NEW YORK CITY: On May 5, Silver Anderson, representing Milwaukee Repertory Theater, won True Colors Theatre Company’s 2025 Next Narrative National Monologue Competition (NNMC) National Finals at Harlem’s historic Apollo Theatre. Chiedza Mahuni from the Tulsa Performing Arts Center placed second, and Ja’Kyah Jackson from Atlanta’s True Colors Theatre Company finished third. The event was hosted by True Colors artistic director Jamil Jude and writer/performer Roger Q. Mason, and judged by Ngozi Anyanwu, Brittanny Bradford, Andre Minkins, Ricardo Vazquez, and Evette Marie White. Students participated in a workshop from Phylicia Rashad during their all-expense-paid trip to New York City.
Anderson, who received the $3,000 top prize, performed “Shame” by Cheryl L. West. Mahuni, who performed “Young Mother” by Dominic Taylor, received $2,000, while Jackson won $1,000 for performing “Young Mother” by Nubia Monks. Finalists were Spirit Waddell (True Colors Theatre Company), Adrian Sanchez and Joud Alkhalifa (the Huntington), Gabrielle Couts and Kerion Gordon (Dallas’s Southern Methodist University), Cameron Ritchie and Kamea J. Richardson (Kansas City Melting Pot Theatre), Thatcher Jacobs (Milwaukee Repertory Theater), Dayton Jackson and Ken-Niyah Woods (Pittsburgh’s Bill Nunn Theatre Outreach Project), Ava Simone Cabine and Judah Forrester (Portland’s World Stage Theatre), Tyanna Curry and Giselle Kendrick (Seattle Rep), and Shawnna’lee Davis (Tulsa Performing Arts Center).
Launched four years ago, NNMC features original monologues commissioned specifically for the competition from 31 leading contemporary Black playwrights. NNMC is an evolution of Atlanta-based True Colors’ original monologue competition, which featured the monologues of August Wilson and ran from its creation in 2007 until 2021.
NEW YORK CITY: Actors’ Equity Foundation announced the recipients of its 2025 Performance Awards. They will be presented in New York City and honor performers in the 2024-2025 season on June 23, in a ceremony that will also include the Foundation’s humanitarian Patrick Quinn Award, the ACCA Award for Outstanding Broadway Chorus (winners to be announced) and the Paul Robeson Award, previously announced to be awarded to Leslie Ishii.
The Richard Seff Award, given to two veteran character actors who are 50 years old or older and have been Equity members for 25 years or longer, will be awarded to Jessica Hecht (Eureka Day) and Francis Jue (Yellow Face). The Clarence Derwent Award for the two most promising performances of the season from early-career performers will be given to Nicholas Barasch (Pirates! The Penzance Musical) and Julia Lester (All Nighter). The Joe A. Callaway Award for the two best performances in a classical play will be awarded to Steven Epp (Henry IV) and Kimber Elayne Sprawl (Othello). The Michael McCarty Recognition Award, honoring established Los Angeles-based Equity actors who have built their lives in that city’s theatre scene, will be awarded to Jennifer Leigh Warren.
NEW YORK CITY: The Outer Critics Circle Awards announced its 2025 award winners on May 12. The musical Maybe Happy Ending took the most wins, garnering four: the top honor of Outstanding New Broadway Musical, Outstanding Book and Score for Will Aronson and Hue Park, and Outstanding Direction of a Broadway Musical for Michael Arden. Death Becomes Her received 12 nominations, but did not win any.
Other top awards included Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is The Villain for Outstanding New Broadway Play (which also received recognition for Danya Taymor’s direction), DRAG: The Musical for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical (which also garnered Nick Adams recognition as Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical), and Roundabout Theatre Company’s Liberation by Bess Wohl for Outstanding New Play. George Clooney and Grant Heslov received the John Gassner award for new playwrights for Good Night, and Good Luck. As for the revivals, Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Andrew Scott’s Vanya took the honors.
Additional big winners included BOOP! The Musical, which received three wins for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical for Jasmine Amy Rogers, choreography for Jerry Mitchell and costume design for Gregg Barnes; and Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which led in design categories, including Best Scenic Design for Miriam Buether, Jamie Harrison, and Chris Fisher, Sound Design for Paul Arditti and Lighting Design for Jon Clark.
Sarah Snook was recognized for Outstanding Solo Performance for her turn in The Picture of Dorian Gray (for which David Bergman was also recognized for his video/projections design). Laura Donnelly of The Hills of California and Francis Jue of David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face were recognized as Outstanding Lead Performers of Broadway plays, and Adam Driver won Outstanding Lead Performer of an Off-Broadway Play for Hold On to Me Darling at Atlantic Theater Company. Winning featured performers included Jak Malone for Operation Mincemeat, André De Shields for Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and Michael Rishawn for Table 17. Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber’s orchestrations were recognized for Just in Time.
