Patina Miller and Bebe Neuwirth Help Kick Off Awards Season at the Drama League Nominations!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

We're here at the legendary Sardis to take you behind the scenes at the nominations for the 83rd annual Drama League Awards

Nominations is so exciting because, you know, we've been going to hundreds of plays this year, thousands of performances

and today is the day where the nominators of the Drama League say, this is the best of our field

This is what quality is. This is what it means to be excellent in the theater

I think this season has been particularly good. I've really enjoyed it

And we cover off-Broadway and Odd Broadway. So I sometimes say I feel like an actor, eight shows a week, going to review them

But I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's really great. Each person you think of each show, how much incredible work and dedication and years

and just all those 10 out of 12 rehearsals of all those people

And it's just, there it is. piece of paper. The Drum League really always tries to celebrate. You know, yes, eventually someone

will win, but we really want to celebrate. The nominees for outstanding revival of a musical

Broadway or off Broadway are cats, falsettos, Hello Dolly, Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard

Sweetie Todd, and Sweet Cherry. How do you take all these incredible performances and narrow it all

down? Well, it's the scoring system. Math. I mean, it's very fair. We don't pick favorites even though we might have a favorite, and it might not register in the scoring

So yeah math is really what we have to do And we wait until the very last day which was yesterday and put everything together The office does all the work We have a meeting The computer spits it out Yeah the computer spits it out and today is the result of what we all saw during the course of the season outstanding production of a musical on or

off Broadway the nominees are emily a new musical anastasia bandstand come from away dear evan

Hanson, Groundhog Day, Hades Town, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Ride to the Cyclo

and Warpaint. It's the oldest theatrical honor in North America, and I think it's really special in a lot of ways

We don't distinguish between gender. Men and women compete against one another

We don't size of the role, it's not lead, not supporting, and one person is going to walk away

with sort of the Nobel Prize or the Peabody of the theater. So it ends up being a who's who

all the way back to Helen Hayes and Catherine Cornell and this tradition that we have over 83 years

So it's really exciting. How do you sustain, like for all the new people who are being nominated this year

never been down to award season, how did you get through awards season? Enjoy it

Try to stay conscious. Just remember you've got eight shows a week to do

and you've got to give those shows. that's the most important thing

is to maintain your performance and your focus and your love for those

eight shows a week but meanwhile try to stay conscious and just

soak it all in and whether they hand you award or not this season is

yours and I mean everybody participating in the season whether or not you're nominated

whether or not they hand you an award just soak it all in

and enjoy your time doing what you love in the arts