GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics kicked off Pride Month by awarding John Proctor is the Villain and Cats: The Jellicle Ball top honours in the group’s third annual Dorian Theater Awards.
Both productions won three awards each, making them the most awarded shows of the year. The Dorian Theater Awards, decided on by GALECA’s theatre wing, honours the best Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in the United States, from mainstream to LGBTQ+ productions.
Kimberly Bellflower’s new play, John Proctor is the Villain, earned three Dorian Theater Awards, more than any other Broadway production. The drama, in which contemporary high schoolers recontextualise Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, was awarded prizes for Outstanding Broadway Play, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play for Fina Strazza, and Outstanding Broadway Ensemble.
Other Broadway categories saw Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day win the Outstanding Broadway Play Revival prize, Maybe Happy Ending win the Outstanding Broadway Musical, and Sunset Blvd. win the Outstanding Broadway Musical Revival prize.
Voters rewarded a different musical revival in Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Musical, handing the award to Audra McDonald for her portrayal of Momma Rose in Gypsy. These two acclaimed revivals pulled off a tie victory for The Broadway Showstopper Award. This category recognises standout production numbers and scenes. Voters were equally enamored with the roaming, outdoor rendition of “Sunset Boulevard” as sung by Tom Francis, and McDonald’s towering rendition of the Gypsy finale, “Rose’s Turn.”
The musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her, which was the most nominated production of the year, won the award for Outstanding LGBTQ Broadway production—the musical features Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard as camp queer icons Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp.
The theatre wing honoured two solo performances within their acting categories. Sarah Snook won Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Play for tackling 26 different roles in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Andrew Scott won Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Production for his one-man adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, simply titled Vanya.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball dominated the Off-Broadway categories. This radical reinvention of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical set the story in the world of ballroom. It won three Dorian Theater Awards, including Outstanding Off-Broadway production, Outstanding LGBTQ Off-Broadway Production, and Outstanding Featured Performance in an Off-Broadway production for André De Shields. De Shields was also awarded GALECA’s LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer Award, a distinction which celebrates an individual’s lifelong commitment to creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity.
The group’s other special prize, the LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season award, was bestowed upon two people due to a tie in voting: Jonathan Groff and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Groff currently stars as Bobby Darin in the hit bio-musical Just in Time (for which he received a Dorian Award nomination). Jacobs-Jenkins is the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play Purpose.
“This Pride month, I’m feeling extra proud of the queer journalists of our theater wing, who have uplifted delightfully bold work with this year’s awards,” said GALECA theater wing co-chair Sam Eckmann. “Revivals like Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Sunset Blvd. dared to excavate well-worn material to find new meanings. New works like Maybe Happy Ending and John Proctor is the Villain reached into our souls with a striking sense of poignancy. A hearty congratulations to all of this year’s winners.”
For the full list of winners, follow the link.
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