2nd LGBTQ Critics’ Dorian Theater Awards: ‘Illinoise,’ ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ and ‘Oh, Mary!’ are Big Winners

GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ 39 theater wing members have given Illinoise, Merrily We Roll Along and Oh, Mary! top honors in the group’s second annual Dorian Theater Awards, honoring the best of 2023-24’s Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, mainstream to LGBTQ+. 

The stirring and starry redo of Merrily We Roll Along, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s beloved tale of evolving friendships, nabbed four Dorian Awards, including Outstanding Broadway Musical Revival. Star Jonathan Groff took Best Lead Performance in a Musical, while costar Daniel Radcliffe scored two kudos: Best Featured Performance in a Musical and GALECA’s trademark Broadway Showstopper Award, the latter for his dynamic rendition of the tune “Franklin Sheppard, Inc.”

Cole Escola’s outlandish comedy, Oh, Mary!, dominated the group’s Off-Broadway categories, also winning four awards; Outstanding Production, LGBTQ production and the group’s two performance categories. Escola managed a Dorian for his lead turn as Mary Todd Lincoln, while co-star Conrad Ricamora triumphed for his featured performance as Mary’s husband, Abe. Escola—who costarred in the Dorian TV Award-nominated series Difficult People and At Home with Amy Sedaris—was also named LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season, making the firebrand the first honoree of this newly added Dorian Award.

Stereophonic, David Adjmi’s new play about a fame-hungry rock band recording an album circa 1976, won Outstanding Broadway Play and Outstanding Broadway Ensemble. In a tie, the production’s costar Sarah Pidgeon and Kara Young of the lively satire Purlie Victorious both won Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play. 

Illinoise, the dance musical directed by choreographer Justin Peck (choreographer for Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated West Side Story) and written by Pulitzer Prize winner Jackie Sibblies Drury—and inspired by pop star Sufjan Stevens’ titular, semi-autobiographical album—took Outstanding Broadway Musical. The tale of a young gay man wracked with trauma, Illinoise also earned Outstanding LGBTQ Broadway Production.

Sarah Paulson (who won a Dorian in 2017 for TV’s American Crime Story) won Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Play for Appropriate, playwright Branden Jacob-Jenkins’s searing look at a white Southern family dealing with the legacy of their recently deceased father. Appropriate, first mounted in 2013, was named Outstanding Broadway Play Revival.

GALECA’s career achievement accolade here, the LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer Award, went to venerable playwright Paula Vogel. 

“We’re thrilled to be able to pay respect to Ms. Vogel’s lifelong contributions to the American theater, as well as to her ongoing support of the LGBTQ community,” said Cary Wong, the group’s Off-Broadway Lead. Vogel won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999 for her play, How I Learned to Drive. Her incredible body of work includes The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ’N Throbbing, The Mineola Twins and Indecent, which garnered Vogel her first Tony nomination for Best Play in 2017. Vogel’s latest lauded play, Mother Play, currently on Broadway, counted four Dorian nominations this year.

2024 Dorian Theater Awards winners list:

Outstanding Broadway Musical

Here Lies Love 
Hell’s Kitchen
Illinoise – WINNER
Lempicka 
The Outsiders 
Suffs

Outstanding Broadway Play

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
Just for Us
Mary Jane
Mother Play
Prayer for the French Republic
Stereophonic – WINNER

Outstanding Broadway Musical Revival

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Merrily We Roll Along – WINNER
The Who’s Tommy

Outstanding Broadway Play Revival

Appropriate – WINNER
An Enemy of the People
Purlie Victorious

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Musical

Ali Louis Bourzgui, The Who’s Tommy
Eden Espinosa, Lempicka
Brody Grant, The Outsiders
Jonathan Groff, Merrily We Roll Along – WINNER
Brian d’Arcy James, Days of Wine and Roses
Maleah Joi Moon, Hell’s Kitchen
Kelli O’Hara, Days of Wine and Roses
Maryann Plunkett, The Notebook
Eddie Redmayne, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Shaina Taub, Suffs

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Play

Betsy Aidem, Prayer for the French Republic
Alex Edelman, Just For Us
William Jackson Harper, Uncle Vanya
Jessica Lange, Mother Play
Leslie Odom Jr., Purlie Victorious
Rachel McAdams, Mary Jane
Laurie Metcalf, Grey House
Sarah Paulson, Appropriate – WINNER

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Musical

Hannah Cruz, Suffs
Amber Iman, Lempicka
Kecia Lewis, Hell’s Kitchen
Nikki M. James, Suffs
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Monty Python’s Spamalot
Lindsay Mendez, Merrily We Roll Along
Bebe Neuwirth, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Conrad Ricamora, Here Lies Love
Daniel Radcliffe, Merrily We Roll Along – WINNER
Ricky Ubeda, Illinoise

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play — TIE

Brittany Adebumola, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
Francis Benhamou, Prayer for the French Republic
Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Doubt
Alex Brightman, The Shark is Broken
Will Brill, Stereophonic
Elle Fanning, Appropriate
Eli Gelb, Stereophonic
Celia Keenan-Bolger, Mother Play
Jay O. Sanders, Purlie Victorious
Tom Pecinka, Stereophonic
Sarah Pidgeon, Stereophonic – WINNER
Kara Young, Purlie Victorious – WINNER

Outstanding LGBTQ Broadway Production

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Illinoise – WINNER
Lempicka
Mother Play

Outstanding Broadway Ensemble

Here Lies Love
Illinoise
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
Merrily We Roll Along
Suffs
Stereophonic – WINNER

The Broadway Showstopper Award — To a standout production number or scene 

Appropriate, “Epilogue: The Plantation Decays”
Illinoise, “Chicago”
Lempicka, “Woman Is”
Merrily We Roll Along, “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” – WINNER
The Outsiders, “The Rumble”

Outstanding Off-Broadway Production

All the Devils Are Here
The Ally
The Connector
Oh, Mary! – WINNER
Primary Trust
Teeth

Outstanding LGBTQ Off-Broadway Production
Bark of Millions
Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet
Make Me Gorgeous
Oh, Mary! – WINNER
Teeth

Outstanding Lead Performance in an Off-Broadway Production

Charles Busch, Ibsen’s Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy
Nicholas Christopher, Jelly’s Last Jam
Cole Escola, Oh, Mary! – WINNER
William Jackson Harper, Primary Trust
Moses Ingram, Sunset Baby
Rachel Bay Jones, Here We Are
Alyse Alan Louis, Teeth
Taylor Mac, Bark of Millions
Ruthie Ann Miles, The Light in the Piazza
Cynthia Nixon, The Seven Year Disappear
Patrick Page, All the Devils Are Here

Outstanding Featured Performance in an Off-Broadway Production

Susan Blommaert, Grief Hotel
Marylouise Burke, Infinite Life
Bobby Cannavale, Here We Are
Micaela Diamond, Here We Are
Joaquina Kalukango, Jelly’s Last Jam
Julia Lester, I Can Get it For You Wholesale
Steven Pasquale, Teeth
David Hyde Pierce, Here We Are
Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary! – WINNER
James Scully, Oh, Mary!
Jennifer Van Dyck, Ibsen’s Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy
Anna Zavelson, The Light in the Piazza

LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season
Cole Escola – WINNER
Michael Greif
Jonathan Groff
Michael R. Jackson
Sarah Paulson
Conrad Ricamora

LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer Award — For a lifelong commitment to creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity

Charles Busch
André De Shields
Christopher Durang (nominated posthumously)
Taylor Mac
Paula Vogel – WINNER

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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