Drama Desk Follows Tonys; Removes RAGTIME Nods for Costumes & Orchestrations

By: May. 14, 2010
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It was announced yesterday that the Tony Awards overseers (members of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League) had decided to withdraw the nomination for Best Costume Design from Santo Loquasto for his work on Ragtime on the basis that he, along with his team, created similar designs for the original 1998 production.

Now, the Drama Desk has followed suit. In a letter to voters and members,William Wolf, President and Barbara Siegel, Chairperson, The Nominating Committee write that

"The Drama Desk makes its own decisions. But when the Tony Awards withdrew its nomination for the "Ragtime" revival's costumes because they were not sufficiently different from the original production and when the lead producer and nominated costume designer Santo Loquasto did not disagree with the decision, we revisited the issue. The Drama Desk concurs that the excellent costuming was not sufficiently new to make it eligible. Therefore, the nomination will be removed from the ballot in the Outstanding Costume Design category.

We have also determined that the nomination for "Ragtime" for Outstanding Orchestration should not be on the ballot because the highly regarded orchestration was not different enough from that of the original production to be eligible."

Yesterday, regarding the Tonys, The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League explained in a joint statement:

"We learned this too late to remove the costumes from consideration by the nominators, but feel that we cannot allow the designs to remain in contention this year, and we must regretfully withdraw them from consideration as a nominee in the best costume design of a musical category," according to the statement. "There will be no replacement made for the nomination, and voters will vote for one of the three remaining nominees." The other nominees are Marina Draghici for "Fela!," Paul Tazewell for "Memphis," and Matthew Wright for "La Cage Aux Folles."

To read the full report in the New York Times, click here.

The Tony Awards Nominations were announced Tuesday, May 4th and the Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from Radio City Music Hall on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 13, 2010.

 

 


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