My recap thus far of the 2018-2019 theatre season:

• Introduction
• Musicals
• Plays
• Revivals

Today: random categories of my own invention (some inventive, others…not so much), open to plays and musicals alike, that the Tonys — and other theatre awards — should add.

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CHORUS

1. Octet
2. Antigone in Ferguson
3. Twelfth Night
4. Variations on the Main

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DRONE

1. Thunderbodies
2. Eat the Devil
3. Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes

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ENSEMBLE

(The first four reconfigure the definition of an “ensemble”)

1. Forced Entertainment’s Table Top Shakespeare: The Complete Works
2. Nassim
3. The Cold Record
4. Ashes
5. What to Send Up When It Goes Down
6. Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie
7. Uncle Vanya
8. Ain’t No Mo’
9. Hurricane Diane
10. Fairview
11. Catch As Catch Can
12. Is This a Room
13. PLANO
14. “Daddy”
15. Lewiston/Clarkston
16. Do You Feel Anger?
17. Marjana and the Forty Thieves
18. Bonnie’s Last Flight
19. The Jungle
20. Suicide Forest
21. Thunderbodies

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"NO SMALL PARTS" ENSEMBLE MEMBER

Stephen Carrasco, Skintight

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FOG

(This season saw a noticeably-inordinate number of noticeably-effective uses of…fog!)

1. Midnight at the Never Get
2. Good Grief
3. Is This a Room
4. Thunderbodies
5. Hurricane Diane

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FUNNIEST

1. Ain’t No Mo’
2. Hurricane Diane
3. Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie
4. Ryan Raftery: The Obsession of Calvin Klein
5. Fairview
6. Do You Feel Anger?
7. Bonnie’s Last Flight

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JUKEBOX MUSICAL

1. Holiday Sauce
2. Antigone in Ferguson
3. The B-Side

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ONE-PERSON SHOW

1. The Cold Record
2. My Name Is Gideon: I’m Probably Going to Die, Eventually
3. The Pumpkin Pie Show Presents: One-on-Ones
4. Fleabag

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PROJECTIONS

1. Luke Halls, The Lehman Trilogy
2. Davonte Johnson, Frankenstein
3. Will Duke, Grief is the Thing With Feathers
4. Wladimiro A. Woyno R., This American Wife
5. Nassim
6. Robert Wuss, The B-Side
7. David Pym, Bonnie’s Last Flight
8. David Lejard-Ruffe & Antony Aubert, Chambre Noire
9. Austin Switser, Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw
10. Hana S. Kim, Eve’s Song
11. Matt Romein, [50/50] old school animation
12. Tal Yarden, The Damned

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SITE-SPECIFIC

(The following is not a list of my favorite shows that happened to be site-specific; rather, it’s a ranking that qualitatively evaluates HOW the shows used the sites)

1. Variations on the Main
2. Confection
3. Oasis
4. The Courtroom
5. INK: A Piece for Museums

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TRANSITIONS

1. Marys Seacole
2. Usual Girls
3. Emma and Max
4. Recent Alien Abductions
5. Eve’s Song
6. Good Grief

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SNIFFLER

1. What to Send Up When It Goes Down
2. Something Clean
3. Uncle Vanya
4. Nassim
5. Octet

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TEARJERKER

(Again, the following is not a list of my favorite shows that happened to make me cry; rather, it ranks the shows according to how forcibly they jerked tears from these ducts)

1. God Said This
2. About Alice
3. Accidentally Brave

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SOUNDTRACK

1. Fairview
2. Usual Girls
3. Slave Play
4. Southern Promises
5. Bernie and Mikey’s Trip to the Moon

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PRE-SHOW SOUNDTRACK

1. Wedding Appropriation — Fairview
2. Alternative Pop — Uncle Vanya
3. Rave — Trainspotting
4. Gospel Chorus — Antigone in Ferguson
5. Kacey Musgraves — PLANO
6. Cooling Down Poolside — “Daddy”
7. Jimmy Buffet — Sehnsucht
8. Beyoncé — The House That Will Not Stand
9. Ain’t No Mo’
10. Perfect Playlist — The Light
11. Get This Party Started — Infinite Love Party
12. Usual Girls
13. Loud — Thunderbodies
14. Non-Top 40, Deep(er) Cut Popular Music — Seared

