Six, Company & Clyde's Lead 2022 Drama Desk Awards

Winners have been announced for the 66th Annual Drama Desk Awards, honoring the best in Broadway, off and off-off-Broadway theater in the 2021-22 season. Six, Company and Clyde's earned the most awards with four each. Flying Over Sunset, MJ and Prayer for the French Republic followed with three each. This year’s Drama Desk Awards will take place at Sardi’s Restauran on June 14. The Drama Desk Awards are voted on and bestowed by theater critics, journalists, editors and publishers covering theater. 

The full list of winners can be found below.

Outstanding Play
Prayer for the French Republic, by Joshua Harmon

Outstanding Musical
Kimberly Akimbo 

Outstanding Revival of a Play
How I Learned to Drive

Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Company

Outstanding Actor in a Play
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Lackawanna Blues 

Outstanding Actress in a Play
Phylicia Rashad, Skeleton Crew 

Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Jaquel Spivey, A Strange Loop

Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Joaquina Kalukango, Paradise Square

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
Ron Cephas Jones, Clyde's 

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
Francis Benhamou, Prayer for the French Republic 

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Matt Doyle, Company 

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical
Patti LuPone, Company 

Outstanding Solo Performance
Kristina Wong, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord 

Outstanding Director of a Play
Taibi Magar, Twilight: Lost Angeles, 1992

Outstanding Director of a Musical
Marianne Elliott, Company 

Outstanding Choreography
Bill T. Jones, Garrett Coleman & Jason Oremus (Irish Hammerstep), Gelan Lambert & Chloe Davis (associates), Paradise Square 

Outstanding Music Presented by Music Theatre International
Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss, Six 

Outstanding Lyrics Presented by Music Theatre International
Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss, Six 

Outstanding Book of a Musical Presented by Music Theatre International
Bruce Sussman, Harmony 

Outstanding Orchestrations
Jason Michael Webb & David Holcenberg, MJ 

Outstanding Music in a Play
Bill Sims Jr., Lackawanna Blues 

Outstanding Set Design of a Play
Takeshi Kata, Clyde's 

Outstanding Set Design for a Musical Presented by Hudson Scenic
Beowulf Boritt, Flying Over Sunset 

Outstanding Costume Design for a Play
Jennifer Moeller, Clyde's 

Outstanding Costume Design for a Musical Presented by Production Resource Group
Gabriella Slade, Six 

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play (Tie)
Christopher Akerlind, Clyde's 
Amith Chandrashaker, Prayer for the French Republic 

Outstanding Lighting Design for a Musical (Tie)
Natasha Katz, MJ 
Bradley King, Flying Over Sunset 

Outstanding Sound Design in a Play
Ben & Max Ringham, Cyrano de Bergerac 

Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical
Gareth Owen, MJ 

Outstanding Projection Design
59 Productions, Flying Over Sunset 

Outstanding Wig and Hair Design
David Brian Brown, Mrs. Doubtfire

Outstanding Puppet Design
James Ortiz, The Skin of Our Teeth

The Chase Award for Unique Theatrical Experience
Seven Deadly Sins, Tectonic Theater Project & Madison Wells Live

Outstanding Adaptation
Merry Wives, by Jocelyn Bioh

Ensemble Award: 
Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Brittney Mack, Abby Mueller, Samantha Pauly and Anna Uzele, Six
The actors bring to musical life the women who married England's King Henry VIII. The fanciful result is a buoyant dramatization of their individually purposeful and collectively empowering journeys.

Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award:
Marjan Neshat
This season, as a woman hiding her brother from the Taliban in Sylvia Khoury's Selling Kabul and an English instructor straddling two very different cultures in Sanaz Toossi's English, Marjan Neshat embodied disparate characters so fully that it was hard to recognize the single actor in the two roles. Whether in drama or comedy, Neshat mines the playwright's text for a vast panoply of emotions that yield vivid, intricate portrayals of the parts she undertakes.

Harold Prince Lifetime Achievement Award:
Alice Childress
In four decades as playwright, novelist, actor, and director, Alice Childress (1912-1994) challenged racism with engrossing stories and memorable characters. When a New York producer demanded revisions to soften the impact of Trouble in Mind, Childress withdrew the script. Sixty-five years later, the Drama Desk celebrates the long-delayed Broadway premiere of this timeless masterpiece and salutes Childress as a towering figure in contemporary theater history.

Additional Special Awards:

Dede Ayite seems to have costumed half the actors of this theater season with her designs for Merry Wives, Seven Deadly Sins, The Last of the Love Letters, Chicken and Biscuits, Slave Play, Nollywood Dreams, American Buffalo, and How I learned to Drive. Whether dressing working-class Marylanders of the 1960s, amateur criminals of the 1970s, or West African immigrants in today's Harlem, Ayite has a knack for conveying characters' means, values, and aspirations before the actors utter a word.

Adam Rigg devised wildly varying scenic designs this season including: a house in wood, shadow, and reflective glass that draws the audience into the Flint, Michigan water crisis in Cullud Wattah; a community cul-de-sac where trauma and history are celebrated in On Sugarland; and the falling walls, flower-covered hillsides, and functional seaside fun ride of The Skin of Our Teeth.

With the category-defying Oratorio for Living Things, Heather Christian aims to encompass all human existence in a single inventive and startlingly beautiful work. In times of pandemic, war, and social upheaval, Christian's work (directed by Lee Sunday Evans and brought to life by a superb cast and creative team) is an awe-inspiring reminder that, even in the darkest times, there will always be artistic peaks to scale.

Productions with Multiple Wins
Clyde's—4
Company—4
Six—4
Flying Over Sunset—3
MJ—3
Prayer for the French Republic—3
Lackawanna Blues—2
Paradise Square—2