LEOPOLDSTADT and DOWNSTATE Win 2023 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards
No award was given for best musical. The selections were made at the organization’s 87th annual voting meeting.
By: Nicole Rosky May. 08, 2023
The New York Drama Critics' Circle today named Bruce Norris's Downstate best play of the 2022-23 season. The award for best foreign play went to Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt. No award was given for best musical. The selections were made at the organization's 87th annual voting meeting.
The awards, which will be presented during a private ceremony on Tuesday, May 22, include a cash prize of $2,500 for Best Play and $1,000 for Best Foreign Play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.
Special citations were awarded to the Broadway revival of Parade, to playwright Adrienne Kennedy for lifetime achievement, and to La Mama Experimental Theatre Club for ongoing achievement in Off-Off Broadway theater.
Downstate, written by Bruce Norris and directed by Pam McKinnon, had its New York premiere on November 15, 2022, at Playwrights Horizons; it closed January 7, 2023. The play had its world premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in October 2018.
Leopoldstadt, written by Tom Stoppard and directed by Patrick Marber, had its American premiere on October 2, 2023, at Broadway's Longacre Theatre where it currently plays. The play had its world premiere in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End.
The New York Drama Critics' Circle comprises 20 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 special achievements), is the nation's second-oldest playwriting award, after the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Adam Feldman, theater critic and editor for Time Out New York, has served as president of the NYDCC since 2005. Joe Dziemianowicz serves as vice president; Zachary Stewart is treasurer.
In addition to Feldman, Dziemianowicz and Stewart, the members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle are David Barbour, David Cote, Vinson Cunningham, Greg Evans, David Finkle, Elysa Gardner, Robert Hofler, Charles Isherwood, Chris Jones, Soraya Nadia McDonald, Johnny Oleksinski, Frank Scheck, Helen Shaw, David Sheward, Marilyn Stasio, Elisabeth Vincentelli and Matt Windman. Emeritus members include Melissa Rose Bernardo, Christopher Kelly, Brian Scott Lipton, David Rooney, Michael Sommers, Steven Suskin and Linda Winer.
For more information on the New York Drama Critics' Circle, please visit www.dramacritics.org. A full breakdown of this year's voting will be posted tonight on the organization's website.
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