Columbia Producers Win Big at 2025 Drama League Awards
Update:
Four Columbia theatre-makers were honored with 2025 Drama League Awards as producers for Oh! Mary and Sunset Boulevard.
Oh Mary! won Outstanding Production of a Play and is co-produced by 2024 Prince Fellow George Strus. The spoof of Abraham Lincoln’s final days centers his wife as a cabaret-obsessed diva and was deemed a Critic’s Pick by The New York Times’ Jesse Green. Green’s review called Oh Mary! “one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years.” The play is also nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Play, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Sunset Boulevard won Outstanding Revival of a Musical and is co-produced by Theatre Management and Producing alums Kate Cannova ’13, Jamie Forshaw ’09, and David Manella ’18. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on the iconic film noir, was revived by the renowned minimalist director Jamie Lloyd in London before coming to Broadway. In his review for The New York Times, Green called the musical “an arena show in your amygdala.”
These productions brought home awards in other categories as well. Oh! Mary’s Sam Pinkleton won for Outstanding Direction of a Play, and Sunset Boulevard’s Nicole Sherzinger won the night’s only award for acting, the Distinguished Performance Award.
See a full list of Drama League Award winners here.
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Original: May 7, 2025
Columbia Theatre alums led the pack at the 2025 Drama League Award Nominations in a recent ceremony held at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Columbia directors and producers will compete for the Drama League’s highest honors, which will be announced on May 16, 2025, at a luncheon that always proves to be one of the industry's glitziest parties.
Directing alum Saheem Ali ’07 secured nominations for Outstanding Direction of both a play and a musical, for Good Bones and Buena Vista Social Club. Ali is the only person this year to be nominated for two directing awards. His Off-Broadway direction of Buena Vista Social Club also received a nomination in 2024.
Competing with Ali for Outstanding Direction of a Play is Tyne Rafaeli ’14, who was nominated for her direction of New York Theatre Workshop’s Becoming Eve, based on Abby Chava Stein’s critically acclaimed memoir of a trans rabbi.
Producers also feature prominently in this year’s nominations, with fifteen plays and musicals produced by Columbia grads in the running for awards.
Theatre Management and Producing alums Kate Cannova ’13 and Jamie Forshaw ’09 both earned several nominations across categories. Together they co-produced Good Night, and Good Luck, which was nominated for Outstanding Production of a Play.
Other alums honored in the category are Theatre Management and Producing alums Jen Hoguet ’12 and Steve Dow ’09, who co-produced John Proctor is the Villain; 2024 Prince Fellow George Strus, who co-produced the comedy darling Oh, Mary!; and 2013 Prince Fellow Aaron Glick, who co-produced Purpose.
Othello, co-produced by 2022 Front Row Fellow Lamar Richardson CC ’15, was nominated for Outstanding Revival of a Play, along with the buzzy, Gen-Z coded Romeo+Juliet, co-produced by Theatre Management and Producing alums David Manella ’18 and Cannova, and Yellow Face, the unreliable memoir in play form by Professor David Henry Hwang.
Buena Vista Club is also in the running for Outstanding Production of a Musical, along with Dead Outlaw and Smash. Buena Vista Social Club was lead-produced by 2006 Prince Fellow Orin Wolf. Dead Outlaw, whose Off-Broadway run was nominated for 11 Drama Desk Awards and won 3, was co-produced by Theatre Management and Producing alum Thomas Swayne ’20 and 2021 Prince Fellow Lawryn LaCroix. Smash was co-produced by Richardson.
Many of these Theatre alums and former fellows racked up multiple Drama League Award nominations this year. For Outstanding Revival of a Musical, Manella, Cannova and Forshaw were honored for the hit Sunset Boulevard. Cannova’s co-production earned her a third nomination for the New York Times Critics Pick, fairytale adaptation Once Upon a Mattress. Manella was also nominated a second time for Outstanding Revival of a Musical for his co-production of The Last Five Years alongside Theatre Management and Producing alum Jessica Jenen ’93. Richardson and LaCroix brought in second nominations for the fifth Broadway revival of the iconic Gypsy, which they co-produced alongside 2022 Prince Fellow Jamila Ponton Bragg.
The Drama League recognitions mark the opening of an exciting awards season for Columbia alums. The 91st Annual Drama League Awards will be held on May 16 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. The event is open to the public and tickets can be purchased here.