‘John Proctor is the Villain,’ ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ Lead LGBTQ Critics’ 2025 Dorian Theater Awards Winners
Audra McDonald, Sarah Snook, Jak Malone, Andrew Scott, André De Shields Among Performance Winners
The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ kicked off Pride Month by giving John Proctor is the Villain and Cats: The Jellicle Ball top honors in the group’s third annual Dorian Theater Awards. Both productions won three awards each, making them the most awarded shows of the year. The Dorian Theater Awards, decided on by GALECA’s theater wing, honor the best of Broadway and Off-Broadway, mainstream to LGBTQ+, for the 2024-2025 season.
Kimberly Bellflower’s new play John Proctor is the Villain earned three Dorian Theater Awards, more than any other Broadway production. The drama, in which contemporary high schoolers recontextualize Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, was awarded prizes for Outstanding Broadway Play, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play for Fina Strazza, and Outstanding Broadway Ensemble.
In other Broadway categories, Jonthan Spector’s Eureka Day picked up the Outstanding Broadway Play Revival prize, Maybe Happy Ending was awarded with Outstanding Broadway Musical, and Sunset Blvd. won Outstanding Broadway Musical Revival.
Voters rewarded a different musical revival in Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Musical, handing that award to Audra McDonald for her portrayal of Momma Rose in Gypsy. These two acclaimed revivals pulled off a tie victory for The Broadway Showstopper Award. This category recognizes standout production numbers and scenes. Voters were equally enamored with the roaming, outdoor rendition of “Sunset Boulevard” as sung by Tom Francis, and McDonald’s towering rendition of the Gypsy finale, “Rose’s Turn.”
The musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her, which was the most nominated production of the year, won the award for Outstanding LGBTQ Broadway production. The musical features Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard as camp queer icons Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp.
The theater wing honored two solo performances within their acting categories. Sarah Snook won Outstanding Lead Performances in a Broadway Play for tackling 26 different roles in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Andrew Scott won Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Production for his one-man adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, simply titled Vanya.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball dominated the Off-Broadway categories. This radical reinvention of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical set the story in the world of ballroom. It won three Dorian Theater Awards, including Outstanding Off-Broadway production, Outstanding LGBTQ Off-Broadway Production, and Outstanding Featured Performance in an Off-Broadway production for André De Shields. De Shields was also awarded GALECA’s LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer Award, a distinction which celebrates an individual’s lifelong commitment to creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity.
The group’s other special prize, the LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season award, was bestowed to two people due to a tie in voting: Jonathan Groff and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Groff currently stars as Bobby Darin in the hit bio-musical Just in Time (for which he received a Dorian Award nomination). Jacobs-Jenkins is the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play Purpose.
“This Pride month, I’m feeling extra proud of the queer journalists of our theater wing, who have uplifted delightfully bold work with this year’s awards,” said GALECA theater wing co-chair Sam Eckmann. “Revivals like Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Sunset Blvd. dared to excavate well-worn material to find new meanings. New work like Maybe Happy Ending and John Proctor is the Villain reached into our souls with a striking sense of poignancy. A hearty congratulations to all of this year’s winners.”
Below is the complete list of winners for the 2025 Dorian Theater Awards:
Outstanding Broadway Musical
Death Becomes Her
Dead Outlaw
Just in Time
Maybe Happy Ending – WINNER
Operation Mincemeat
Real Women Have Curves
Outstanding Broadway Play
English
The Hills of California
John Proctor is the Villain – WINNER
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Purpose
Outstanding Broadway Musical Revival
Floyd Collins
Gypsy
Pirates! The Penzance Musical
Sunset Blvd.
Outstanding Broadway Play Revival
Eureka Day – WINNER
Our Town
Romeo + Juliet
Yellow Face
Outstanding LGBTQ Broadway Production
Cult of Love
Death Becomes Her – WINNER
Purpose
Redwood
SMASH
Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Musical
Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending
Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw
Tom Francis, Sunset Blvd.
