NEW YORK CITY: On June 1, the 2025 Drama Desk Awards were presented at NYU Skirball with co-hosts Debra Messing and Tituss Burgess. The late Gavin Creel was posthumously honored with the Harold S. Prince Award, and Brian Stokes Mitchell received the William Wolf Award. Maybe Happy Ending won six awards, with BOOP! The Musical, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, and The Picture of Dorian Gray receiving three awards. Shows with two wins were Danger and Opportunity, Gypsy, John Proctor is the Villain, Just in Time, Pirates! The Penzane Musical, and Purpose.
Top awards were given to Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for outstanding play, Will Aronson and Hue Park’s Maybe Happy Ending for outstanding musical (also receiving outstanding book, music, and lyrics awards), Eureka Day for outstanding revival of a play, and Gypsy for outstanding revival of a musical. Directors honored were Danya Taymor for John Proctor Is the Villain and Michael Arden for Maybe Happy Ending.
Lead performers honored were Laura Donnelly for The Hills of California and Sarah Snook for The Picture of Dorian Gray for plays, and Audra McDonald for Gypsy and Jasmine Amy Rogers for BOOP! The Musical. There was a three-way tie between Smash’s Brooks Ashmanskas, Operation Mincemeat’s Jak Malone, and Once Upon a Mattress’ Michael Urie for featured performers in a musical, and Amalia Yoo for John Proctor Is the Villain and Kara Young for Purpose received the honors for featured performers in a play. Andrew Scott’s Vanya was honored for outstanding solo performance.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Liberation received the Ensemble Award. Stephen Michael Spencer was honored with the Sam Norton Off-Broadway Award. Additional special awards were given to Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, lighting designer Stacey Derosier, and the team behind Danger and Opportunity: playwright Ken Urban, director Jack Serio, and ensemble Juan Castano, Julia Chan, and Ryan Spahn.
BOSTON: The Boston Theater Critics Association presented the 42nd Annual Elliot Norton Awards for Boston-area theatre in a ceremony at the Huntington Theatre. Awards were presented in over two dozen categories of outstanding actors, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, and productions, and 5 awards for visiting productions. The Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence was awarded to acclaimed Boston-based actor Kathy St. George, whose work has been seen in Boston, New York, nationally, and throughout New England.
Awards for Outstanding Play from large, midsize, and small theatres were given to the Huntington’s Leopoldstadt in association with Shakespeare Theatre Company, Gloucester Stage and Teatro Chelsea’s The Hombres, and Arlekin Players Theatre’s The Dybbuk. The Outstanding Musical award in memory of William Finn was given to Central Square Theater and Front Porch Arts Collective’s Next to Normal.
Special Citations were awarded to the historic Boch Center Wang Theatre in honor of its 100th anniversary, Apollinaire Theatre Company in honor of its 30th anniversary, Greater Boston Stage Company in honor of its 25th anniversary, and Shit-Faced Shakespeare in honor of its 10th anniversary. The 2025 Elliot Norton Arts Education Award was presented to Rehearsal for Life and their flagship programs Urban Improv and the Freelance Players, which support students’ social-emotional growth through transformative performing arts programming. View the full list of awardees and nominees on their website.
The Elliot Norton Awards are named for the eminent Boston theatre critic Elliot Norton, who remained an active supporter of drama locally and nationally until his death in 2003 at the age of 100.
MINNEAPOLIS: The Playwrights’ Center announced its 2025-26 McKnight fellowships for its first season in its new arts center. The McKnight Playwriting Fellows, a fellowship supporting mid-career playwrights in Minnesota, will be Marge Buckley and Gemma Irish. The McKnight Theater Artist Fellows, recognizing theatre artists other than playwrights living and working in Minnesota, are Peter Morrow, Isabel Nelson, and Mikell Sapp. The McKnight National Residency and Commission recipient C.A. Johnson will complete the cohort. All have demonstrated “a sustained body of work” and “commitment to their craft.”
Gemma Irish plans to continue work on an ambitious play about the early days of the cooperative food movement in Minnesota, and get down on paper (and up on its feet) a class-conscious comedy about cannibalism called Eat the Rich.
Minneapolis-based Marge Buckley will spend her fellowship year workshopping, among other projects, a classically-inspired bedroom farce, using the structure of farce to explore political lobbying, contemporary relationship practices, and marginalized sexualities. Buckley is Playwright-in-Residence at Commutator Collective, an experimental theatre community, which mounts “full productions, hybrid dance party/avant-garde performance events, and an annual Purim spiel.”
Mikell Sapp’s acting work is well-known by the local Twin Cities theatre community, from Mixed Blood to Pillsbury House, Penumbra to the Guthrie. Isabel Nelson is a director, performer, and theater creator in the Twin Cities who has most recently brought their creative practice into collaboration with folks incarcerated at Stillwater Correctional Facility and Shakopee Correctional Facility. She hopes to train up in communal creative practices and restorative justice work. Sound designer Peter Morrow moved to the Twin Cities from Dublin, Ireland in 2012. Their fellowships will focus on developing their respective practices.
