History Boys and Drowsy Chaperone Are Tops with NY Drama Critics

Alan Bennett's The History Boys was named Best Play and The Drowsy Chaperone was awarded Best Musical when the New York Drama Critics' Circle announced their annual awards on May 11.

Two special citations were awarded by the New York Drama Critics' Circle: one to John Doyle, Sarah Travis and the company of the revival of Sweeney Todd and one to Christine Ebersole for her performance in the off-Broadway musical Grey Gardens. This is the first time in the organization's history that two special citations have been awarded.

The History Boys consists of an unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university, a maverick English teacher Richard Griffiths at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher Stephen Campbell Moore. There is also a headmaster Clive Merrison obsessed with results, and a history teacher Frances de la Tour who thinks he's a fool. Staff room rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how to teach it. The show, a huge hit in the UK, opened a limited engagement at the Broadhurst Theatre on April 23, 2006.

The Drowsy Chaperone features music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar. In the tuner, a modern day musical theatre addict known simply as Man in Chair Martin drops the needle on his favorite LP: the 1928 musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone. From the crackle of his hi-fi, the musical comes to life on stage, telling the tale of a pampered Broadway starlet Sutton Foster who wants to give up show business to get married, her producer Lenny Wolpe who sets out to sabotage the nuptials, her chaperone Beth Leavel, the debonair groom Troy Britton Johnson, the dizzy chorine Jennifer Smith, the Latin lover Danny Burstein and a pair of gangsters who double as pastry chefs Garth and Jason Kravits.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle is comprised of president Adam Feldman Time Out New York, vice-president Frank Scheck The Hollywood Reporter, New York Post, treasurer Michael Kuchwara Associated Press, Clive Barnes The New York Post, David Cote Time Out New York, Michael Feingold The Village Voice, Robert Feldberg Bergen Record, Elysa Gardner USA Today, John Heilpern The New York Observer, Howard Kissel The Daily News, Jacques le Sourd Gannett Newspapers, Jeremy McCarter New York, David Rooney Variety, David Sheward Back Stage, John Simon Bloomberg News, Michael Sommers The Star-Ledger/Newhouse Newspapers, Terry Teachout The Wall Street Journal, Linda Winer Newsday and Richard Zoglin Time.

The 2006 New York Drama Critics' Circle will be presented at a cocktail reception to be held on Tuesday, May 23, at the Algonquin Hotel, where the NYDCC was founded in 1935 by such legendary critics as Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell and Robert Benchley.