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Meet the Winners of the 61st Annual Drama Desk Awards!
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Nov 6, 2022
On Sunday night, Drama Desk Award winner Michael Urie (Buyer and Cellar, 'Ugly Betty') hosted the 61st Annual Drama Desk Awards at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street). BroadwayWorld was backstage with the evening's big winners and you can check out interviews with the happy bunch below!
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0:00
Oh, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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I'm in the winner's circle at the Marriott Marquis for the 61st Annual Dramadest Awards
0:07
Is there anybody you forgot to thank tonight that you would like to thank? Well, the music came on very aggressively and very loudly
0:14
So I had... It moved really well with that. I had a lot more to say. But I just, you know, my sons, Emmett and Charlie, I wanted to mention them because they're such an inspiration to all my funny bones
0:26
And to my cast and the crew at the Brooks Atkinson, who I adore. just keep it light and fun all the time
0:32
So those are the other groups I wanted to say. You won a special award tonight for the wonderful job that you do at Camp Broadway
0:38
I mean, tell me what this award means to you. This award is the validation of 20 years of effort of lovingly building theater goers
0:47
for the amazing artists that work in our industry. Camp Broadway is a place where kids can come that want to learn more about it and have a way in
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And a lot of the kids that come won't necessarily be performers, but they're gonna grow up and be theater goers
1:02
Hey, physics just exploded on the stage out there. You know, and here we are, you know, part of this world
1:07
It's really exciting. It's a lot of fun. We're having a good time. It's the first year for this award for hair design
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I would have loved to have had this before because I would have hired you to design a hairpiece for me for awards season
1:18
How excited are you to have this? I am beyond excited and so grateful, just so grateful that they added the category
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I mean, to be able to fill a part of this community at this level. It's just amazing. I'm so grateful and so appreciative
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Costume design for a play, Georgia McBride, flawless as an audience member to watch
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What was it like for you working on this show? Well, we obviously have a limited budget, and we have a lot of changes
1:46
Of course, a drag show is all about changes. So we had to design it in a very meticulous way because it was like boy to girl, girl back to boy
1:58
boy, I mean, it was like crazy. So I think there were like
2:02
over 50 costumes in the show. Congratulations, my friend. I adored American Psycho and talk about sound
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design. What was it like working on this show? It was one of my favorite shows
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ever to work on. To work with Duncan Sheek and to make a show that effing loud was a
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great pleasure and an honor. It was also getting to work with these other great designers
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The design of the show, we all worked together to really help tell that story
2:26
It was a very exciting and a collaborative room to be in. It was wonderful
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So congratulations, best sound design of a play for the humans. What was the best part of the experience for you
2:37
with working on this show? I was watching Joe, Reed, and Jane go deeper
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and deeper and deeper into the text. And watching really the spirit of the play emerge in a very miraculous way You know you get it to 95 and that what you have to do just to be in the game
2:55
Getting from 95 to 96 takes all of that energy again and then again and then again
3:01
And it was amazing to watch them continue to miraculously open the play up, go deeper and deeper and deeper
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Was there anybody you forgot to thank, but you'd like to thank at Broadway World? Well, it's, of course, to always say the Rupert Gould and Joe Mantello are
3:14
certainly are thanked, but need to be thanked again and again, because their leadership
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along with working with the companies, both the offstage and onstage companies
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have just made it such a joy to work and create beautiful new work on Broadway
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Anybody you forgot to thank tonight that you'd like to thank here at Broadway World? Yeah, I want to thank my wife, Marcia, and my son, Sam, who's not very interested in theater
3:37
but who's a wonderful son, and my daughter Lola, who's seen the show a gazillion times
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and actually when Zach's leg went out and he couldn't do the cartwheel
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she said, I'll just come across and do the cartwheel. So they've been incredibly supportive, and they see how happy this makes me
3:54
Where will the awards live? Mine will live in my trophy case, where I keep my other lovely awards
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Trophy case. My trophy, I'm going to create a trophy case now, right
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I guess. Donald just stood on my dresser, I guess, you know
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I'm very fortunate. I have some wonderful things, and I hold them in very high regard
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This is just one of many for you, right? This is the beginning of the trophy case. The beginning of the trophy case, yes
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I get to work at a job that I'm chosen for to do a specific thing
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Even if I don't like every minute, I certainly like the result. To work, to do it in New York, the base place in the world to do it
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To do it, to work on a masterpiece like she loves me
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to work and then to make friends along the way. And to have a family at the same time
4:47
It's been really deeply special. I mean, what I designed this play to be, really from its impetus
4:53
was to be a part of a movement and a truly, unfortunately, living issue
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which is the sexual violence against women in conflict and even not in conflict
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And to bring voice to that in a way that actually has resonated with audiences
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was really the goal. I mean, it was really about who are those great. Where are their voices and why do we never hear them
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And so to see that sort of communication, that communing happening between the audiences and the story we're telling
5:20
I mean, it's been deeply rewarding. This play has had such a long and beautiful life
5:23
And several of the actresses that are in the show were with it even before then
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And I'm so pleased I was able to originate the show at the public theater to be back there, having done hair there
5:34
you know Shakespeare in the Park It just it was like going home And so for us to move to Broadway way It was just a powerful thing about people in their ability to open their hearts and want to learn more about people from other places
5:48
What's been the best part for you, Bart, with working on this musical, this masterpiece
5:52
I think, you know, the cast has been really wonderful, and Jeffrey Richards was enormously helpful