The McKnight National Residency and Commission invites an established playwright from outside of Minnesota to join the Twin Cities community. C.A. Johnson, a Brooklyn-based playwright originally from Metairie, Louisiana, will be adapting text for the stage for the first time. Her current goal is to turn the short story “The Dead” by James Joyce into a play.
NEW YORK CITY: Pipeline Arts Foundation announced the recipients of the 2025 Michael Friedman Award for New Composition and its Pipeline Awards for New Musical Theatre. The Michael Friedman Award, which grants $25,000, was given to actor and composer Lianah Sta. Ana for her musical Performing Filipina. She is the second recipient of the named award, first offered in honor of the late musical theatre composer last year. The musical centers six Filipinas, who piece together history, memory, and identity, finding new meaning in their relation to themselves, their communities, and each other.
Pipeline Awards finalists receiving $20,000 each are:
- Eight Immortals, music and lyrics by Sam Tsui and Casey Breves, a collection of self-contained vignettes, each song serving as a modern interpretation of one of the eight classic archetypes from Taoist legend.
- The Eternity Machine by Asher Muldoon, a new musical thriller inspired by the Silicon Valley mythos that features a self-learning machine—one smart enough to cure cancer and efficient enough to reach the furthest corners of the world.
- The Jury, book and lyrics by Casey Kendall, music by Jonathan Bauerfeld, about seven people in the life of a woman named Tess Butler, who died of an opioid overdose, in an “otherworldly jury room” with the choice to intervene and bring her back, or let her go.
- ROJA, book by Tommy Newman, music and lyrics by Tommy Newman and Jaime Lozano, a new musical that reimagines the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale through the lens of traditional Mexican folk music and Mestizo folklore.
The Pipeline Awards finalists receiving $10,000 each are:
- The Real Kyle McCarren, book by Andy Robinson, music and lyrics by Andy Robinson and Sean McVerry, a true story about a musical friendship that transcends life and death.
- The Unsolved & Forgotten Crimes of Sullivan County… by Allison Light and Andrew Underberg, an audio comedy in which a small-town crime podcast host struggles to get subscribers until a decades-old local murder falls into her lap.
The 34 previously announced semifinalists are listed on Pipeline Arts’ website. The Pipeline Arts Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that supports early and mid-career artists to develop boundary-pushing original work.
NEW YORK CITY: After its May 29 National Finals in New York City’s JCC Manhattan, the Jewish Plays Project announced the winner of the 14th National Jewish Playwriting Contest: Provenance by Jennifer Maisel, about the journey of an unusual and sensual portrait from its beginnings in early 1900s German society, through its theft by the Nazis and its subsequent travels around the world. The play will receive the JPP’s signature workshop at the 2nd Festival of New Jewish Plays at the Berkshire Theatre Group on August 28 at the Colonial Theater.
The remaining top three finalists were On the Edge by Israeli playwright Motti Lerner, a political drama focusing on the conflicted relationship between a father and son as they face off over their publishing company and their country, Israel, as events of Oct 7th unfold; and Dybbuk Bat Mitzmath by Becca Schlossberg, an intimate, open-hearted coming-of-age story about a girl about to turn 13, rifting on Jewish folklore, the Kabbalah, and an Ark that opens on its own. Additional finalists and semifinalists are listed on JPP’s website.
The Jewish Plays Project identifies, develops, and presents new works of theatre through one-of-a-kind explorations of contemporary Jewish identity between audiences, artists, and patrons.
NEW YORK CITY: The 2025 Drama League Awards were presented in a ceremony hosted by NY1 journalist Frank DiLella at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on Friday, May 16. Top honors were given to Maybe Happy Ending for Outstanding Production of a Musical, Oh, Mary! for Outstanding Production of a Play, and Sunset Boulevard for Outstanding Revival of a Musical.
In her Broadway debut, Nicole Scherzinger received the Distinguished Performance Award for her acclaimed turn as Norma Desmond in the current revival of Sunset Boulevard. The award can only be won once in an actor’s lifetime. In another rare decision—the first in 25 years—the Drama League named a tie for Outstanding Revival of a Play, honoring both Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day and Simon Stephens’s solo adaptation of Vanya starring Andrew Scott.
For direction, Sam Pinkleton was recognized for Outstanding Direction of a Play for Oh, Mary! and Michael Arden won Outstanding Direction of a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending. The Founders Award for Excellence in Directing was given to Whitney White for The Last Five Years.
Lea Salonga, now starring in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, received Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theater Award. The Gratitude Award was given to producers Robert Greenblatt and Neil Meron for Smash. The Contribution to the Theater Award went to Kate Navin and Audible Theater.
