Broadway's Tony Awards: Are Drama Desk Award Wins Accurate Predictors?
Sunday, June 3rd, the 57th Annual Drama Desk Awards were held in NYC at Town Hall. Brooke Shields and Brian D'Arcy James hosted the streamed live show with no commercial interruptions.
The Drama Desk Awards, formed in 1949 by a group of New York theater critics, editors, reporters and publishers are the only major New York theater honors which include awards for Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway.
A poor theater cousin of the 66th Annual Tony's, the Drama Desks would never garner the glamor and the commercial support that the glitzy Tonys will bring this Sunday with high profile stars like nominated Ricky Martin, performing a number from Evita where he is currently starring as Che, and Raul Esparza, performing a song from Leap of Faith, a show he starred in that barely ran and was pecked by critics like chickens on a blood spot.
The presenter's list is growing and includes Tyler Perry, Nick Jonas, Amanda Seyfried, Paul Rudd, Ellen Barkin, Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Candice Bergen, Christopher Plummer, James Marsden, Mandy Patinkin and Sheryl Crow. "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, last year's award winners for their hit musical "The Book of Mormon" will bestow awards after sharing their spot on humorous perceptions. The show airs on CBS, at 8:00 pm, and will be hosted by the versatile and irrepressible Neil Patrick Harris.
Were Sunday night's Drama Desk wins a foretaste of who will win the Tony's? Perhaps with regard to the musical portion, however, the categories differed because of the Off-Broadway inclusions. For best play, Pulitzer Prize winning Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris is slated as a favorite amongst the other plays a few notches ranking (click the link to the left to see odds) above Other Desert Cities. The Drama Desk panel didn't even nominate Clybourne Park or Other Desert Cities. Instead, Tribes, an Off-Broadway production won the Drama Desk for Outstanding Play. In fact that was the only Off-Broadway production that won an award. The brilliant BAM production Richard III (nominated for Outstanding Revival) and starring nominated Kevin Spacey (Outstanding Actor in a Play) who showed up for interviews at Town Hall was cold shouldered. It wasn't even nominated for a Tony, talk about a snub!
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