Skip to main content

Thoughts on the 2018 Lucille Lortel Nominations

Here are a few thoughts on the Lucille Lortel Award nominations that were announced earlier this week:
  • It seems bizarre that Mary Jane by Amy Herzog was not nominated for Outstanding Play. First of all, it received six other nominations, so the committee clearly liked it. Second, it is one of the best things of the season, in my opinion, and a much stronger offering than basically everything else in the category, especially The Treasurer and Pipeline.
  • It also would've been nice to see Amy and the Orphans remembered for Outstanding Play.
  • The Outstanding Musical is downright embarrassing. Bella and Hundred Days are two of the worst things I've ever seen, and the praise Desperate Measures received is baffling. It's akin to a well-done high school production, amateurish in every way.
  • The Outstanding Revival category contains four of my favorite shows of the season: Jesus Hopped the A Train, Torch Song, Fucking A, and In the Blood. While I thought The Government Inspector was a little too thin to justify its run time, it was still a well-done production with a terrific performance by Michael Urie at the center. There will be a very worthy winner regardless of the outcome.
  • Surely there were more than two worthy choices for Outstanding Solo Show, right? What happened there? And if Harry Clarke does not beat the fifty minute skit that was Who's Holiday then there is no justice.
  • It's nice to see the Outstanding Director category practically filled with all women. 
  • Two of my favorite performances of the season were included in the Outstanding Actor in a Play category: Sean Carvajel for Jesus Hopped the A Train and Michael Urie for Torch Song. It will be criminal if Urie does not win here but Carvajel's performance was impressive, and not just because he took over the role two days before previews began. It's also nice to see Peter Friedman nominated. He was the only redeeming thing about The Treasurer.
  • It would've been nice to see Jamie Brewer nominated for Amy and the Orphans.
  • Also very, very, very happy to see Edi Gathegi remembered. Another one of my favorite performances of the season, and I'm worried both he and Carvajel won't be remembered by other awards bodies this season.
  • Although I pretty much disliked everything about The Lucky Ones, Damon Daunno still has one of the best voices in theater, so good for him for being nominated.
  • The less said about Abigail Bengson in Hundred Days the better.
  • It's nice to see Brandon Gill, who gave two great performances in Bella and Too Heavy for Your Pocket remembered for the former. Although I vehemently disliked the show, he was the one bright spot and I think he's immensely talented.
  • Surprising to see Hangmen only getting one nomination for Outstanding Scenic Design. While I had many issues with it, I still think Johnny Flynn deserved a nomination. 
  • I also would've liked to see Saycon Sengbloh or Christine Lahti nominated.
  • Once more for good measure: Michael Urie.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell at the Roundabout Theatre Company

During the writing workshops I took as a student, writers were often told, "you have all of this information in your head but none of it is on the page. We don't know what you know." Someone should've said that to Alexi Kaye Campbell while writing his play Apologia . Apologia takes place in the English countryside house of expat Kristin Miller, who was some sort of political activist (just in title, we never really know what she does per say, but Vietnam is mentioned) and some sort of super famous art historian (I know what you're thinking: those exist?) who has written a memoir that excludes all mention of the sons she basically abandoned when they were children. Oh, yes, and it's her birthday, which is just an excuse for her family to gather at that very moment. Yes, this is a classic version of what I like to call a "family gathers, secrets revealed" play. So Kristin's son, the one who has his shit together, Peter, arrives with his Ameri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yerma by Simon Stone at the Park Avenue Armory

Simon Stone's new adaptation of Lorca's Yerma now playing at the Park Avenue Armory is one of the most interesting productions I've ever seen. Stone, who also directs, has created a unique vision and staging, and gets terrific performances by his cast (especially Billie Piper). Unfortunately his own adaptation lets the production down. Yerma has a simple plot: a woman wants to have a child, and the obsession over conceiving one completely takes over her life and ruins it. The Lorca original makes this a community and social issue; it is the woman's duty to provide her husband with an heir, and if she cannot, she will be ostracized by society. Stone's version has set it in the twenty-first century, a time during which is it not out of the ordinary for women to remain childless. Of course, some stigma still exists around women not becoming mothers (whether by choice or otherwise), no matter how much we tell ourselves that women have the choice to do whatever they wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fireflies by Donja R. Love at the Atlantic Theater Company

Okay, look, I get it, two-handers are tough. You have two characters with which to tell your story, and you have to somehow tell this story with as little exposition as possible. You have to show, not tell. Are you listening, Donja Love? Love's current play, Fireflies , tells the story of a married African American couple in 1963. He's a preacher, traveling the southern part of the country to speak at the funerals of other African Americans who have died due to racial terrorism. (When the play begins, the church bombing that claimed the lives of four little girls in Birmingham has just occurs.) She's a doting and devoted housewife who goes so far as to write her husband's speeches and sermons for him. But what her husband, Charles, doesn't know is that she secretly smokes, she wants to abort the baby she's carrying, and she writes explicit letters to a woman she's in love with whom she only met once, briefly. Oh, and did I mention she, Olivia, has PTSD a...
Post a Comment
Read more