SAN FRANCISCO: PlayGround announced the winners of the 2025 Young Playwrights Contest, an open-submission competition that provides winning high school playwrights with a professional staged reading during the PlayGround Festival of New Works. The winning plays and playwrights are The Lavender by Myles-Alexys Jones (Moreau Catholic High School), The Poet’s Husband by Evelyn Grace Callejo (Galileo High School), and Stinky American Pants by Anya Lu (The Harker School). All three plays will receive staged readings by professional actors on May 23 at 7 p.m. PT at Potrero Stage and Simulcast.
Each year, Bay Area high school students in grades 9-12 are invited to submit short plays for consideration. Through the Lenore and Howard Klein Foundation PlayGround Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround and Bay Area high schools enable young writers to find their own expressive voices through the creation, development, and production of short plays. This year’s theme was “The American Experiment” and drew submissions from throughout the Bay Area.
NEW YORK CITY: The NYC Dance Alliance Foundation presented the 2025 Chita Rivera Awards at NYU Skirball on May 19, in an awards ceremony hosted by Stephen Schwartz and Usher, and co-hosted by Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, and Marissa Jarret Winokur. Honorees included Broadway choreographers Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, who won Outstanding Choreography for Buena Vista Social Club. The Buena Vista ensemble also won Outstanding Ensemble. Outstanding Dancers in a Broadway Show winners were Kevin Csolak (Gypsy) and Robyn Hurder (Smash).
Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles received a special recognition for Outstanding Choreography for their work on the Off-Broadway revival of Cats: The Jellicle Ball. David Neumann (Swept Away) received the Douglas and Ethel Watt Critics’ Choice Award. Performer Ben Vereen was recognized with a lifetime achievement award.
The awards, named for the legendary dancer and performer, honor outstanding contributions in choreography, featured performances from dancers and ensembles from the 2024-2025 season.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: On May 19, TheatreWashington hosted the 2025 Helen Hayes Awards at the Anthem, honoring productions from the Washington, D.C. area’s 2024-2025 theatre season in an awards ceremony hosted by actors Felicia Curry and Mike Millan. Companies with the most wins were Signature Theatre with six wins, and 1st Stage and the Keegan Theatre with four wins. For individual productions, Signature’s Private Jones and 1st Stage’s The Nance were the most awarded with four wins each.
Outstanding productions included, in the Hayes categories, Mosaic Theater Company and Baltimore Center Stage’s Mexodus for musical (and also garnered co-creator and actor Brian Quijada and director David Mendizábal wins in their categories) and Arena Stage’s co-production of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding with Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theater for play (which also garnered an ensemble recognition). In the Helen categories, Keegan’s Merrily We Roll Along (which also garnered Sarah Chapin an outstanding performer win) won for musical and 1st Stage’s The Nance won for play. The national tour of SIX at the National Theatre won for non-resident production and Imagination Stage’s Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood was recognized for outstanding Theatre for Young Audiences production. The Charles McArthur Award for New Play or Musical was given to Dahlak Brathwaite and Khiyon Hursey for Long Way Down at Olney Theatre Center.
D.C. native performer, producer, and activist Robert Hooks received the Helen Hayes Tribute for his distinguished career as an actor, producer and political activist who significantly increased the visibility and representation of Black voices in the arts and was a prominent figure in the Black Arts Movement that arose during the Civil Rights era. Hooks founded New York’s Group Theatre Workshop, the Negro Ensemble Company, and the D.C. Black Repertory Company.
Heading into the ceremony, Signature Theatre and the Kennedy Center had the most nominations (24 and 25, respectively). The Kennedy Center won three: for Andy Blankenbeuhler’s choreography, the ensemble in Nine, and Deneé Benton in tick…tick…BOOM! All award recipients can be viewed alphabetically by last name, by theatre company, and by production. Nominations are here.
The ceremony featured performances from the Helen Hayes Awards ensemble of Quadry Brown, Alex De Bard, Caroline Graham, Jordyn Taylor, and Wood Van Meter. The ceremony was directed and choreographed by Ashleigh King (who also won an award for her choreography in Adventure Theatre MTC’s She Persisted) and music directed by Christopher Wingert.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Rorschach Theatre announced the winners and finalists of its Magic in Rough Spaces New Play Lab. The three playwrights receiving developmental readings on June 14 and 15 in Washington, D.C., will be A Single Raindrop by Zachariah Ezer, directed by Henery Wyand; Lost Girls by Paige Conway, directed by Shana Laski; and It Will All Make Sense in the Morning by Erica Smith, directed by Esteban Marmolejo-Suarez. Additional finalists announced earlier this month were:
- Scribe, or The Sisters Milton, or Elegy for the Unwritten by L M Feldman
- Born All Wrong by Ayibatari Owei
- The Leopard Women by Andrew Rincon
- Meet Me in the Nunnery by Amber Smithers
- Where the Dead Women Go to Dance by Stephen Spotswood
- Ghost Forest by Mekala Sridhar
- VHS by Gage Tarlton
- Atrium by Hope Villanueva
- The African Singularity by Louis Williams III
- Coon – A Racoon Play by Henery Wyand
NEW YORK CITY: The Dramatists Guild Foundation and The Lillys announced graduate students Charlene Adhiambo and Amy B. Tion as the 2025 recipients of the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship offered to graduate students in select writing programs nationally. Both will receive a $25,000 stipend for each year of matriculation and up to $75,000 for living expenses, not covered by subsidized tuition.
