Time for the Tony Nominations!

It's an exciting time of year for theater fans. Time for the Tony nominations!

The annual Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre honor the best shows, performers and designers on Broadway. Earning nominations has helped plays of the past gain visibility, while getting a performance slot on the awards show has helped sell tickets for many a musical.

So whose show will reign supreme this year? The way this year's nominations have fallen into place, coming-of-age musical Fun Home, film-to-stage musical An American in Paris, Shakespeare spoof Something's Rotten!, revivals of The King and I and Skylight, and British imports The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Wolf Hall are leading the pack.

Here's the complete list of nominations:

BEST PLAY
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Disgraced
Hand to God
Wolf Hall Parts One & Two

BEST MUSICAL
An American in Paris
Fun Home
Something's Rotten
The Visit

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY
The Elephant Man
Skylight
This Is Our Youth
You Can't Take It With You

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
The King and I
On the Town
On the Twentieth Century

BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL
Craig Lucas, An American in Paris
Lisa Kron, Fun Home
Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, Something's Rotten!
Terrence McNally, The Visit

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron (lyrics), Fun Home
Sting (music and lyrics), The Last Ship
Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick (music and lyrics), Something Rotten!
John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics), The Visit

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Steven Boyer, Hand to God 
Bradley Cooper, The Elephant Man
Ben Miles, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
Bill Nighy, Skylight
Alex Sharp, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Geneva Carr, Hand to God
Helen Mirren, The Audience
Elisabeth Moss, The Heidi Chronicles
Carey Mulligan, Skylight 
Ruth Wilson, Constellations

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Michael Cerveris, Fun Home
Robert Fairchild, An American in Paris
Brian d’Arcy James, Something Rotten! 
Ken Watanabe, The King and I 
Tony Yazbeck, On the Town

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL  
Kristin Chenoweth, On the Twentieth Century
Leanne Cope, An American in Paris
Beth Malone, Fun Home
Kelli O’Hara, The King and I 
Chita Rivera, The Visit

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Matthew Beard, Skylight 
K. Todd Freeman, Airline Highway
Richard McCabe, The Audience 
Alessandro Nivola, The Elephant Man
Nathaniel Parker, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
Micah Stock, It’s Only a Play

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It with You
Patricia Clarkson, The Elephant Man 
Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two 
Sarah Stiles, Hand to God 
Julie White, Airline Highway

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Christian Borle, Something Rotten! 
Andy Karl, On the Twentieth Century 
Brad Oscar, Something Rotten! 
Brandon Uranowitz, An American in Paris
Max von Essen, An American in Paris 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Victoria Clark, Gigi 
Judy Kuhn, Fun Home
Sydney Lucas, Fun Home 
Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I 
Emily Skeggs, Fun Home

BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY
Stephen Daldry, Skylight
Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Scott Ellis, You Can't Take It With You
Jeremy Herrin, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Hand to God

BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL
Sam Gold, Fun Home
Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten!
John Rando, On the Town
Bartlett Sher, The King and I
Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
Joshua Bergasse, On the Town
Christopher Gattelli, The King and I
Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten!
Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris

BEST ORCHESTRATIONS
Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky and Bill Elliott, An American in Paris
John Clancy, Fun Home 
Larry Hochman, Something Rotten! 
Rob Mathes, The Last Ship

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY
Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Bob Crowley, Skylight 
Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
David Rockwell, You Can’t Take It with You 

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris
David Rockwell, On the Twentieth Century
Michael Yeargan, The King and I 
David Zinn, Fun Home

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY
Bob Crowley, The Audience 
Jane Greenwood, You Can’t Take It with You
Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
David Zinn, Airline Highway

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Gregg Barnes, Something Rotten! 
Bob Crowley, An American in Paris 
William Ivey Long, On the Twentieth Century 
Catherine Zuber, The King and I

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY
Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 
Paule Constable and David Plater, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two 
Natasha Katz, Skylight 
Japhy Weideman, Airline Highway

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Donald Holder, The King and I
Natasha Katz, An American in Paris
Ben Stanton, Fun Home
Japhy Weideman, The Visit

In other Tony news, Tommy Tune will receive the special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, while  the Cleveland Play House will be awarded the Regional Theatre Tony.

Other special Tony honors will be given to composer Stephen Schwartz, recipient of the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award, and to John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote and starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, now receiving a Tony for his return to that show. Tony Awards for Excellence in Theatre will be presented to press agent Adrian Brian-Brown; Gene O'Donovan, founder of the Hudson Scenic Studio; and scenic designer and painter Arnold Abramson.

The Tony Awards will be broadcast on Sunday, June 7 on CBS. For all the Tony news you need now and then, check out their official website.

Annie Baker's THE FLICK Takes the Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2014

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 2014 has gone to Annie Baker's play The Flick, which played at Playwrights Horizons in early 2013. The Pulitzer is awarded to "a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life." In choosing it, the Pulitzer committee described The Flick as "a thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage." The Playwrights Horizons run was directed by frequent Annie Baker collaborator Sam Gold.

The Flick garnered praise from critics like Charles Isherwood in The New York Times, who noted that this "lovingly observed play will sink deep into your consciousness, and probably stay there for a while." Other prominent sources were equally enamored of the play, and it won Baker an Obie as well as the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

But it was not without its detractors. Baker purposely wrote a play without traditional theatrical action, where characters are revealed through menial, everyday activities ("walking and sweeping and mopping and dust-pan banging," according to Baker) and by what they don't say as much as what they do. She wrote about characters -- regular old people -- she felt are often left out of American theater, and she let The Flick spool out in its own time, which was about three hours. With the combination of length, languid pace and frequent silences, some Playwrights Horizons' patrons complained, walked out at intermission and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. And then Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Tim Sanford sent an email blast to all 3000 subscribers to explain why and how The Flick suited the new-play and playwright focused theater and why they were standing behind it even in the face of so much criticism. No apologies, just an explanation. Still, that's not something that happens every day.

Given all of that, the Pulitzer committee seems to be telling us that they are behind game-changers and boundary-breakers like Annie Baker and The Flick.

It is worth noting that the other two nominees for this year's Pulitzer were also created by female theater artists. Those runners-up were Madeleine George's The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, "a cleverly constructed play that uses several historical moments -- from the 1800s to the 2010s – to meditate on the technological advancements that bring people together and tear them apart," and the musical Fun Home, with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori, which the Pulitzer site calls "a poignant musical adaptation of a graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, exploring sexual identity amid complicated family constraints and relationships." Fun Home enjoyed a Public Theatre production that starred Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris and three-time Tony Award-nominee Judy Kuhn.

Both The Flick and Fun Home made Playbill's list of possibilities for the Pulitzer, but Watson Intelligence, another Playwrights Horizons show, was perhaps less expected. In another interesting footnote, playwrights Lisa Kron and Madeleine George are a couple, married last year, meaning there are two Pulitzer citations in their household in 2014.

PS Classics has produced a cast recording for Fun Home if you're interested in revisiting or understanding its "shining clarity that lights up the night."