Jonathan Groff, Just in Time
Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
Audra McDonald, Gypsy – WINNER
Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical
Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Blvd.
Helen J. Shen, Maybe Happy Ending
Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her
Outstanding Lead Performance in a Broadway Play
Kit Connor, Romeo + Juliet
Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California
Mia Farrow, The Roommate
Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face
Sydney Lemmon, JOB
Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Jon Michael Hill, Purpose
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose
Sadie Sink, John Proctor is the Villain
Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray – WINNER
Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Musical
Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club
Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw
Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves
Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat – WINNER
Jinkx Monsoon, Pirates! The Penzance Musical
Lea Salonga, Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends
Christopher Sieber, Death Becomes Her
Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins
David Thaxton, Sunset Blvd.
Michael Urie, Once Upon a Mattress
Joy Woods, Gypsy
Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play
Alana Arenas, Purpose
Tala Ashe, English
Molly Bernard, Cult of Love
Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
Francis Jue, Yellow Face
Marjan Neshat, English
Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross
Zachary Quinto, Cult of Love
Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain – WINNER
Amalia Yoo, John Proctor is the Villain
Kara Young, Purpose
Outstanding Broadway Ensemble
Cult of Love
Death Becomes Her
John Proctor is the Villain – WINNER
– Sadie Sink, Nihar Duvvuri, Gabriel Ebert, Molly Griggs, Maggie Kuntz, Hagan Oliveras, Morgan Scott, Fina Strazza, Amalia Yoo
Real Women Have Curves
Sunset Blvd.
The Broadway Showstopper Award
— To a standout production number or scene
Death Becomes Her – “For the Gaze”
Gypsy – “Rose’s Turn” (TIE) – WINNER
John Proctor Is the Villain – “Green Light”
Maybe Happy Ending – “Chasing Fireflies”
Sunset Blvd. – “Sunset Boulevard” (TIE) – WINNER
Outstanding Off-Broadway Production
Cats: The Jellicle Ball – WINNER
Grangeville
Liberation
Vanya
Wine in the Wilderness
Outstanding LGBTQ Off-Broadway Production
Cats: The Jellicle Ball – WINNER
DRAG: The Musical
Grangeville
The Fires
We Had a World
Outstanding Lead Performance in an Off-Broadway Production
Patsy Ferran, A Streetcar Named Desire
Susannah Flood, Liberation
Brandon Flynn, Kowalski
Joanna Gleason, We Had a World
Marla Mindelle, The Big Gay Jamboree
Paul Mescal, A Streetcar Named Desire
Andrew Scott, Vanya – WINNER
Paul Sparks, Grangeville
Alaska Thunderfuck, DRAG: The Musical
Olivia Washington, Wine in the Wilderness
Outstanding Featured Performance in an Off-Broadway Production
Betsy Aidem, Liberation
Billy Crudup, Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts
André De Shields, Cats: The Jellicle Ball – WINNER
Drew Elhamalawy, We Live in Cairo
Sydney James Harcourt, Cats: The Jellicle Ball
Jujubee, DRAG: The Musical
Ahmad Kamal, SUMO
Julia Lester, All Nighter
Paris Nix, The Big Gay Jamboree
Jeanine Serralles, We Had a World
Kyra Sedgwick, All of Me
“Tempress” Chastity Moore, Cats: The Jellicle Ball
Jenny Lee Stern, Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song
Jason Veasey, The Fires
Natalie Walker, The Big Gay Jamboree
LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season
Michael Arden
Tommy Dorfman
Jonathan Groff (TIE) – WINNER
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (TIE) – WINNER
Jinkx Monsoon
LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer
— For a lifelong commitment to creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity
André De Shields – WINNER
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Jinkx Monsoon
Andrew Scott
Paul Tazewell
George C. Wolfe
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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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