The fellowship was created as part of the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative and was developed by Julia Jordan and Lynn Nottage as part of the Lillys’ mission of celebrating, funding, and fighting for women by promoting gender and racial parity in the American theatre. This year’s recipients were selected by playwright, screenwriter, and educator Christina Anderson.
Charlene Adhiambo is an MFA candidate in playwriting at Columbia University. She is a proud Kenyan American dramatist raised in Atlanta and based in Harlem. She was a semi-finalist for the Hearth Theater’s 2023 Virtual Retreat, receiving support for her eco-horror SEED, and her one-act, time-travel play Guardian was stage read at Saudade Theatre’s Re-Descobrimentos Festival in 2020. She previously worked as an artistic associate at Obie-award winning PlayCo. BA: Columbia University.
Amy B. Tiong is a Chinese American director and writer. Inspired by her immigrant parents, she has devoted herself to a lifelong love of learning, becoming a Gates Millennium Scholar and NYU Tisch Dean’s Scholar. She is pursuing her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage at Northwestern University. Her work explores themes of solidarity and generational healing through genre-bending storytelling.
DGF manages the $2.5 million Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship endowment and administers awarding of the fellowship each year. DGF is a national charity that fuels the future of American theatre by supporting the writers who create it. DGF fosters playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists at all stages of their careers.
NEW YORK CITY: On May 13, Sweat Variant, a collaboration between Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, announced that Nosarieme Garrick, yuniya edi kwon and Holland Andrews, Cynthia Oliver, and Marjani Forté-Saunders were selected for the 2025 Artists Supporting Artists Program (ASAP), and Berlin-based artist Djibril Sall is the recipient of the Threading Residency.
These two initiatives are committed to community-building and exploring new models for sustaining artists. ASAP provides direct monetary support to contemporary artists and small companies to research and develop new and existing projects. The Threading Residency is designed to support artists who live outside of New York City, who are selected through an annual nomination process, with the opportunity to stay in New York City for three to four weeks while developing a specific project, with an honorarium, travel, housing, studio space, and a daily living stipend provided. During the residency, Sall plans to continue developing his next solo piece in collaboration with experimental musician YATTA.
Established in 2024, both ASAP and the Threading Residency recognize artists who are pushing boundaries and whose work is deeply rooted in rigorous movement-based practice or in live performance. The two programs are centered by the belief that a thriving arts ecosystem depends on a network of mutual support and cultivation among artists.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.: At the 27th Lotte Lenya Competition on May 3, the three top prizes and two discretionary awards were all international artists for the first time, with $93,000 in total awarded to 11 finalists from seven countries and four continents. George Robarts of Great Hormead, U.K., took the first prize of $25,000. Tamara Bounazou of Paris claimed the $20,000 second prize, and Eleonora Hu of Delft, Netherlands, won the $15,000 third prize. Queen Hezumuryango of Bujumbura, Burundi, and Gemma Nha of Sydney, Australia, each won $6,000 discretionary awards for outstanding performance of an individual selection.
Additional finalists receiving $3,000 were Crystal Glenn, Jonathan Heller, Olivia LaPointe, Rebecca Madeira, Schyler Vargas, and Ian Williams. Madeira also received the inaugural Audience Choice Award, taking home $3,000 after performing “When He Sees Me” from Waitress as an additional “crowd-pleasing” number in an evening concert before the awards.
They were judged by Broadway conductor and music director Rob Berman, multi-hyphenate singer-actor-director-teacher Catherine Malfitano, and stage director Alison Moritz. In the semifinals, they were judged by Tony-winning composer Jeanine Tesori and Broadway and opera leading lady Lisa Vroman. The evening concert and awards ceremony were co-hosted by Kurt Weill Foundation Board of Trustees chair Ted Chapin and the Foundation’s director of programs Brady Sansone. The finals can be streamed free and on-demand on their website.
More than a vocal competition, the Lenya Competition recognizes talented young singer/actors who are dramatically and musically convincing in repertoire ranging from opera/operetta to contemporary Broadway scores, with a focus on the works of Kurt Weill.