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HALLEY FEIFFER AWARD FOR MY FAVORITE TITLE

A breakdown of the three subcategories below:

1. Titles In Themselves
   • No matter their relation to the actual content of the art, these titles immediately catch the eye.
2. Titles in Elucidating Meaning
   • These titles aren’t impressive on their own, but they converse with — and thereby deepen, and thus become a part of — the substance of the art, inspiring ideas that audiences may have not considered otherwise.
3. A Title that Does Both
   • Pretty straightforward. These are the titles that, on their appealing faces, make you want to engage with the art, AND they add meaning to the art not found elsewhere.

Not-new titles — be they an adaptation and/or a revival — aren’t eligible.

Oh, and as for why the award’s named in Halley’s honor: I mean, c’mon.

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In Themselves

1. If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka
2. Anything That Gives Off Light
3. Actually, We’re Fucked

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In Elucidating Meaning

1. Is This a Room
2. Pass Over
3. Fairview
4. Good Grief
5. Holiday Sauce
6. Hurricane Diane
7. Slave Play
8. “Daddy”
9. Do You Feel Anger?
10. Something Clean
11. Marjana and the Forty Thieves
12. Bonnie’s Last Flight
13. Chambre Noire
14. Log Cabin
15. Lewiston/Clarkston
16. Fire in Dreamland
17. I Hear You and Rejoice
18. Girls & Boys
19. Skintight
20. you & me

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Both

1. [50/50] old school animation
2. What to Send Up When It Goes Down
3. The Pain of My Belligerence
4. This American Wife
5. Ain’t No Mo’
6. Variations on the Main
7. Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; In Essence, A Queer and Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do You Remember When You Were in Middle School and You Read About Shackleton and How He Explored the Antarctic?; Imagine the Antarctic as a Pussy and It’s Sort of Like That
8. My Name Is Gideon: I’m Probably Going to Die, Eventually
9. Rags Parkland Sings the Songs of the Future
10. Everyone’s Fine With Virginia Woolf
11. Catch as Catch Can
12. Eat the Devil
13. The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d
14. As Far As My Fingertips Take Me
15. Hatef**k
16. Thunderbodies
17. Sugar in Our Wounds
18. Midnight at the Never Get
19. Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie
20. The House That Will Not Stand
21. Wonders at Dusk

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TWO-HANDER

1. [50/50] old school animation
2. Nassim
   • A two-hander of a different color.
3. This American Wife
4. Chambre Noire
   • Ditto.
5. The Chinese Lady
6. Plot Points in Our Sexual Development
7. The Light
8. Spaceman

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YEAR OF THE YEAR

Performer

1. Pete Simpson — Is This A Room / Gatz
2. Michael C. Hall — Thom Pain (based on nothing) / Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical
3. Heather Alicia Simms — Fairview / Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine / By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
4. Megan Hill — Do You Feel Anger? / Eddie and Dave
5. Greg Keller — The Thanksgiving Play / Do You Feel Anger?
6. Brooks Ashmanskas — The Closet / The Prom
7. Margo Seibert — The Thanksgiving Play / Octet
8. Cesar J. Rosado — PLANO / Nylon / The Things That Were There
9. Tiffany Villarin — Do You Feel Anger? / Teenage Dick
10. Patrice Johnson Chevannes — Mies Julie / Good Grief
11. Mykal Kilgore — Songs for a New World / The Who’s Tommy
12. Jeffrey Bean — The Thanksgiving Play / About Alice
13. Sheldon Best — Sugar in Our Wounds / Travisville
14. Heather Lind — Othello; The Nap
15. Lynda Gravátt — The House That Will Not Stand / The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d

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Playwright

1. Jeremy O. Harris — “Daddy” / Slave Play
2. Taylor Mac — Holiday Sauce / Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
3. Jackie Sibblies Drury — Fairview / Marys Seacole
4. Theresa Rebeck — Seared / Bernhardt/Hamlet / Downstairs
5. Jen Silverman — Collective Rage / Dangerous House
6. Donja R. Love — Sugar in Our Wounds / Fireflies