5:58
and having Danny there was great, and Jessica Hecht and Hofesh, of course
6:02
So it's, they were all wonderful. and I've had a very personal connection to the material
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so it was very special experience from beginning to end. I just go into the room and I start work
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That's what I do every single time. The actors will tell you that. It's always an exploration for me of what they can do
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what I can bring to it, and what's the most truthful way to tell the story. And hopefully that will bring with it visual context
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and something dynamic. But I don't set out to make it look like our musical
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I like it to look like a play with songs, and if it's got more to it, then that's wonderful
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Is there anybody you forgot to thank that you'd like to thank here at Broadway World? Oh yeah, my husband, Robert
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who, God knows, has got, every year has got to endure all this agony, and I didn't thank him there and there
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because I was in a bit of shell-shock state, but I'm sure you'll understand. For me, it means a lot because the Drama Desk Award
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is an award that includes Broadway shows of Broadway and off-off-Broadway, and I'm part of both worlds, as you know
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because I work a long time already in the off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop
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So that means a lot. And of course, to be recognized in such a huge way this year
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not only by the audiences, because that's, of course, why we do it all
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but also by the colleagues now. That's really hard-wobing. It's a very warm welcome that we got this year in New York
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It is. I mean, it's quite rewarding to see the work being produced
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by such fabulous people, great entertainers, and then getting the opportunity to see the audience react to the piece
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It's a wonderful feeling. I'm glad we had the opportunity to do this. Once you have that eight show a week in your bones, it stays forever, right
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Yeah, I mean, people, like, my friends from Hollywood are coming. Like, wait, you do this eight times a week
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I'm like, yes, and I'm doing actually 16 in a row because we have a weird, funky schedule this week
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and we're doing an actor's fun performance. I'm doing 16 in a row. They would never, they could enhance
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handle this. Julie Bowen would fall down before she finished that one performance
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Is there anybody you forgot to thank tonight that you'd like to thank here at Broadway World? Well, I do want to like, I sort of brushed off my husband because he wasn't in the room
8:15
but he is actually not in the room because he's doing the AIDS life cycle from San Francisco
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all the way to Los Angeles. So he's not here because he's doing unbelievable things
8:23
and I'm so lucky to have him in my life. Is there anybody you forgot to thank tonight that you like to thank here at Broadway World I think I got everyone but I going to say again Mama Matty who our stage manager and Sharika who is like my stage wife she amazing she wonderful
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they are both incredible people they look after every single one of the people in the
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cast and we couldn't do without you at all. It makes you feel old
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doing the show because it's so hard to do but the writing
8:48
is so beautiful and the audience comes with you on that journey every single
8:52
night and I have great people with me Jessica Hecht for example is I honestly would not have gotten this award if it weren't for Jessica Hack
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She pushes me to be a better actor every single day and I love her more than I could ever say
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The entire company, our crew, everybody. It's a great big family and it's an honor to be at the Broadway theater
9:15
Anybody you forgot to thank that you'd like to thank here, Broadway World. Okay, so we have the number one person because we have, look at this list
9:22
It's like freaking Cerebra, it's like crazy people. So we didn't expect this. The normal person is Stephen Levinson, our bookwriter
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who provides so much of the inspiration for everything. For a lyrics award, so many of the ideas for songs
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and how we created them come from our bookwriter, come from the material that he's created
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the raw stuff that he comes up with for these characters. And we often call and say, Stephen, we're in a jam
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Help us out. And so we, I mean, they always talk about it
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but oftentimes composers usually steal their bookwriters' best stuff. We definitely did that in this show
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We did. We definitely did. So, Stephen, you share this. you share this award with us a thousand percent
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He gets, if they only send one, it's going to steal. Yeah, yeah, that's actually true. What does it mean to you watching how this show affects audiences so
10:05
Well, it's so thrilling to me because I think at the end of Act 1, they're caught up in the journey of what these people had to go to to the put on the show
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and then at the end, they're caught up in the phenomenon of the mortality
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the mortality of theater, and the mortality of all of our lives
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that we do something magical and wonderful, and will we be honored and will we be remembered for the thing that we do
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do. So I think it takes them on the journey of discovery and it takes on the journey of
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and how will history think about you. But I thank the most for the joy that I have day in
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and day out, you know, like that, going to the theater every night at 8 o'clock is so much
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fun. And that includes the audience and their participation because they're so, they give us so
10:48
much every night and they are so participatory and part of our show really. So I'm thankful
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to all the people that come and cheer and laugh and enjoy it
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Everything that you know about acting is on the line every single night, every performance
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But you know, the fact that we're doing Eugene O'Neill and with this extraordinary play
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I mean, as he says, written in blood and tears, I mean it's just thrilling
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All I can say is it's thrilling every night, every time we get on stage
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