New York Drama Critics' Circle to Announce 2017 Award Winners Next Week

The winners of the 2017 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards will be announced Monday, May 8, 2017 at approximately 5:30pm. The selections will be made at the organization's 82nd annual voting meeting.

The awards include a cash prize of $2,500 for Best Play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation. The awards will be presented at a private cocktail reception on Thursday, May 18.

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.

Recent Best Play winners include The Humans (2016), Between Riverside and Crazy (2015), The Night Alive (2014), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013) and Sons of the Prophet (2012). Recent Best Musical winners include Shuffle Along (2016), Hamilton (2015), Fun Home (2014), Matilda (2013) and Once (2012). All the Way was named Best American Play in 2014, and Tribes was named Best Foreign Play in 2012.

Each year the New York Drama Critics' Circle may also award special citations to individuals, groups and/or productions for outstanding contribution. Recent recipients include playwrights Richard Nelson and Annie Baker; artistic director Oskar Eustis; actors Lois Smith, Viola Davis and Mark Rylance; directors Ivo Van Hove and Mike Nichols; designers Bob Crowley, John Lee Beatty and Jan Versweyveld; theater companies Ars Nova, Soho Rep and Signature Theatre Company; and the Encores! series at New York City Center.

Adam Feldman, theater critic for Time Out New York, has served as president of the NYDCC since 2005. Elisabeth Vincentelli serves as vice president; Joe Dziemianowicz is treasurer.

In addition to Feldman, Vincentelli, and Dziemianowicz, the members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle are: Hilton Als, Melissa Rose Bernardo, David Cote, Michael Feingold, Robert Feldberg, Elysa Gardner, Jeremy Gerard, Jesse Green, Christopher Kelly, David Rooney, Frank Scheck, David Sheward, John Simon, Marilyn Stasio, Zachary Stewart, Terry Teachout, Matt Windman, Linda Winer and Richard Zoglin. Emeritus members include David Finkle, Brian Scott Lipton, Jesse Oxfeld, Michael Sommers and Steven Suskin.

For more information on the New York Drama Critics' Circle, please visit www.dramacritics.org.