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Nominations for the 69th annual Drama Desk Awards were announced Wednesday by Tony- and Grammy-nominated actor Norm Lewis. Winners will be announced on June 1, at a ceremony taking place at NYU Skirball and hosted by Debra Messing and Tituss Burgess.

The Drama Desk Awards are unique in the landscape of New York theater, as they are the only place where Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off Broadway compete within the same categories. The nominating committee of the 2025 Drama Desk Awards comprises Chair Martha Wade Steketee, Linda Armstrong, Daniel Dinero, Peter Filichia, Kenji Fujishima, Raven Snook, and Charles Wright.

The Broadway transfers of Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, English, Job, and Oh, Mary! were not eligible for these kudos, having already competed for their off-Broadway runs.

Boop! The Musical clearly captured the hearts of the nominators. The infectiously upbeat tuner is the most nominated production, with 11 nominations. Nipping at its heels is...

Producers for the 76th annual Emmy Awards have been editing the special “In Memoriam” segment to be featured on Sunday’s ABC ceremony. Since the most recent ceremony was delayed until mid-January, there are only eight months of TV legends who have died instead of the typical 12 months.

We have assembled a list of people below who might be selected. Members of the academy’s TV Hall of Fame are host and producer Phil Donahue, anchor and journalist Robert MacNeil, lighting designer Bill Klages and actor and comedian Bob Newhart. Some of the previous Emmy winners and nominees include previous academy president Leo Chaloukian, actor Bill Cobbs, actor Dabney Coleman, actress Shelley Duvall, actor and writer Joe Flaherty, director Jerry Foley, actor Louis Gossett Jr., actor Bill Hayes, actor James Earl Jones, host Peter Marshall, actor and comedian Martin Mull, actress Gena Rowlands, actor James B. Sikking, actor Donald Sutherland and actor Carl Weathers.

New York’s July heat wave is doing nothing to wilt the prospects of some recent Broadway arrivals, with four spring-summer arrivals filling each and every seat at their respective venues last week: Oh, Mary!, The Outsiders, Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen were sell-outs for the week ending July 14.

Long-runners Hadestown and Hamilton were Sro, as usual, grossing $825,070 and $1,922,308, respectively.

Oh, Mary!, the Cole Escola comedy that opened July 11 to across-the-board raves, grossed $667,143; The Outsiders was at $1,390,233; Stereophonic grossed $983,845; and Hell’s Kitchen was at $1,687,326.

Closing soon are:

Home, the Roundabout’s well-reviewed Samm-Art Williams revival. Last week, a planned-seven performance week at the Todd Haimes grossed $133,600; closing July 21; The Who’s Tommy took in $772,892 at the Nederlander; closing July 21; Illinoise, which began an eight-performance schedule last week at the St. James, grossed $745,520; closing August 10; The Wiz grossed a magical $1,240,166 last week at the Marquis; closing August 18.

In all, the 26 Broadway...

FX’s “The Bear” has been the series equivalent of a three-star Michelin, James Beard Award-winning restaurant since its premiere in 2022. Created by writer/director/product Christopher Storer, the hit show revolves around Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a chef from the fine dining world in New York, who returns to his home in Chicago to run the family’s sandwich shop after the suicide of his brother. The first season won 10 Emmys including best comedy series and actor in a comedy series for White. Besides earning a Peabody, “The Bear” also performed well at the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes. The second season is a strong Emmy contender and the third season which just dropped will probably follow suit in 2025.

Since the early days of TV, restaurants, nightclubs, coffee shops, bars and diners have played an important role in countless series including the beloved multi-Emmy Award-winning 1982-93 NBC sitcom “Cheers”. In fact,...

Broadway is heading into its final pre-Tony weeks doing robust business, with box office for last week up 7% over the previous week, nine shows selling out (including the two most-nominated productions) and ticket-buyers for two nominated musicals shelling out more than an average $200 per seat.

In all, the 35 shows grossed a total $36,011,651 for the week ending June 9, a 16% increase over last season at this time. Total attendance was 291,082, a 4% increase over the previous week and up 14% year-to-year. About 89% of seats were filled.

