'Spring,' 'Utopia,' Etc. Chosen for Best Plays Yearbook

Continuing a tradition that dates back to 1920, when Burns Mantle founded the annual Best Plays Theater Yearbook, the Best Plays of 2006-2007 were announced today by editor Jeffrey Eric Jenkins.

For the 88th edition, to be published by Limelight Editions in 2008, the annual chronicle of United States theater honors 10 new plays. In addition to the Best Plays of 2006-2007, the volume also honors three regional plays cited in the Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Awards and Citations competition, which is administered by the American Theatre Critics Association. As always, the Best Plays Theater Yearbook will continue to build its ongoing theater history project with a comprehensive collection of facts and figures about the year in United States theater.

The Best Plays of 2006-2007 were chosen from Broadway, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions of new plays that opened between June 1, 2006 and May 31, 2007. The choices were made by the editor after consultation with the Best Plays Theater Yearbook editorial board, which includes Tish Dace, Christine Dolen, Sylviane Gold, Robert Hurwitt, John Istel, Chris Jones, Charles McNulty, Julius Novick, Christopher Rawson, Alisa Solomon, Jeffrey Sweet, Anne Marie Welsh, Linda Winer and Charles Wright. Robert Brustein is consulting editor to the series.

Jenkins, who will survey the Broadway and Off Broadway season, noted that "the end of the theater season often brings hand-wringing and muted cries of desperation for the future of the art form. This season, however, we considered 37 plays as finalists and might easily have chosen 15 of them. The 10 we chose are representative not only of the season as a whole and the quality of the writing we saw but also of the times in which we live." For the 88th edition, Garrett Eisler will explore the Off-Off-Broadway scene in search of highlights for the annual OOB overview.

Each of the Best Plays of 2006-2007 will be celebrated in an essay to be published in The Best Plays Theater Yearbook 2006-2007. The Best Plays of 2006-2007 (in alphabetical order):

Blackbird by David Harrower (Essay by David Cote)
The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl (Essay by Anne Marie Welsh)
The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard (Essay by Charles Wright)
Dying City by Christopher Shinn (Essay by Charles Isherwood)
Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan (Essay by Charles McNulty)
The Pain and the Itch by Bruce Norris (Essay by John Istel)
Passing Strange by Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Essay by Alisa Solomon)
Radio Golf by August Wilson (Essay by Christopher Rawson)
The Scene by Theresa Rebeck (Essay by Chris Jones)
Spring Awakening by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik (Essay by Michael Feingold)

Visit www.bestplays.org for more information.