New Your Drama Critics' Circle Names The Night Alive Best Play of 2013-14

The Night Alive, written by Conor McPherson, today won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (NYDCC) for Best Play of the 2012-2013 season. All the Way, written by Robert Schenkkan received the award for Best American Play. A Fun Home received the award for Best Musical. The selections were made at the 79th annual voting meeting of the organization today at the offices of Time Out New York in Manhattan.

Special Citations were awarded to the Shakespeare's Globe productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III and Richard Nelson and the company of The Apple Family Plays.

The awards will be presented at a cocktail reception to be held on Friday, May 16, at 54 Below. 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.

The Night Alive, written and directed by Conor McPherson, had its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse in London on June 13, 2013. It made its United States premiere with the Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theater on November 30, 2013, with an opening on December 12.

All the Way is written by Robert Schenkkan and directed by Bill Rauch, Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where the play premiered in 2012. It then went on to play an acclaimed run at A.R.T in September of 2013. All the Way opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on March 6, 2014 where it is currently playing.

Fun Home (directed by Sam Gold, music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, and based on a book by Alison Bechdel) had its world premiere at the Public Theater on September 30, 2014 with an October 22nd opening.

A Special Citation has been awarded to the Shakespeare's Globe's productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III. The acclaimed all-male Shakespeare's Globe productions began performances at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London in Fall of 2012 and successfully transferred to London's West End in early 2013. The productions starred Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, Samuel Barnett and were directed by Tim Carroll, designed by Jenny Tiramani with music by Claire van Kampen. In addition to Rylance, Fry, and Barnett, the 19-member cast included Paul Chahidi, John Paul Connolly, Peter Hamilton Dyer, Colin Hurley, Angus Wright, Terry McGinity, Kurt Egyiawan, Matt Harrington, Matthew Schechter, Hayden Signoretti, Josheph Timms, Dominic Brewer, Dylan Clark Marshall, and Tony Ward. Twelfth Night and Richard III began previews on Broadway's Belasco Theatre on October 15, 2013, opening night was November 10 and the productions finished their limited engagement ending on February 16, 2014.

A Special Citation has also been awarded to playwright Richard Nelson and the company of The Apple Family Plays. Each year since 2010, Nelson has premiered a new play about the fictional, liberal Apple family of Rhinebeck, New York. Each of these plays originally premiered on the night on which it is set. In That Hopey Changey Thing, the Apples reflect on the state of their family and discuss memory, manners, and politics as polls close on mid-term election night 2010 and a groundswell of conservative sentiment flips Congress on its head. In Sweet and Sad, a family brunch stirs up discussions of loss, remembrance, and a decade of change. Sorry, which premiered fall of 2012, finds the Apples sorting through family anxieties and confusion on the day of electing the President. The final work, Regular Singing opened on the day in which it was set, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and premiered at the Public Theatre in November of 2013. The Apple Family Plays began previews at The Public Theater began October 22, 2013 and ran through December 16. The cast featured Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Laila Robins, Jon Devries, Stephen Kunken, and Sally Murphy.

For more information on the New York Drama Critics' Circle and details of this year's voting, visit www.dramacritics.org. In keeping with NYDCC's tradition of openness, a full breakdown of the vote will be posted on the website.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle comprises 22 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; Adam Green Vogue; Jesse Green, New York; Mark Kennedy, Associated Press; Jesse Oxfeld, New York Observer; David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter; Frank Scheck, New York Post; David Sheward, ArtsinNYC; John Simon, Yonkers Tribune; Marilyn Stasio, Variety; Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal; Matt Windman, amNewYork; Linda Winer, Newsday; and Richard Zoglin, Time. Emeritus members include David Finkle, Brian Scott Lipton, Michael Sommers, and Steven Suskin.