Among the shows selling out were Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen, this year’s most-Tony-nominated productions. Best Play nominee Stereophonic grossed $872,337 and Best Musical nominee Hell’s Kitchen took in $1,638,208. Average ticket prices for each hovered around the $140 mark.

Two other sell-outs – Merrily We Roll Along and Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club – had average ticket prices far above the $124 overall average.

Broadway box office was down just a bit last week, about 3%, with the first week of the 2024-2025 season reporting a total gross of $35,295,405 for 34 productions. Total attendance was off just shy of 2% from the previous week, settling at 287,246.

The total attendance figure for the week ending May 26 indicates that a healthy 91% of available seats were filled.

In all, 21 of the 34 productions reported some slippage heading into the Memorial Day Weekend holiday. A couple productions played either fewer or comped shows: Mother Play canceled two performances due to illness in the company, with total receipts dropping $186,154 to $451,737. Cabaret had a fully comped Tuesday performance, with receipts off a commensurate $243,584 to $1,721,760.

Among the shows playing full schedules, the biggest slides in dollar amounts were reported by A Beautiful Noise; The Who’s Tommy, Illinoise; and The Great Gatsby. Gatsby remained at a 90%+ capacity/attendance figure, with 93% of seats filled.

Samm-Art Williams, a Tony-nominated playwright, actor, director and the executive producer of NBC’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has died. He was 78.

Williams died peacefully in Burgaw, North Carolina on Monday, his cousin Carol Brown confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Mr. Williams’ contributions to American theater and television will live on but he will be greatly missed,” Brown said via statement.

For the theater community, Williams was perhaps best known as the Tony-nominated playwright of Home, which was first directed by Douglas Turner Ward and produced on Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1980. The show is set to return to Broadway on June 5, with Kenny Leon directing this time.

Williams also wrote stage works such as Welcome To Black River, Friends, and other plays produced in New York, Los Angeles and beyond. In addition to its Tony nod for best Broadway play, Home won the Outer Critics Circle Award,...

Samm-Art Williams, whose Tony-nominated 1979 play Home is being revived on Broadway this year and whose TV producing credits include Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, died peacefully today in Burgaw, North Carolina. He was 78.

His death was announced by family.

Born Samuel Arthur Williams on January 20, 1946, in Philadelphia, Williams was a prolific playwright, screenwriter, actor, and producer.

Performing as Samm Williams, he got his start on the New York stage in the early 1970s, appearing in notable plays such as Black Jesus and, with the New York’s Negro Ensemble Company, Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide and Liberty Calland. By the mid-’70s he began performing in other Off Broadway shows under the name Samm-Art Williams.

By the end of the decade, Williams had made his mark as a stage writer, and is today best known for Home, a drama originally staged by the Negro...

Home, the Samm-Art Williams play directed by Kenny Leon and opening on Broadway this summer, has announced its cast.

The Roundabout Theatre Company production will star Tory Kittles (The Equalizer) as “Cephus Miles,” Brittany Inge (Atlanta) as “Woman One / Pattie Mae Wells,” and Stori Ayers (The Last O.G.) as “Woman Two”—all in their Roundabout Theatre Company debuts.

The production will mark the first Broadway staging of Home since 1980. The play was originally staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979.

The synopsis: Cephus Miles has the whole world in his callused hands—until his sweetheart Pattie Mae goes off to college and marries another man. Roundabout describes Home as “a muscular and melodic coming-of-age story that gives voice to the unbreakable spirit of all Americans who have been searching for a place to belong.”

Home will begin preview performances on Friday, May 17, with an official opening on Wednesday, June 5, at the Todd Haimes Theatre.

The Roundabout Theatre Company tonight renamed its Broadway venue – a 104-year-old building that began as the Selwyn and most recently went by the prosaic American Airlines Theatre – to honor its late artistic director Todd Haimes.

The 42nd Street venue officially became the Todd Haimes Theatre in a dedication ceremony tonight. The name change was announced last June, and becomes official just in time to welcome its first tenant: The revival of John Patrick Shanley’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt: A Parable, directed by Scott Ellis and starring Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber, begins previews this Friday ahead of a February 29 opening night.

