Kelsey Grammer & Bebe Neuwirth Announce 2010 Drama League Nominees

In the first major announcement of the 2010 awards season, the Drama League has named its roster of nominees for the season’s best plays, musicals, revivals and performances. In an announcement from Sardi’s on April 20, Kelsey Grammer (La Cage aux Folles) and Bebe Neuwirth (The Addams Family) revealed 57 actors from Broadway and off-Broadway shows who received nominations for the group’s Distinguished Performance Award. Together with eight former winners, the nominees will appear on a dais at the 76th annual Drama League Awards ceremony and luncheon, to be held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel’s Grand Ballroom on May 21. The event will be co-hosted by nominees Vanessa Williams (Sondheim on Sondheim) and her Ugly Betty co-star Michael Urie (The Temperamentals).

A total of nine plays, nine musicals, eight play revivals and five musical revivals were nominated for awards, which will be voted on by members of the Drama League, an association of theater professionals and patrons.

A complete list of nominees follows:

Distinguished Production of a Play
Aftermath by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
A Behanding in Spokane by Martin McDonagh
The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
Enron by Lucy Prebble
Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts
The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell
Red by John Logan
Venus in Fur by David Ives

Distinguished Production of a Musical
The Addams Family
American Idiot
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Brief Encounter
Come Fly Away
Memphis
Million Dollar Quartet
The Scottsboro Boys
Sondheim on Sondheim

Distinguished Revival of a Play
As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon
Collected Stories by Donald Margulies
The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill
Fences by August Wilson
Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig
A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller

Distinguished Revival of a Musical
A Little Night Music
Finian’s Rainbow
La Cage aux Folles
Promises, Promises
Ragtime

Distinguished Performance Award
Nina Arianda, Venus in Fur
Laura Benanti, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play
Barbara Cook, Sondheim on Sondheim
Daniel Craig, A Steady Rain
Tyne Daly, Love, Loss and What I Wore
Hugh Dancy, The Pride
Viola Davis, Fences
Brandon Victor Dixon, The Scottsboro Boys
Colman Domingo, A Boy and His Soul
The Ensemble of Aftermath
The Ensemble of Brief Encounter
Katie Finneran, Promises, Promises
Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
John Gallagher Jr., American Idiot
Victor Garber, Present Laughter
Montego Glover, Memphis
Mark-Paul Gosselaar, The Understudy
Kelsey Grammer, La Cage aux Folles
David Alan Grier, Race
Lance Guest, Million Dollar Quartet
Jonathan Hammond, The Boys in the Band
Valerie Harper, Looped
Sean Hayes, Promises, Promises
Jessica Hecht, A View from the Bridge
Jon Michael Hill, Superior Donuts
Douglas Hodge, La Cage aux Folles
Judith Ivey, The Glass Menagerie, The Lady With All the Answers
Scarlett Johansson, A View from the Bridge
Marc Damon Johnson, The Brother/Sister Plays
Leslie Jordan, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet
Levi Kreis, Million Dollar Quartet
Nathan Lane, The Addams Family
Angela Lansbury, A Little Night Music
Linda Lavin, Collected Stories
Jude Law, Hamlet
Laura Linney, Time Stands Still
Jan Maxwell, Lend Me a Tenor, The Royal Family
Marin Mazzie, Enron
Alfred Molina, Red
Jim Norton, Finian’s Rainbow
Rosie O’Donnell, Love, Loss and What I Wore
Karine Plantadit, Come Fly Away
Eddie Redmayne, Red
Roslyn Ruff, Things of Dry Hours
Tony Shalhoub, Lend Me a Tenor
Jeremy Shamos, Clybourne Park
Anna Deavere Smith, Let Me Down Easy
Bobby Steggert, Ragtime, Yank!
John Douglas Thompson, The Emperor Jones
Michael Urie, The Temperamentals
Tony Vincent, American Idiot
Christopher Walken, A Behanding in Spokane
Benjamin Walker, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Denzel Washington, Fences
Ben Whishaw, The Pride
Vanessa Williams, Sondheim on Sondheim
Catherine Zeta-Jones, A Little Night Music

Eight past recipients of the Distinguished Performance Award will be honored on the dais for their work this season. (The Distinguished Performance Award may only be won once.) They include Norbert Leo Butz (Enron), Kathleen Chalfant (Family Week), Rosemary Harris (The Royal Family), Hugh Jackman (A Steady Rain), John Lithgow (Mr. and Mrs. Fitch), Bebe Neuwirth (The Addams Family), Stephen Rea (Ages of the Moon) and Liev Schreiber (A View from the Bridge).

Earlier this spring, the Drama League announced the recipients of its annual special recognitions: Nathan Lane (The Addams Family) will receive the Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre Award, Kenny Leon (Fences) will be honored with the Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing and Macy’s Parade and Entertainment Group will receive the Unique Contribution to the Theatre Award.