by Ron Fassler . . .
On June 18th, upstairs at Sardi’s Restaurant, the Off-Broadway Alliance held its 13th annual awards ceremony honoring the best of Off-Broadway for the 2023-24 season. The organization is made up of producers, general managers, venue owners, press agents and marketing personnel dedicated to promoting and supporting Off-Broadway theater. As the mission statement on their website states, they are all about “encouraging and assisting new producers and making live theater increasingly accessible to new and diverse audiences.” It’s true what the group’s President Peter Breger had to say about what makes Off-Broadway so unique, noting “it’s scrappy and transgressive and always pushing the envelope whether the culture likes it or not.”
Breger presided as host in charge of handing out the awards that consisted of Best New Musical, Best New Play, Best Revival, Best Unique Theatrical Experience, Best Solo Performance, and Best Family Show. The ceremony was also enriched by what the OBA deem its Legacy Awards, voted upon by special committee to honor very special people each year.
On hand to accept and make speeches were the prolific theatre actress Marylouise Burke, still going strong at eighty-three, and the truly legendary Len Cariou who, among his sixty years of credits, includes creating the roles of Frederick Egerman in A Little Night Music and the title character of Sweeney Todd. Recently, he had a personal triumph in a superb production of Mitch Alboum’s Tuesdays at Morrie’s, adapted by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher from the best-selling book, proof positive there’s still plenty of roar in the old lion. Cariou, now eighty-four, used some of his time at the microphone to ask anyone in the room amongst its producers to kick in and help get Morrie a run in another theatre so more people can see it than the handful that packed an old church in Grammercy Park this past winter.
In speaking autobiographically of the years she learned her craft Off-Broadway, Marylouise Burke mentioned jokingly how she moved to New York from her hometown of Steelton, PA in order “to have more opportunities to act for free.” A bit overwhelmed by all the fuss, she said just before leaving the stage that “words fail me. That’s why writers do it for me.”
And as Len Cariou remarked, with a smile on his face, “It’s nice to reach legendary status if you’re still working.” And not only did Cariou receive his prize, but the producers of Tuesdays With Morrie won Best Play.
Another thing that sets OBA apart from other awards organizations are inductees to their Off-Broadway Hall of Fame, with some honored posthumously. This year, the recently departed Edgar Lansbury, a producer and designer of unique talents and Christopher Durang, one of the most creative and hilarious playwrights of the last fifty years, were chosen. While accepting the certificates on their loved ones’ behalf, David Lansbury, Edgar’s son, made a beautiful and heartfelt speech that was tough for him to get through at times, as his father’s passing was only this past month. John Augustine, Durang’s husband, didn’t have an easy time of it either, what with Durang’s death being this past April, though he used a good deal of humor to push through the tears.
Longtime theatre critic, historian and playwright Michael Feingold was the final of the Legacy Award recipients, whose longtime advocacy of Off-Broadway was acknowledged. He was the chief critic at the Village Voice for more than thirty years. With arts journalism something of an endangered species, it was timely that Time Out critic Adam Feldman was present to accept his specially voted upon award as a “Friend of Off-Broadway” for career achievement. In his wonderful speech, he expressed affection for the somewhat dying art of those like himself who work tirelessly to give back to the theatre community with what he called “a deep and abiding passionate love for the art form.”
All in all, the thirteenth annual OBA Awards presentation was a joyous afternoon of comradery and professionalism, practiced by those who walk the walk and talk the talk. For a complete list of winners, click here.
All photos credit Donna Svennevik