The venue’s name change was made to honor, in the words of the company, the “extraordinary dedication to the institution [Haimes] called home, and his enormous contributions to Roundabout and the entire theatre community.”

Haimes, the Roundabout’s artistic director and chief executive for nearly 40 years,...

The 104-year-old theater formerly known as the Selwyn – and soon to be formerly known as the American Airlines – will be renamed to honor the late Todd Haimes, the artistic director and guiding force behind the Roundabout Theatre Company who died in April.

The naming of the Todd Haimes Theatre was announced last night as members of the Broadway community honored Haimes by dimming the marquees of all 41 Broadway theaters. The new name is designed to recognize Haimes’ “extraordinary dedication to the institution he called home, and his enormous contributions to Roundabout and the entire theatre community.”

“Last year, when the thought of naming the theater after Todd arose, our instinct was to honor a visionary producer who had led Roundabout from a basement under a supermarket in Chelsea to an indelible force in the American theatre,” said Roundabout Vice Chair Lawrence Kaplen in a statement. “I am proud to be...

Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber will return to Broadway this winter in a revival of John Patrick Stanley’s play Doubt: A Parable.

The play, directed by Scott Ellis, is scheduled to begin performances in February 2024 at the American Airlines Theatre. Exact dates and additional castmembers will be announced at a later date.

This is the first Broadway revival of Stanley’s 2004 play, which was adapted into the 2008 film starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The story follows Sister Aloysius (Daly), a principal of an all-boys Catholic school in the Bronx, who suspects a relationship between Father Flynn (Schreiber) and a student. Aloysius must then figure out how to verify whether something has occurred, whether to confront either party about it and how she can reconcile that with her religious beliefs.

Daly, a multiple Emmy Award winner for her role in the television show Cagney & Lacey, won a...

Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber will star in a new Broadway production next February of John Patrick Shanley’s Tony Award & Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt: A Parable, with direction by Scott Ellis.

The Roundabout Theatre Company production will begin performances in February 2024 at the American Airlines Theatre. Exact dates, remaining cast members, and design team will be announced at a later date.

Doubt: A Parable returns to Broadway for the first time in nearly two decades. Daly will play Sister Aloysius, in the words of the synopsis the “prickly principal of an all-boys Catholic school in a working- class part of the Bronx” who “is feared by students and colleagues alike.”

“But when she suspects nefarious relations between the charismatic priest Father Flynn (Schreiber) and a student, she’s forced to wrestle with what’s fact, what’s fiction, and how much she’ll risk to expose the difference—all...

Danny DeVito will return to the Broadway stage this October in a new play by Theresa Rebeck called I Need That.

The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor will star alongside his daughter Lucy DeVito and Ray Anthony Thomas in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of what the company describes as “a deeply human new comedy.”

Preview and opening night dates for I Need That at Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre will be announced later.

The synopsis: Sam (DeVito) doesn’t get out much. Actually, he doesn’t get out at all, opting instead for the safety of his house in the company of his things – his many, many things. But when a notice from the government arrives alerting Sam that he must clean up his property or face eviction, he’s forced to reckon with what’s trash, what’s treasure, and whether we can ever know the difference between the two.

Broadway’s Roundabout Theatre Company, with a planned 2021-22 season opener of Black playwright Alice Childress’ rarely produced 1955 play Trouble in Mind, announced today the launch of a weekly online play reading series and resource library to bring attention to historically marginalized Black and Latinx voices of the theater.

The first series of what the Roundabout is calling its Refocus Project begins April 23 and will spotlight 20th Century plays by Black playwrights Childress, Angelina Weld Grimké, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston and Samm-Art Williams. The series will be presented in association with Black Theatre United.

The second year of The Refocus Project will feature Latinx playwrights.

According to Roundabout, The Refocus Project will be “an annual program dedicated to elevating rarely produced and formerly marginalized theatrical voices from communities underrepresented or historically overlooked in the American theatre.”

In addition to the weekly online play readings, the Refocus Project...

