Depp Nabs Sweeney Oscar Nomination; Three Enchanted Songs Honored

Academy Award nominations for 2008 were announced on January 22, and, as expected, Johnny Depp received a Best Actor nod for his performance in the title role of Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton's film picked up nominations for art direction and costume design, but was denied recognition in the best picture category. The year's other big movie musical, Hairspray, which added several songs to its Broadway score, did not receive any nominations. Director Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, set to the music of the Beatles, drew one nomination, for Albert Wolsky's costumes.

In the category of best original song, Broadway vets Alan Menken The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Stephen Schwartz Wicked drew three of the five nominations for tunes from Disney's Enchanted: "Happy Working Song," "So Close" and "That's How You Know." The other nominated songs were "Falling Slowly" from Once and "Raise It Up" from August Rush.

Among the acting nominees of interest to theater fans, Laura Linney received a Best Actress nomination for The Savages, Hal Holbrook and Philip Seymour Hoffman drew Best Supporting Actor nods for Into the Wild and Charlie Wilson's War, and Amy Ryan and Ruby Dee will compete for Best Supporting Actress for their performances in Gone Baby Gone and American Gangster.

In the screenwriting categories, British playwrights Christopher Hampton and Ronald Harwood received nominations for their adaptations of Atonement and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, respectively. Ethan Coen, whose trio of one-act plays, Almost An Evening, opens on January 22 ath Atlantic Theatre Company's Stage 2, drew three nominations with his brother, Joel, for their adapted screenplay and direction and for producing Best Picture nominee No Country for Old Men. The Coen brothers' film received eight nominations in all.

This year's Oscar telecast is scheduled for February 24 at the Kodak Theatre, but the ceremony is shrouded in uncertainty due to the ongoing writers' strike.