The biggest “award” this past week was for $83.3 million, but, for the end of January, there was a surprising amount of news about entertainment-related awards — including winners (of Obies, SDCF’s director and choreographer award, Online Film Critics), nominees (of Oscars), and timelines for Spring awards (Outer Critics Circle, Chita Rivera Awards.)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Days of Wine and Roses
Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara return to Broadway for the first time together since 2002 to portray a couple who fall in love with alcohol as much as with one another in this musical adaptation of a dark story that was first a television drama in the 1950s, then a movie….It’s thrilling to see them back together for his sixteenth and her thirteenth role on Broadway. The two stars carry “Days of Wine and Roses,” their exquisite voices bringing out the brilliance of Adam Guettel’s jazz-inflected, often operatic score, and investing the characters’ rocky emotional journeys with a credibility that few other performers could match. They justify bringing to Broadway an adaptation of a story that feels dated. Full Review
Once Upon A Mattress Encores
Sutton Foster, trying her hand at goofy physical comedy and affecting a rapid-fire comic patter reminiscent of early Barbra Streisand, is an undeniable draw in the Encores! revival of this oft-produced musical comedy, backed by a starry cast of some of New York’s most reliable stage actors. This includes two of the most consistently hilarious, Michael Urie as a hapless prince and Harriet Harris as his bullying mother the Queen.” Full Review
Aristotle Thinks Again
“This hour-long collage of dancing and diatribes… uses the stories told by the eminent artists of Ancient Greece to comment on violence and family and love in modern times – which are expressed by some eminent artists of the American Avant-Garde.” Full Review
The Week in New York Theater News
Awards
The 67th annual Obies were announced in a TV special, rather than in an in-person ceremony as has been done previously. The reasoning: Instead of paying for the cost of the ceremony, the winning artists will be given “grants” of from $1,000 to $5,000.
Stage Directors and Choreographers Society’s Joe A. Callaway Awards will go to Pam MacKinnon for excellence in directing for Downstate (Playwrights Horizons) and Orlando Pabotoy for excellence in choreography for The Half-God of Rainfall (New York Theatre Workshop). The Callaway Awards will be presented in a virtual ceremony in Spring 2024.
past recipients of the award, which began in 1989.
The 73rd annual Outer Critics Circle Awards, honoring Broadway and Off-Broadway, timeline announced: Nominations will be announced via press release during the afternoon of Monday, April 22. The winners of the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Awards will be announced on Monday, May 13, followed by an awards ceremony held on Thursday, May 23, 2024.
2024 Chita Rivera Awards, honoring dance and choreography, timeline announced: nominations April 26 the “Meet the Nominees” press event, May 6. Awards, Monday, May 20 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
Oscar Nominations 2024: Oppenheimer leads with 13.
Broadway at the Oscars Quiz, 2024
27th annual Online Film Critics Awards: 8 wins for Oppenheimer, 4 for Barbie, 3 for Holdovers
BOOP! The Musical, a show inspired by the 1930s cartoon character Betty Boop which had a run in Chicago late last year, is aiming for Broadway in Spring 2025.
Complete cast for Lempicka, the new musical about artist Tamara de Lempicka, opening on Broadway April 14. The principal cast, as previously announced, will be led by leading lady, Eden Espinosa as Tamara de Lempicka, and Amber Iman as Rafaela, Andrew Samonsky as Tadeusz Lempicki, George Abud as Marinetti, Natalie Joy Johnson as Suzy Solidor, Zoe Glick as Kizette, Nathaniel Stampley as the Baron, and Beth Leavel as the Baroness.
Completing the cast: Mariand Torres, Alex Aquilino, Lauren Blackman, Stephen Brower, Kyle Brown, Holli’ Conway, Abby Matsusaka, Jimin Moon, Khori Michelle Petinaud, Ximone Rose, Nicholas Ward, Veronica Fiaoni, Michael Milkanin, Mary Page Nance, and Julio Rey.
“Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age,” will appear one night only, March 11, at Studio 54 (where Cumming most recently appeared on Broadway in “Cabaret”) n evening of story mixed with song about aging.
Colman Domingo, newly nominated for an Oscar for his role as civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in “Rustin,” will be starring as the legendary singer Nat King Cole in a movie musical from a script he co-wrote,according to Variety. While Domingo hasn’t performed on Broadway since 2010, when he was nominated for a Tony for his role in The Scottsboro Boys, he’s kept his hand in the theater, writing the libretto for “Summer,” about Donna Summer, and last year producing “Fat Ham,” for which he was nominated for another Tony.
Broadway in April is Too Damn Crowded by Adam Feldman, theater critic of Time Out New York:
“Thirteen Broadway shows…are currently slated to open in April. That represents a third of the 39 new productions in the entire 2023–24 Broadway season… But what’s really bananas this year is how densely the openings are packed: 11 of those 13 shows will open in the very last nine days of the season, jockeying for attention in a mad dash to the finish line between April 17 and April 25….It’s hard for anyone to keep up with so many offerings, and that problem is exacerbated by the end-of-season stampede. Shows that might get a decent amount of traction at other times of the year are sure to get trampled.”
