Hammerstep), Gelan Lambert and Chloe Davis (associates), Paradise Square
Outstanding Music
Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, Six
Outstanding Lyrics
Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, Six
Outstanding Book of a Musical
Bruce Sussman, Harmony, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Outstanding Orchestrations
Jason Michael Webb and David Holcenberg, MJ
Outstanding Music in a Play
Bill Sims Jr., Lackawanna Blues, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Scenic Design for a Play
Takeshi Kata, Clyde’s, Second Stage Theate
Outstanding Scenic Design for a Musical
Beowulf Boritt, Flying Over Sunset, Lincoln Center Theater
Outstanding Costume Design for a Play
Jennifer Moeller, Clyde’s, Second Stage Theater
Outstanding Costume Design for a Musical
Gabriella Slade, Six
Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play (tie)
Christopher Akerlind, Clyde’s, Second Stage Theater
Amith Chandrashaker, Prayer for the French Republic, Manhattan Theatre Club
Outstanding Lighting Design for a Musical (tie)
Natasha Katz, MJ
Bradley King, Flying Over Sunset, Lincoln Center Theater
Outstanding Projection Design
59 Productions, Flying Over Sunset, Lincoln Center Theate
Outstanding Sound Design for a Play
Ben and Max Ringham, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Jamie Lloyd Company at Brooklyn Academy of Music
Outstanding Sound Design for a Musical
Gareth Owen, MJ
Outstanding Wig and Hair
David Brian Brown, Mrs. Doubtfire
Outstanding Solo Performance
Kristina Wong, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, New York Theatre Worksho
Unique Theatrical Experience
Seven Deadly Sins, Tectonic Theater Project & Madison Wells Live
Outstanding Adaptation
Merry Wives, by Jocelyn Bioh, The Public Theater (Free Shakespeare in the Par
Outstanding Puppet Design
James Ortiz, The Skin of Our Teeth, Lincoln Center Theate
Harold S. Prince Lifetime Achievement Award
In four decades as playwright, novelist, actor, and director, Alice Childress (1912-1994) challenged racism with engrossing stories and memorable characters. When a New York producer demanded revisions to soften the impact of Trouble in Mind, after an initial run Off Broadway and prior to its Broadway debut, Childress withdrew the script. Sixty-five years later, the Drama Desk celebrates the long-delayed Broadway premiere of this timeless masterpiece and salutes Childress as a towering figure in contemporary theater history.
Ensemble Award
In Six, Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Brittney Mack, Abby Mueller, Samantha Pauly, and Anna Uzele bring to musical life the women who married England’s King Henry VIII. The fanciful result is a buoyant dramatization of their individually purposeful and collectively empowering journeys.
The Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award
This season, as a woman hiding her brother from the Taliban in Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul and an English instructor straddling two very different cultures in Sanaz Toossi’s English, Marjan Neshat embodied disparate characters so fully that it was hard to recognize the single actor in the two roles. Whether in drama or comedy, Neshat mines the playwright’s text for a vast panoply of emotions that yield vivid, intricate portrayals of the parts she undertakes.
Additional Special Awards
Dede Ayite seems to have costumed half the actors of this theater season with her designs for Merry Wives, Seven Deadly Sins, The Last of the Love Letters, Chicken and Biscuits, Slave Play, Nollywood Dreams, American Buffalo, and How I learned to Drive. Whether dressing working-class Marylanders of the 1960s, amateur criminals of the 1970s, or West African immigrants in today’s Harlem, Ayite has a knack for conveying characters’ means, values, and aspirations before the actors utter a word.
Adam Rigg enhanced storytelling through wildly varying scenic designs this season including: a house in wood, shadow, and reflective glass that draws the audience into the Flint, Michigan water crisis in Cullud Wattah; a community cul-de-sac where trauma and history are celebrated in On Sugarland
This year’s Drama Desk Award ceremony will take place at Sardi’s Restaurant on June 14th from 3:00 – 6:00pm.
