2015 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards Go to HAMILTON and More Tonight

The New York Drama Critics' Circle previously named Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Guirgis, best play of the 2014-15 season. Hamilton was named best musical.

The selections were made at the organization's 80th annual voting meeting, at the offices of Time Out New York in Manhattan. The awards will be presented at a private cocktail reception tonight, May 19.

The award for best play carries a cash prize of $2,500. The prize is made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Austin Pendleton, opened at the Atlantic Theater Company on July 30, 2014. The production transferred to Second Stage Theatre where it opened for a limited run on February 10, 2015, and closed March 22, 2015.

In BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY, City Hall is demanding more than his signature, the landlord wants him out, the liquor store is closed - and the Church won't leave him alone. For ex-cop and recent widower Walter "Pops" Washington and his recently paroled son Junior, the struggle to hold on to one of the last great rent stabilized apartments on Riverside Drive collides with old wounds, sketchy new houseguests, and a final ultimatum in this dark comedy from the Tony-nominated author of The Motherf*ucker with the Hat and Jesus Hopped the A Train. For Pops and Junior, it seems the Old Days are dead and gone - after a lifetime living Between Riverside and Crazy.

Hamilton, book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, directed by Thomas Kail, opened at the Public Theater on February 16, 2015; it closed May 3, 2015. The production transfers to Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre on July 13, 2015.

In Hamilton, Tony and Grammy Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda wields his pen and takes the stage as the unlikely founding father determined to make his mark on a new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is. From bastard orphan to Washington's right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, Hamilton is an exploration of a political mastermind. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Eliza Hamilton, and lifelong Hamilton friend and foe, Aaron Burr, all attend this revolutionary tale of America's fiery past told through the sounds of the ever-changing nation we've become.

Special citations were voted for the theater company Ars Nova and for designer Bob Crowley who is represented this season by the Broadway productions of An American in Paris, The Audience, and Skylight.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle comprises 23 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 theater award, after the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Adam Feldman, theater 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.

In addition to Feldman, Vincentelli, and Dziemianowicz, the members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle are: Hilton Als, The New Yorker; Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly; David Cote,Time Out New York; Michael Feingold, TheaterMania; Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record; Elysa Gardner, USA Today; Jeremy Gerard, Deadline; Jesse Green, New York; Mark Kennedy, Associated Press; David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter; Frank Scheck, New York Post; Tom Sellar, Village Voice; David Sheward, Theaterlife; John Simon, Yonkers Tribune; Marilyn Stasio, Variety; Zachary Stewart, TheaterMania; Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal; Matt Windman, amNewYork; Linda Winer,Newsday; and Richard Zoglin, Time. Emeritus members include David Finkle, Brian Scott Lipton, Jesse Oxfeld, Michael Sommers and Steven Suskin.

For more information on the New York Drama Critics' Circle and for details on the vote, visit www.dramacritics.org.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus