The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 20 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley.

Member affiliations

• Associated Press
• Back Stage
• Bergen Record
• Bloomberg News

• Entertainment Weekly
• New York Daily News
• New York Observer
• New York Post

• Newsday
• The New Yorker
• Time
• Time Out New York

• USA Today
• Variety
• Village Voice
• Wall Street Journal

New York Drama Critics' Circle Award

The New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, awarded every year to the best new play of the season, with additional awards for musicals and foreign or American plays as well as citations for special achievement, is the United States' second oldest theatre award, after the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The first was awarded to Winterset by Maxwell Anderson, who won the following year as well for High Tor.

The award for Best Play carries with it a cash prize of US$2,500, and US$1,000 goes to the playwright who receives the award for best American or foreign play. The awards are made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

The critics of the New York Times, are not members of the Drama Critics' Circle. In 1989, the newspaper's executive editor decreed that their critics could no longer participate in any awards. The Times critics served as non-voting members of the Drama Critics' Circle until 1997, when the newspaper reversed its policy and allowed its critics to resume voting for the awards. In 2003, the permission was again revoked, and the Times critics were asked to withdraw from the Circle.

Theatre awards and citation winners

Best Play

• 1938: Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
• 1939: The Time of Your Life – William Saroyan
• 1945: The Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams
• 1947: All My Sons – Arthur Miller
• 1948: A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
• 1949: Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
• 1953: Picnic – William Inge
• 1955: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Tennessee Williams
• 1957: Long Day's Journey into Night – Eugene O'Neill
• 1959: A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
• 1962: The Night of the Iguana – Tennessee Williams
• 1963: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Edward Albee
• 1967: The Homecoming – Harold Pinter
• 1968: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Tom Stoppard
• 1973: The Changing Room – David Storey
• 1978: Da – Hugh Leonard
• 1983: Brighton Beach Memoirs – Neil Simon
• 1984: The Real Thing – Tom Stoppard
• 1985: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom – August Wilson
• 1986: A Lie of the Mind – Sam Shepard
• 1987: Fences – August Wilson

• 1988: Joe Turner's Come and Gone – August Wilson
• 1989: The Heidi Chronicles – Wendy Wasserstein
• 1990: The Piano Lesson – August Wilson
• 1991: Six Degrees of Separation – John Guare
• 1992: Dancing at Lughnasa – Brian Friel
• 1993: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches – Tony Kushner
• 1994: Three Tall Women – Edward Albee
• 1995: Arcadia – Tom Stoppard
• 1996: Seven Guitars – August Wilson
• 1997: How I Learned To Drive – Paula Vogel
• 1998: Art – Yasmina Reza
• 1999: Wit – Margaret Edson
• 2000: Jitney – August Wilson
• 2001: Proof – David Auburn
• 2002: The Goat: or, Who is Sylvia? – Edward Albee
• 2003: Take Me Out – Richard Greenberg
• 2004: Intimate Apparel – Lynn Nottage
• 2005: Doubt – John Patrick Shanley
• 2006: The History Boys – Alan Bennett
• 2007: The Coast of Utopia – Tom Stoppard
• 2008: August: Osage County – Tracy Letts
• 2009: Ruined – Lynn Nottage

Best Foreign Play

• 1941: The Corn is Green – Emlyn Williams
• 1942: Blithe Spirit – Noel Coward
• 1957: No Exit – Jean-Paul Sartre
• 1950: The Cocktail Party – T. S. Eliot
• 1955: Witness for the Prosecution – Agatha Christie
• 1957: The Waltz of the Toreadors – Jean Anouilh
• 1958: Look Back in Anger – John Osborne
• 1961: A Taste of Honey – Shelagh Delaney
• 1980: Betrayal – Harold Pinter
• 1983: Plenty – David Hare
• 1989: Aristocrats – Brian Friel
• 1996: Molly Sweeney – Brian Friel
• 1997: Skylight – David Hare
• 1999: Closer – Patrick Marber
• 2000: Copenhagen – Michael Frayn
• 2003: Talking Heads – Alan Bennett
• 2005: The Pillowman – Martin McDonagh
• 2009: Black Watch – Gregory Burke

Best American Play

• 1960: Toys in the Attic - Lillian Hellman
• 1971: The House of Blue Leaves – John Guare
• 1973: Hot L Baltimore – Lanford Wilson
• 1977: American Buffalo – David Mamet
• 1981: Crimes of the Heart – Beth Henley
• 1992: Two Trains Running – August Wilson
• 1995: Love! Valour! Compassion! – Terrence McNally
• 1998: Pride's Crossing – Tina Howe
• 2001: Proof – David Auburn
• 2007: Radio Golf – August Wilson

Best Musical

• 1946: Carousel – Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
• 1951: Guys and Dolls – Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling,
• 1956: My Fair Lady – Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner
• 1957: The Most Happy Fella – Frank Loesser
• 1958: The Music Man – Meredith Willson
• 1960: Fiorello! – Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, George Abbott and Jerome Weidman
• 1965: Fiddler on the Roof – Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein
• 1967: Cabaret – John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff
• 1969: 1776 – Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone
• 1970: Company – Stephen Sondheim and George Furth
• 1971: Follies – Stephen Sondheim and William Goldman
• 1972: Two Gentlemen of Verona – Galt MacDermot, John Guare and Mel Shapiro
• 1973: A Little Night Music – Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
• 1974: Candide – Leonard Bernstein, Richard Wilbur, Hugh Wheeler and John La Touche
• 1975: A Chorus Line – Marvin Hamlisch, James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante
• 1976: Pacific Overtures – Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman and Hugh Wheeler
• 1977: Annie – Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan
• 1978: Ain't Misbehavin' – Fats Waller and Richard Maltby, Jr.
• 1979: Sweeney Todd – Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
• 1980: Evita – Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
• 1983: Little Shop of Horrors – Alan Menken and Howard Ashman
• 1984: Sunday in the Park with George – Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
• 1987: Les Misérables – Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer
• 1988: Into the Woods – Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
• 1990: City of Angels – Larry Gelbart, Cy Coleman, and David Zippel
• 1991: The Will Rogers Follies – Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Peter Stone
• 1993: Kiss of the Spider Woman – John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Terrence McNally
• 1996: Rent – Jonathan Larson
• 1997: Violet – Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley
• 1998: The Lion King – Elton John, Tim Rice, Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi
• 1999: Parade – Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry
• 2000: James Joyce's The Dead – Shaun Davey and Richard Nelson
• 2001: The Producers – Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan
• 2003: Hairspray – Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell
• 2006: The Drowsy Chaperone – Bob Martin, Don McKellar, Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison
• 2007: Spring Awakening – Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater
• 2008: Passing Strange – Stew and Heidi Rodewald
• 2009: Billy Elliot the Musical – Elton John and Lee Hall

Special awards and citations

• 1963: Beyond the Fringe – Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore
• 1964: The Trojan Women – Euripides
• 1966: Hal Holbrook – Mark Twain Tonight
• 1971: Sticks and Bones by David Rabe and Old Times by Harold Pinter
• 1980: Peter Brook's Le Centre International de Créations Théâtricales at La Mama
• 1981: Lena Horne for Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music and New York Shakespeare Festival's [The Pirates of Penzance]
• 1983: Young Playwrights Festival
• 1984: Samuel Beckett for the body of his work
• 1986: The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe – Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner
• 1989: Largely New York – Bill Irwin
• 1992: Eileen Atkins – A Room of One's Own
• 1994: Anna Deavere Smith – Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
• 1994: Signature Theatre Company's Horton Foote season
• 1997: Chicago revival — Encores!
• 1998: Cabaret – Roundabout Theatre Company
• 1999: David Hare
• 2002: Elaine Stritch – Elaine Stritch At Liberty
• 2004: Barbara Cook
• 2006: John Doyle, Sarah Travis – Sweeney Todd and Christine Ebersole – Grey Gardens
• 2007: Journey's End - Broadway revival
• 2009: Angela Lansbury; Matthew Warchus and the cast of The Norman Conquests; Gerard Alessandrini for Forbidden Broadway

See also

• Tony Awards
• Drama Desk Awards
• Obie Awards

References

1. Jones, Kenneth. Passing Strange and August: Osage County Win 2007-08 NY Drama Critics Circle Award",playbill.com, May 12, 2008

Notes

External links

• New York Drama Critics' Circle official site