Below are some of the speeches from the winners of the 73rd Outer Critics Circle Awards. held Thursday afternoon at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. (Don’t know what the Outer Critics Circle is? Check out my New York Theater Awards 2024 Guide and Calendar)

 Let’s start with the five winners of Outer Critic Circle Awards in acting categories who have also been nominated for Tony Awards, offering a possible preview of some of the televised speeches on June 16th:

Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Play:
Jessica Lange – Mother Play

(She is nominated for a Tony for Best Actress for a Leading Performance in a Play)

Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Play:
William Jackson Harper – Primary Trust
(He is nominated for a Tony for Best Actor for a Leading Performance in a Play, but for a different play, Uncle Vanya)

Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical:
Kelli O’Hara – Days of Wine and Roses

(She is nominated for a Tony for Best Actress for a Leading Performance in a Play)

Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play:
Kara Young – Purlie Victorious
(She is nominated for a Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play – the eighth for which she’s been nominated — she’s already won one — which is in contrast with the Outer Critics Circle Awards, which she never won before, something she joked about in her speech.)

Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Musical:
Kecia Lewis – Hell’s Kitchen

(She is nominated for a Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical)

Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Play:
Cole Escola – Oh, Mary!

Cole Escola accepted his Outer Critics Circle Award for “Oh, Mary!” via video from what looked like a hotel bedroom. “I’ve been so stupid lucky – and stupid stupid.” (It’s not clear why he told the crowd at the end he would see them the next morning.)

Outstanding Solo Performance:
Patrick Page – All the Devils are Here

“I always dreamed I’d be a Shakespearean actor. “

I couldn’t help noticing several themes in the speeches. One was a debate over whether they review their reviews. Jay O.Sanders said never: “I don’t need your voices in my head. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t need somebody else’s objectivity in my head when I come on stage and be this character.” Patrick Page (as you can watch in the video above) said always: The way I experienced great performances was I would go to the Library at the University and they had a great big book. And it was full of theater reviews by Kenneth Tynan and by Walter Kerr, and by all the great critics, and that’s how we experienced the great performances of Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. And John Gilbert, and James Earl Jones. And so I’ve always loved theater critics. I never understood those actors who say I don’t read reviews “

Kelli O’Hara said she has her husband do the reading.

Speaking of which there were a lot of mention of spouses, some heartfelt, some amusing — so much so I did another video, which begins with Jessica Stone, director of “Water for Elephants” telling the crowd: “My husband said to me this morning, the Outer Critics are so much nicer to you than your inner critic.”