ST. PAUL, MINN.: The Playwrights Center announced their 2025-2027 Jerome and Many Voices Fellows on May 6. These artists will be the second group to join since the terms of these fellowships were expanded to two years, and the first to experience the full tenure of their fellowships from the Center’s new home in St. Paul. For the Jerome Fellowship, returning fellow Michelle De Joya and new fellow Sharifa Kazmeen were selected. The Many Voices fellows will be playwright Vinecia Coleman, who aims to tell stories that focus on the Black female experience; Minnesota-born playwright Bianca Nkwonta, who’s excited to write about her own community; and Tejana playwright, creative collaborator, and photographer J. Isabel Salazar.
NEW YORK CITY: The Tony Awards Administration Committee announced that, based on the recommendation of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Muny—the common name for the Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis—will be the recipient of the 2025 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The honor, recognizing a regional theatre company that has displayed a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theatre nationally, is accompanied by a grant of $25,000, made possible by City National Bank. For more, read the breaking news here.
NEW YORK CITY: On May 5, the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins took home the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Purpose, just hours after receiving the Steinberg Prize, and on the same day he was also recognized by the New York Drama Critics Circle. The Pulitzer finalists were Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola and The Ally by Itamar Moses. For the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, theatre critics were recognized, including finalists Sara Holdren and Vinson Cunningham, both of The New Yorker. For more, read the breaking news here.
NEW YORK CITY: The New York Drama Critics’ Circle met to determine their 2025 award winners on May 5. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won Best Play for Purpose, and Will Aronson and Hue Park’s Maybe Happy Ending was recognized for Best Musical. Andrew Scott was awarded for Best Individual Performance for Vanya, and Best Ensemble Performance was given to the cast of Bess Wohl’s Liberation. Special citations were given to Cole Escola for Oh, Mary!, the revival of Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and David Greenspan for lifetime achievement. The awards will be given in a ceremony on May 15.
COSTA MESA, CALIF.: The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards recipients were named on May 5. The award recognizes an outstanding script that premiered in a professional production outside of New York City. Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins won the award for the Steppenwolf Theatre run of his new play, Purpose. Steinberg finalists were The Janeiad by Anna Ziegler at the Alley Theatre, and Little Bear Ridge by Samuel D. Hunter at the Steppenwolf. Additionally, for his play Judgment Day, Rob Ulin received the 2025 M. Elizabeth Osborne Award, which recognizes the work of an emerging playwright who has not yet received a major New York production or national award, with a prize of $3,000.
HILLSBORO, ORE.: In honor of National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, Native Theater Project awarded four cash prizes of $250 to playwrights with new plays addressing MMIR: Marci Rendon, Carolyn Dunn, Isabella Madrigal, and Honokee Dunn. NTP will also develop I is For Invisible by DeLanna Studi over the coming year with Advance Gender Equity in the Arts (AGE) and Bag&Baggage Productions (B&B), culminating in a public presentation at Bag&Baggage’s The Vault Theater on next year’s National Day of Awareness for MMIR. For more, read the breaking news here.
NEW YORK CITY: At the 40th Lucille Lortel Awards at NYU Skirball on May 4, the top honors for Outstanding Play went to New York Theatre Workshop and Tectonic Theater Project’s Here There Are Blueberries by Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, and Outstanding Musical went to Signature Theatre Company’s Three Houses by Dave Malloy. Andrew Scott’s Vanya won for Outstanding Solo Show, and MART Foundation and Arlekin Players’ Our Class, written by Tadeusz Slobodzianek and adapted by Norman Allen, won four awards, including Outstanding Revival, Outstanding Ensemble, and Outstanding Director for Igor Golyak. Special honorees included new Playwrights’ Sidewalk inductee Alice Childress, Outstanding Body of Work honoree New Federal Theatre, and Edith Oliver Service to Off-Broadway honoree Carol Fishman.
NEW YORK CITY: On May 1, winners of the 2025 Doris Duke Artist Awards were announced. Theatre artists among the recipients this year are Raja Feather Kelly of A Strange Loop, Aya Ogawa of The Nosebleed, and Kaneza Schaal of Flight Into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876-Now. Trajal Harrell, Kassa Overall, and Brandee Younger were also recognized. Each winner will receive $525,000 over seven years, and an incentive of up to $25,000 to save for retirement. The awards are the largest U.S. prize dedicated to performing artists in the world of theatre, jazz, and dance.
NEW YORK CITY: The Broadway Stage Management Symposium announced the five recipients for the 2025 Charlie Blackwell Symposium Scholarships for BIPOC stage managers on April 23. Ryann Nicole (Fort Lewis College), Kaitlyn Dorsey (Howard University), LaMarr White, Jr. (Jackson State University), Larry Gill (Coppin University), and Amaya Jacques (NYC-based stage manager with national tour and regional theatre credits) will join the conference and gain one-on-one mentorship from adjudicators. They were chosen by a panel that included Narda E. Alcorn, Kenneth J. McGee, Cody Renard Richard, Lisa Dawn Cave, and Beverly Jenkins. The scholarship is named for Charlie Blackwell, a Black stage manager with Broadway credits.
