SHUCKED, SOME LIKE IT HOT Lead 2023 Drama Desk Award Nominations
Nominees for the 2023 Drama Desk Awards have been revealed, with the musicals Shucked and Some Like It Hot leading the pack. Shucked scored 12 nods, and Some Like It Hot received 8.
Competing with Shucked and Some Like It Hot for Outstanding Musical are & Juliet, off-Broadway's Between the Lines, F*ck7thGrade from The Wild Project, and White Girl in Danger from Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theatre.
The nominees for Outstanding Play are a combination of Broadway and off-Broadway productions: Samuel D. Hunter's A Case for the Existence of God, 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames' Fat Ham, Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt, Alexander Zeldin's Love, 2023 Olivier Award winner Suzie Miller's Prima Facie, and Sanaz Toosi's Wish You Were Here.
This year, the Drama Desk has made all performance categories gender-free, as they were for the first 19 years of the awards' existence. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical. Each of these categories has twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.
The Harold S. Prince Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Stephen McKinley Henderson this year, who returned to Broadway this season as Pops in Between Riverside and Crazy. He was previously nominated for a Drama Desk award for his portrayal of the role in 2015. This award marks Henderson's role in this powerful production as a celebration of his brilliant career.
In addition, the Ensemble Award (a new award as of last year) will be given to the cast of Soho Rep’s Public Obscenities – Tashnuva Anan, Abrar Haque, Golam Sarwar Harun, Gargi Mukherjee, NaFis, Jakeem Dante Powell, and Debashis Roy Chowdhury. They embodied the transnational world of Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s bilingual play with memorable authenticity, remarkable specificity, and extraordinary warmth.
The Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award will be given to Ryan J. Haddad. From his standout performance in american (tele)visions, to writing and performing the autobiographical Dark Disabled Stories, Ryan J. Haddad’s work this season has expanded on and interrogated what the idea of “accessibility” really means. Whether riding a shopping cart like a throne, or relating his experiences on a “gay, pink bus,” Haddad shared with audiences an unabashed queer fabulosity that was both unforgettable and deeply human.
For a full list of nominees, click here.
