The Drama Critics' Circle met tonight at the offices of Time Out New York Magazine to select the winners of the 75th annual New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.
The Orphans' Home Cycle, written by Horton Foote, today won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (NYDCC) for Best Play of the 2009-2010 season. No awards were given for Best Musical or Best Foreign Play. The selection was made at the 75th annual voting meeting of the organization today at the offices of Time Out New York in Manhattan.
Special Citations were awarded to Lincoln Center Festival for visionary international programming and Viola Davis for sustained achievement; and an Emerging Artist Special Citation was awarded to Annie Baker for Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens.
For more information on the New York Drama Critics' Circle and details of this year's voting, visit www.dramacritics.org.
The awards will be presented at a cocktail reception to be held on Monday, May 10, at the Algonquin Hotel, where the NYDCC was founded in 1935 by such legendary critics as Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell and Robert Benchley.
The New York Drama Critics' Circle comprises 22 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines, wire services, and websites based in the New York metropolitan area. The New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, which has been awarded every year since 1936 to the best new play of the season (with optional awards for foreign or American plays, musicals and performers), is the nation's second oldest theatre award, after the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The prestigious award for best play carries with it a cash prize of $2,500. Also, a cash award of $1,000 will go to the playwright who receives the award for best American or foreign play. The awards are made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.
Adam Feldman, theatre critic for Time Out New York, has served as president of the NYDCC since 2005. Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Post serves as vice president; Joe Dziemianowicz of the Daily News is treasurer. Eric Grode is recording secretary.
In addition to Feldman, Vincentelli, Dziemianowicz, and Grode, the members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle are: Hilton Als of The New Yorker; Melissa Rose Bernardo of Entertainment Weekly; David Cote of Time Out New York; Michael Feingold of the Village Voice; Robert Feldberg of the Bergen Record; David Finkle of TheaterMania.com; Elysa Gardner of USA Today; Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press; David Rooney; Frank Scheck of the New York Post; David Sheward of Back Stage; John Simon of Bloomberg News; Alexis Soloski of the Village Voice; Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal; Linda Winer of Newsday; and Richard Zoglin of Time. Howard Kissel and Michael Sommers serve as emeritus members.
