Irons & Nixon to Host 75th Annual Drama League Awards 5/15

The Drama League (Jano Herbosch, President) is pleased to announce that Jeremy Irons (Broadway's Impressionism) and Cynthia Nixon (Off-Broadway's Distracted at the Roundabout Theatre Company), who first starred together as father and daughter in the 1984 Broadway production of The Real Thing, will reunite this spring to serve as co-hosts for The 75th Annual Drama League Awards Ceremony and Luncheon.

This season's awards luncheon is set for Friday, May 15, 2009 in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square (1535 Broadway at 46th St.). The event begins at noon.

Long considered the theatre season's most festive award ceremony, The Drama League Awards pays tribute to the season's best performers by including the nominees of The Distinguished Performance Award on a dais. The 75th Annual Drama League Awards dais will feature approximately 60-70 stars from the 2008-09 Broadway and Off-Broadway season.

In addition to The Distinguished Performance Award,The Drama League's 3,000 members vote on four other annual awards: Distinguished Production of a Play, Distinguished Production of a Musical, Distinguished Revival of a Play and Distinguished Revival of a Musical. Nominations for these five awards will be announced on Tuesday, April 21.

Tickets for The 75th Annual Drama League Awards Ceremony and Luncheon are now available by calling 212-244-9494 ext 5.

Single Ticket Prices Now Through March 31:
$400 -- VIP Seats (includes pre-luncheon reception with nominees)
$350 -- Diamond Seats
$275 -- Platinum Seats
$250 -- Gold Seats
$175 -- Silver Seats

Single Ticket Prices After March 31:
$475 -- VIP Seats (includes pre-luncheion reception with nominees)
$375 -- Diamond Seats
$300 -- Platinum Seats
$250 -- Gold Seats
$175 -- Silver Seats

For more information, please visit www.dramaleague.org.

Last season, Drama League Awards were presented to Patti LuPone (Distinguished Performance), August: Osage County (Distinguished Production of a Play), A Catered Affair (Distinguished Production of a Musical), the Brooklyn Academy Of Music production of Macbeth (Distinguished Revival of a Play) and the Lincoln Center Theatre production of South Pacific (Distinguished Revival of a Musical).

The first Drama League Award was presented to actress Katharine Cornell in 1935, making it the oldest National Theatre honor, predating the Tony Awards by twelve years, as well as the first audience-selected award for distinguished performance in a theatrical production.

Of that very first Drama League Award, the New York Post reported the following on May 17, 1935:

"The especial merit of this medal, which The Drama League plans
from now on to award each spring, is that it may do its much-needed
part in persuading playgoers to think more deeply about the subtleties
and difficulties of the actor's craft. Accordingly, any award such as
this Drama League medal, which Miss Cornell has won and which means
that a body of intelligent playgoers will be asked each season to vote
intelligently upon the work of actors they have seen, can only be
welcomed as an encouraging step forward in the right direction."

Throughout the past 75 years, the Distinguished Performance Award has been accorded to a roster of theatre legends such as RoseMary Harris, Christopher Plummer, Sir Ian McKellen, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones, John Lithgow, Stockard Channing, Glenn Close, Bebe Neuwirth, Cherry Jones, Mary-Louise Parker, Liam Neeson, Harvey Fierstein, Norbert Leo Butz and Christine Ebersole, among others.

THE DRAMA LEAGUE

The Drama League was founded in 1916 as an association of theatre professionals and patrons dedicated to encouraging the finest in professional theatre and has since then developed into the theatre's premiere service organization. The Drama League provides an unparalleled training program for emerging theatre artists through The Directors Project, which encourages and trains young talents while providing much-needed exposure and essential connections to the professional theatrical community.

The Drama League's Audience Project is dedicated to building strong, passionate audiences for the American theatre, providing discounted tickets for its members to the best Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional productions across the United States while enhancing the theatergoer's understanding and experience of live theatre through its informative panels, luncheons and discussions with leading figures in the field.

Jeremy Irons is currently starring in Broadway's Impressionism, a new play by Michael Jacobs, directed by Jack O'Brien. Trained at Bristol Old Vic. London Theatre: Godspell, Rear Column, Embers. RSC: Wild Oats, Winter's Tale, Richard 11, The Rover. National Theatre: Never So Good. NY: The Real Thing (Tony, Drama League Awards), A Little Night Music. Film includes: Dead Ringers (NY Critics Best Actor), Reversal of Fortune (Academy, Golden Globe Awards), Betrayal, French Lieutenant's Woman, Moonlighting, Mission, Kafka, Waterland, Damage, M.Butterfly, The Lion King (voice of Scar), Diehard with a Vengeance, Stealing Beauty, Lolita, Man in the Iron Mask, Eragon, Merchant of Venice, Being Julia, Casanova, Kingdom of Heaven, Appaloosa. TV: "Langrishe Go Down," "Brideshead Revisited," "Tales from Hollywood," "Longitude," "Elizabeth" (Emmy, Globe, SAG Awards). Directed Mirad a Boy from Bosnia. Other Awards: European Film Academy, Cezar, Officier des Artes et Lettres.

Cynthia Nixon can currently be seen in Roundabout Theatre Company's Distracted, a new play by Lisa Loomer, directed by Mark Brokaw. She won a Theater World Award at age fourteen for her stage debut in Ellis Rabb's production of The Philadelphia Story at Lincoln Center and a Tony Award in 2006 for her performance in David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole for Manhattan Theater Club. At age eighteen, while a first-semester freshman at Barnard College, she appeared simultaneously in two Broadway productions: David Rabe's Hurlyburly and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, both directed by Mike Nichols. Cynthia's other Broadway credits include Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, Indiscretions (Tony nomination), The Women (Roundabout), Tony Kushner's Angels in America and Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo. She most recently appeared on the New York stage in Scott Elliott's revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for The New Group. For her television work, Cynthia has received four Emmy nominations, five Golden Globe nominations and six SAG award nominations for "Sex and the City" and "Warm Springs," having been honored with an Emmy Award, two SAG Awards and a Lucy Award for "Sex and the City." She was also recently honored with a Grammy Award for the recording of "An Inconvenient Truth". Her recent film credits include Little Manhattan, One Last Thing and Sex and the City.