Broadway News & Features

2023 Drama Desk Award Winners announced

The Drama Desk has announced the winners of the 67th annual Drama Desk Awards, recognizing excellence in Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-offBroadway productions during the 2022-23 season. The Drama Desk Awards ceremony, co-hosted by Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody, will take place on June 6 at Sardi’s Restaurant in New York City. This year, all performance categories are gender-free and award two winners. A group of journalists, editors, and publishers covering theatre vote on the nominations...

How the authors of '& Juliet' and 'Fat Ham' shook up Shakespeare classics

Don’t just brush up on your Shakespeare – shake it up! Two writers earned Tony Award nominations this season for tapping into the Bard’s classic plays in innovative ways. Though their works are worlds apart, there’s a common thread: Both consider the impact of choosing life over death. Emmy-winning Schitt's Creek writer David West Read, who’s now up for Best Book of a Musical for & Juliet, began with Romeo & Juliet and a “what if.” He imagined a story in which the lovestruck heroine doesn’t kill...

'New York, New York' first-time Tony nominees on celebrating the city they love

They're finally a part of it — the ranks of Tony Award nominees, that is. The world-premiere musical New York, New York burst onto Broadway in March with Kander and Ebb and Lin-Manuel Miranda songs, explosive energy, and a whole lot of NYC love, much of which comes from new talent, new talent. Or at least newly recognized. Nominees Colton Ryan (Best Actor in a Musical), Sharon Washington (Best Book of a Musical) and Donna Zakowska (Best Costume Design of a Musical) have all been in the...

The cast of 'Kimberly Akimbo' on how the story got better with age

The new musical Kimberly Akimbo has been decades in the making — well, sort of. David Lindsay-Abaire’s same-named play Kimberly Akimbo premiered with Manhattan Theatre Club in 2003, and his musicalized version premiered with Atlantic Theater Company in 2021 before quickly transferring to Broadway the following year. Now a contender for the Tony Award for Best New Musical, Kimberly Akimbo follows Kimberly Levaco, a 16-year-old teen in New Jersey with a rare disease that causes her to age four...

'Leopoldstadt' designers on how the play resonates across time and space

A Broadway designer's challenge is to immerse audiences in another place and time, conjuring it well enough that they feel a part of it even if they've never been. For the team behind Leopoldstadt, a 2023 Best Play nominee by Tom Stoppard, that's a loaded task. On the one hand, Leopoldstadt is a lively drama about an extended Jewish family in 20th-century Austria, and its success comes from the fact that "we're invited into the Merz-Jacobowitzes' commonplace gatherings, debates, trysts,...

How Max Martin shaped '& Juliet' on its road to Broadway

Think you haven't heard of Max Martin? Think again. You're more familiar with the Swedish music executive than you know if you've heard Britney Spears's "...Baby One More Time," Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," The Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," or dozens of other chart-toppers the five-time Grammy Award winner wrote and/or produced over the past three decades. He is, to be fair, a famously private person. And unless they also perform their tunes, songwriters don't often get public attention...

Six Pulitzer-Prize winning plays are nominated for Tony Awards this season

For the past 105 years, the Pulitzer Prizes have highlighted achievements in the arts, journalism, and literature. Many notable and impactful plays have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but that’s not the be-all-end-all of their recognition. Six Pulitzer-winning plays, classic and new, went up this Broadway season alone. What’s more, they all earned Tony nominations: Fat Ham, Topdog/Underdog, Between Riverside and Crazy, Cost of Living, The Piano Lesson, and Death of a Salesman....

'New York, New York' tickets on sale through January 2024

Start spreading the news! New York, New York has released a new ticket block, with Broadway performances now on sale through January 14, 2024. Get New York, New York tickets now. New York, New York centers on the against-all-odds love story between Jimmy and Francine, two young musicians in 1946 Manhattan. The show also follows various other young artists as they seek success, or just survival, in the city. The show is loosely based on the 1977 Martin Scorsese film, which features songs by John...

Tonys times two: Meet the Broadway artists nominated for two Tonys this season

The old adage says lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but this year, some Tony Award nominees are defying that logic. “Anything is possible!” said Natasha Katz, who is nominated for her lighting designs for both Sweeney Todd and Some Like It Hot. While the recognition is undoubtedly nice, per Katz, “It’s the community that I cherish so much. To be embraced like this feels incredible.” Katz has long been a Broadway mainstay, first earning a Tony nod for Beauty and the Beast in 1994...

Top theatre to see in New York in June

The official start of summer isn't until later in June, but you can get in the summer mood all month by planning an escape — at the theatre, that is! Theatre is a great way to travel to new worlds and escape the routine of daily life without jet lag or carsickness. And if you've already traveled just to get to New York, then make sure a show or two is a must-see item on your itinerary. Broadway and Off-Broadway shows in June will whisk you away to places near and far, real and fantastical....