The Second Annual Commy Awards: 2010-11

WINNERS Norbert Leo Butz as a determined F.B.I. agent in his big number, "Don't Break the Rules," in "Catch Me if You Can." Above: Beth Leavel, center, as a housewife turned music producer with the pretend Shirelles in "Baby It's You!"


May 25, 2011

ALMOST all the awards have been presented now. The Obies, the Lortels, the Drama League, the Outer Criics Circle and the Drama Desk. But now there's a long, long wait until the Tony Awards ceremony on June 12. So, to fill in those empty days, we are pleased to present the second annual theatergossip.com Commy Awards. (Please note that categories change each year. There is no award this year, for instance, for best performance by an actress in an owl bolero.)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A GOOD ACTRESS IN A GOD-AWFUL SHOW Donna Murphy in "The People in the Picture," "Beth Leavel in "Baby It's You!" (tie)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS AS A CRAZY LADY Edie Falco in "The House of Blue Leaves," Laurie Metcalf in "The Other Place" (tie)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR AS A CRAZY GUY Geoffrey Rush in "The Diary of a Madman" (Runner-up: Michael Shannon in "Mistakes Were Made")

BEST PERFORMANCE AS A MOTHER SUPERIOR Victoria Clark in "Sister Act," Charles Busch in "The Divine Sister" (tie)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MOVIE STAR PLAYING AN ANIMAL Robin Williams as the ghost of the title character in "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MOVIE STAR SINGING AND DANCING Daniel Radcliffe as J. Pierrepont Finch in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MOVIE STAR DOING A WORKING-CLASS ACCENT Frances McDormand as an unemployed South Boston single mother in "Good People"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR OR ACTRESS MAKING IT SOUND AS IF SHAKESPEARE SPOKE THE SAME LANGUAGE WE DO Lily Rabe as Portia in "The Merchant of Venice"

BEST COMIC PERFORMANCE IN A SKIMPY OUTFIT Laura Benanti in "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR AS A GHOST Robin Williams in "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," Daniel Davis in "Black Tie" (tie)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN EDWARDIAN DRAG Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

BEST PIRATE Christian Borle as Black Stache (the future Captain Hook) in "Peter and the Starcatcher"

BEST PLAY PROVING THAT RELIGIOUS FANATICS ARE DANGEROUS "A Bright New Boise"

BEST MUSICAL PROVING THAT RELIGIOUS FANATICS CAN BE FUN "The Book of Mormon"

BEST GIANT PUPPETS "War Horse"

BEST MEDIUM-SIZE PUPPETS "Baby Universe"

BEST SEX SCENES (CLOSE-UP) The cast of "Hello Again"

BEST SEX SCENE (OVER-50 DIVISION) Michele Pawk and Reed Birney in "A Small Fire"

BEST NEW PRODUCTION WRITTEN BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD "Gatz"

BEST-LOOKING NEW DISCOVERY Colin Donnell in "Anything Goes"

MOST THRILLING TRANSFER FROM OFF BROADWAY "Brief Encounter," "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" (tie)

CUTEST REAL-LIFE COUPLE TO WIN MATCHING DRAMA DESK AWARDS Sutton Foster in "Anything Goes," Bobby Cannavale in "The Motherfucker With the Hat"

JAKE AND ELWOOD BLUES AWARD (For best performance by a singer or dancer wearing a suit, tie and hat) Norbert Leo Butz in "Catch Me if You Can"



WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll to read about Daniel Radcliffe, our latest Gossip Guy, in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," and Gossip Girl, Edie Falco, in "The House of Blue Leaves." Then search to read about a dancing F.B.I. man, a mental case at the Lucille Lortel, plus thoughts on "The Normal Heart," "The Book of Mormon," "War Horse" and "Good People."