Neo-noir got a major boost with this splendid first outing for the Coen Brothers, who planned to produce something commercially viable but broke through with a new style in fashionable genre mayhem. A fantastic cast helps, including the auspicious debut of the great Frances McDormand. Blood Simple Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 834 1984 / Color / 1:85 anamorphic 16:9 / 95 m. Starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh, Samm-Art Williams. Cinematography Barry Sonnenfeld Production Designer Jane Musky Film Editor Roderick Jaynes (Ethan Coen & Joel Coen), Don Wiegmann Original Music Carter Burwell, Jim Roberge Writing credits Ethan Coen and Joel Coen Produced by Daniel F. Bacaner, Ethan Coen Directed by Joel Coen

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Although I hear a fair amount of grousing against the Coen Bros. entire approach to filmmaking, they've earned their place through the sheer entertainment value of their work. Reading a Variety review of movies debuting at a...

"Something can always go wrong..." Janus Films has unveiled a trailer for the upcoming restored re-release of the Coen Brothers' first film, Blood Simple, which first hit theaters in 1985 - 31 years ago. The film is still regarded as one of the Coens' best and is a crime thriller about a bar owner who figures out his wife is having an affair and tries to hire a private investigator to kill her and her new lover, a bartender at his bar. The film stars Dan Hedaya, Frances McDormand, John Getz, M. Emmet Walsh and Samm-Art Williams. Along with the trailer, there's a flashy poster (seen below) to compliment the re-release. Those who haven't seen this classic crime film yet, this is a perfect opportunity to catch it on the big screen. Enjoy. Here's the new re-release trailer for the Coen Brothers' film Blood Simple, in high def from Apple: Deep in the heart of Texas,...

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It's the final entry in Wesley's top 100 Christmas TV episodes of all time list, numbers 20 to 1. Merry Christmas to all!

Read entries 100 - 81 here, entries 80 - 61 here, entries 60 - 41 here, and entries 40 - 21 here.

Since the medium’s infancy, viewers have enjoyed sharing holidays with their favourite television characters. We grow invested in our friends on screen over the years; spending Christmas with them is a rite of passage, a chance for us to share tradition from our world with the fictional ones we see on screen. Some shows embrace the season wholeheartedly, characters in good spirits and enjoying the trappings of the season; others skew a little darker, bringing the more oppressive, burdensome side of the holidays to life. Either way, Christmas episodes tend to demonstrate the strengths of our favourite series, and it’s long been a festive ritual of mine to wheel out old...

Blu-ray Review

Blood Simple

Directed by: Joel Coen

Cast: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Samm-Art Williams, M. Emmet Walsh

Running Time: 1 hr 35 mins

Rating: R

Due Out: August 30, 2011

Plot: Things go wrong when a man (Hedaya) hires a sleazy private investigator (Walsh) to kill his wife (McDormand) and the man (Getz) she is sleeping with.

Who’S It For? Collectors of Coen movies should definitely pick this one up, unless they’ve already got the DVD. Fans of independent American cinema would be wise to have this movie in their brain.

Movie:

This is where it all started. For the reason alone of starting the Coen Brothers off on a legendary filmography, Blood Simple is worth a viewing. It doesn’t fly by like some of the movies that would come after it, but it does maintain the original script tightness that makes Coen movies so genuine.

M. Emmet Walsh...

"With all due respect to his excellence," says Douglas Turner Ward, "audiences think that black theatre is August Wilson. That irks me when people feel there is only one black view, one black style, one black spokesman. There is a breadth of black writing." Indeed, from the time Ward co-founded the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967, his mission has been to demonstrate how wide and varied that vision is. In its first 15 years, NEC produced such diverse playwrights as Lonnie Elder, Charles Fuller, and Leslie Lee; the company and its productions have won two Tony Awards and several Obies. To honor the company's contribution to American theatre, Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company is devoting its 2008-09 season to several of NEC's best-known works, including Lee's The First Breeze of Summer, Fuller's Zooman and the Sign, and Samm-Art Williams' Home. There will also be a staged reading of Ward's Day of Absence...