The 2007 Lucille Lortel Awards, honoring the best of Off-Broadway, were bestowed last night at New World Stages, with screen and stage star Bobby Cannavale (filling in for Eric Bogosian) and Tony Award winner Bebe Neuwirth as the ceremony’s surprisingly funny hosts. (If you want to know the difference between an actor and a dancer, just ask Bebe!)
A highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Lortel for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement to Kevin Kline, who spoke about his early days with Joseph Papp — and his reaction to reading The New York Times‘ unfavorable review of his recent performance in King Lear.
The beautiful Gloria Reuben was teary-eyed while accepting her Outstanding Lead Actress award for playing Condoleezza Rice in Stuff Happens.
Sherie Rene Scott, named Outstanding Featured Actress for Signature’s Landscape of the Body, recalled her childhood crush on playwright John Guare.
The ultra-talented Nilaja Sun, who won the Outstanding Solo Show award for No Child, thanked her parents for never telling her to keep quiet.
The ceremony’s presenters included current Spelling Bee star Mo Rocca, who shared some interesting facts about Lucille Lortel that he got from Wikipedia…
…Tom Jones, co-author of The Fantasticks and 110 in the Shade, who has been part of the Off-Broadway community for nearly half a century…
…Lois Smith, a Lortel Award winner last year for The Trip to Bountiful, who assured this year’s winners that their engraved statuettes will come in the mail “eventually”…
…and Company star Raúl Esparza, on hand to present a special award to The Actors’ Fund, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary.
The evening’s musical entertainment included Mandy Gonzalez and Christopher Jackson in a number from In the Heights, which tied for Outstanding Musical with…
…Spring Awakening, whose cast got the show off to a rousing start with the anthem “Totally Fucked.”
We leave the Lortel Awards with this photo of the all-Chinese cast of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, who wowed the crowd with their performance of that show’s title song in both Manadarin and English.
Let’s hear it for the boys! Onetime child sitcom star Joey Lawrence has blossomed into a leading man and is now playing Billy Flynn in Chicago…
…former American Idol finalist Anthony Fedorov recently celebrated his opening night in the Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks…
Grease TV talent show contestants Austin Miller (who may turn up on Broadway this summer as Link in Hairspray) and Derek Keeling made a special appearance in Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway Chatterbox at Don’t Tell Mama.