Gossip Guy of the Week: Daniel Radcliffe

GRANTED, playing J. Pierrepont Finch, the ambitious young man who reads a self-help book and quickly rises from window washer to C.E.O., is a winning proposition. It worked out well for Robert Morse in 1961, and Matthew Broderick was adorable in 1995. But it takes a lot of star power and stage savvy to pull it off, and Daniel Radcliffe, who had never done a stage musical before (he was too busy simultaneously growing up and playing a certain child wizard), is doing it right now. Go and just try not to smile from ear to ear when he and his co-stars burst into "Brotherhood of Man."

CURRENT GIG Starring in the exhilarating revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and probably not giving a damn that he (inexplicably) wasn't nominated for a Tony Award.

WHAT THE TIMES THOUGHT Well, never mind. But The New Yorker said: "Inspired. . . .Every nanosecond of this well-cast production is eloquent. . . . Radcliffe throws every ounce of his being into the show." ("Tooth and Claw")

AGE 21.

BORN AND RAISED London.

ALMA MATER Hogwarts. (Really, when has he had time to go to university?)

AVAILABILITY Single. Linked with Olive Uniacke, described as a wild and crazy British society type.

BEST KNOWN AS Do you really have to ask? That Harry Potter guy. The final film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," opens this summer.

BROADWAY DEBUT "Equus" (2008). Somehow he made it the troubled teenage boy's story, rather than the psychiatrist's, but mostly people just talked about his nude scene.

THOUGHTS ON FUTURE ROLES "I maintain that I look good with eye makeup," he told the London newspaper The Guardian ("Dan the Man") in 2009. "And I'm not going to be an emo kid, so the only other option is drag queen."

"How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," by Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, directed by Rob Ashford, Al Hirschfeld Theater, 302 West 45th Street, (212) 239-6200, howtosucceedbroadway.com. Opening night: March 27, 2011.

WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll to read about Edie Falco's latest amazing performance, in the revival of "The House of Blue Leaves." Then search to read about theater standouts of the last season and a half, from Brandon Victor Dixon in "The Scottsboro Boys" to Norbert Leo Butz in "Catch Me if You Can" and Colin Donnell in "Anything Goes." With the likes of Al Pacino, Liza Minnelli, James Franco, Nicole Kidman, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cherry Jones and five different "Spider-Man" people in between.

Gossip Girl of the Week: Edie Falco

FORGIVE us, Edie. We know you're a great-looking, sophisticated, glamorous woman and there are plenty of photographs to prove it. But it's impossible to see you rock the stage at the Walter Kerr Theater as the hapless and magnificent Bananas Shaughnessy and not want to gaze at you again in character in all your glory.

CURRENT GIG Enjoying her well-deserved Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for her knockout performance as Bananas, Ben Stiller's beautifully deranged wife, in the revival of "The House of Blue Leaves."

WHAT THE TIMES THOUGHT "A transfixing performance as a medicated madwoman longing to feel." ("A Papal Visit Has Dreamers Dreaming")

AGE 47.

BORN AND RAISED Brooklyn (born). Northport and West Islip, Long Island (raised).

ALMA MATER State University of New York at Purchase.

AVAILABILITY Single.

BROADWAY DEBUT "Side Man" (1998-99), as a replacement for the female lead.

BEST KNOWN AS Carmela Soprano, the world's most sympathetic Mafia wife, in HBO's iconic series "The Sopranos" (1999-2007).

BUT LATELY She's known as the title character on Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," a health-care professional who regularly cheats on her husband and enjoys illicitly obtained pills.

OTHER NEW YORK THEATER HIGHLIGHTS "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" (Broadway, 2002), " 'Night Mother" (Broadway, 2004), "This Wide Night" (Off Broadway, 2010).

ABOUT BATTLING ALCOHOL ADDICTION AND BREAST CANCER "The thing for which I am most grateful is that I was besotted with those two things yet was also given the strength to get through them."*

*"Edie Falco Comes Clean," by Kevin Sessums, The Daily Beast, May 16, 2010.

"The House of Blue Leaves," by John Guare, directed by David Cromer, Walter Kerr Theater, 219 West 48th Street, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Opening night: April 25, 2011.

WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about "The Normal Heart" and the return of the 1980s AIDS plays this season. Then search to read about Tony-nominated productions and performers, including "The Book of Mormon," "Anything Goes," "The Merchant of Venice," Laura Benanti, Mark Rylance, Brian Bedford, Josh Gad, Sutton Foster, Frances McDormand and Lily Rabe.

The AIDS Plays Are Back. Why Now? (Part 2)

LOVE, LOSS AND THAT'S ABOUT IT Joe Mantello, left, and John Benjamin Hickey as an angry activist and a dying New York Times reporter in the acclaimed revival of "The Normal Heart."

In November, when the Signature revival of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" opened, theatergossip looked back at the early years of the AIDS pandemic and the plays that had documented it, all of which seemed to be scheduled for revivals this season. Now "The Normal Heart" has opened on Broadway, to ecstatic reviews.


NOBODY expected "The Normal Heart" to stun audiences with its emotional power.

Theatergoers who saw the original production of Larry Kramer's play at the Public Theater back in 1985 knew that it was what it was: a screed, a loud voice crying in the wilderness, Kramer's "J'accuse."

William Hoffman's "As Is," which opened the same year, was a far better play, everybody said. (Although you couldn't tell that from the ridiculous little revival on Theater Row this season.) Then, almost a decade later, Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" arrived, the masterpiece that defined the era.

So when there was a big celebrity reading of "The Normal Heart" last fall (with Glenn Close as the doctor) and word came down that Kramer's play would finally hit Broadway, a lot of us didn't expect much. Imagine our surprise when the production, directed by George C. Wolfe Jr. and Joel Grey and starring Joe Mantello, knocked our socks off. Granted, the production is probably much greater than the play, but when you're seated in the Golden Theater and watching the names of the dead scrolled along the walls of David Rockwell's stark set, does that really matter?

(Granted, somehow Randy Shilts's name turned up among the dead in a scene that took place in the early '80s. "And the Band Played On," Shilts's monumental AIDS book, was published in 1987, and he died in 1994. But who are we, with our record of unfortunate corrections, to point a finger?)

Back in November, we asked why the plays about AIDS were returning now. Since then we have talked to older gay men, who were around in the '80s. We've asked younger gay men, who saw the epidemic -- at least the period when it affected affluent young New Yorkers -- as ancient history. The people we asked told us: "Because there's no cure yet." "Because the younger generation doesn't understand and needs to know." "Because the younger generation of gay men is blithely having unprotected sex, trying to become H.I.V. positive, and have nicknamed the virus 'the gift.' "

Last week I found myself shaking hands with one of the producers of "The Normal Heart" at a midtown cocktail party. In a rare moment of journalistic responsibility, I said, "So, why now?" And he didn't have an answer. He just referred back to the celebrity reading, which had gone so well.

All that is absolutely clear is that something in this story about a gay activist, his dying lover and his campaign to make someone take action against a disease that was targeting gay men, has struck a nerve. The production, wildly praised by critics, has earned five major Tony nominations, including best revival of a play. Drama Desk has awarded the cast a special ensemble award. Ellen Barkin, who plays Dr. Emma Brookner, has been given a Theater World Award for her Broadway debut at age 57.

The answer may be that nothing in particular has brought the AIDS plays back to New York stages. Except what brings most productions to fruition: Producers believe that theatergoers will come to see them. The parents, the children, the sympathizers, the lovers and friends left behind. And even if we didn't know it, we were ready to relive the pain. Or, like soldiers who fought a war and then were shipped home to the routine of everyday life, we yearned to remember the passion of battle.


"The Normal Heart," by Larry Kramer, directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, Golden Theater, 232 West 45th Street, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Opening night: April 27, 2011.



WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about dirty words at the Drama Desk Awards nominations event. Then search to read about great performances by stars like Sutton Foster, Norbert Leo Butz, Laurie Metcalf, Brian Bedford, Lily Rabe, Josh Gad, Mark Rylance and a year's worth of other Tony and Drama Desk nominees.