'Mexodus' and 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' Take Home Lucille Lortel Awards

Update

Winners of the 2026 Lucille Lortel Awards were announced on Sunday, and both Mexodus and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee both took home awards. Mexodus won four awards total: Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Director (David Mendizábal), Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical (Nygel D. Robinson), and Outstanding Sound Design (Mikhail Fiksel). The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee won Best Musical Revival.

Mexodus, a new musical created by its performers—Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijad—was produced by 2019 Prince Fellow Ben Holtzman. Holtzman is also the co-founding partner of P3, the production company, along with Audible Theater, responsible for Mexodus. It was the most nominated show in this year's Lortel Awards. Holtzman, as a producer, specializes in working with new artists. New York Times critic Brittani Samuel awarded Mexodus a New York Times Critic’s Pick last fall saying, "Together, these men have created something truly dynamic: a world where fire-spitting rap cozies up next to balladic bolero; English and Spanish weave freely; and cross-cultural solidarity is not simply ideal, it’s essential—a truth oft interrupted by the fallout of colonialism, colorism and other distracting forces."

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a revival of the 2005 production that moved to Broadway winning two Tony Awards. This production included many Columbia community members including producers Barbara Whitman '05, Adjunct Assistant Professor Rachel Sussaman, and 2013 Prince Fellow Aaron Glick, as well as Directing alum NJ Agwuna '18 who served as Assistant Director on the production. "A tender, joyous, bittersweet and very, very funny tribute to kids obsessed with words, the Off Broadway revival of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a perfect salve for an ugly world, the gift we didn’t realize we desperately needed," says Elizabeth Vincentelli of The New York Times, who also awarded the show a Critic's Pick.

See a full list of winners here. 

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Original

The School of the Arts Theatre community, both faculty and alumni, is well represented in this year’s Lucille Lortel Award nominations. Nominated productions and people include Saturday Church—nominated for Outstanding Musical—with a book and lyrics by Associate Professor and Head of Playwriting James Ijames; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, produced by Barbara Whitman '05, Adjunct Assistant Professor Rachel Sussman, and 2013 Prince Fellow Aaron Glick and assistant directed by Directing Alum NJ Agwuna '18, nominated for Outstanding Revival; Prince Faggot, directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16, nominated for both Outstanding Play and Outstanding Director; Directing alum Keenan Tyler Oliphant '21, who directed Practice, is nominated for Outstanding Director; and to round out the list, Initiative, whose cast included Acting alum Greg Cuellar '17, is nominated for outstanding Ensemble. Mexodus—produced by 2019 Prince Fellow and co-founding partner of P3 Productions Ben Holtzman, is nominated for nine awards including Best New Musical,  Outstanding Director and Choreographer, and two nominations for Outstanding Lead Performance. Finally, Bigfoot, produced by 2024 Prince Fellow George Strus, is nominated for Best New Musical. Bigfoot was developed during Strus’s time as a Prince Fellow. 

Saturday Church, a musical following Ulysses—a New York City kid and committed tenor at his aunt’s church—premiered at New York Theatre Workshop this past fall. Saturday Church coincided with Ijames’ arrival to Columbia as the new Concentration Head of Playwriting, and the production includes the involvement of two additional Columbia community members, Adjunct Assistant Professor Jhanaë Bonnick-McDonnell as Stage Manager and Theatre student Brissa Lopez, who served as the assistant to Cindy Tolan, the production’s commercial producer. 

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which plays until September 6, 2026 at New World Stages, is a musical dramatizing a spelling bee in a middle school in Putnam County. Putnam premiered Off-Broadway, directed by James Lapine, at Second Stages in 2005. The production then moved to Circle In The Square Theater on Broadway and went on to win two Tony Awards in 2006, for best book (Rachel Sheinkin) and Best Featured Actor (Dan Fogler). This Revival coincides with the musical’s 20th anniversary. 

Prince Faggot, a play by Jordan Tannahill which imagines the future King of England, Prince George, as a gay man, premiered at Playwright’s Horizon last May and went on to have a second run at Seaview Studios this past fall. The cast includes celebrated New York Theater actor David Greenspan, and was selected as a New York Times Critic Pick by former New York Times Theater Critic Jesse Green. Green described the direction as “as lucid as an oratorio. He perfectly sets up each actor for bravura solos that make their group scenes feel lushly choral.”

Practice, a meditative psycho-comedy by Nazareth Hassan about the power structures in art making, premiered at Playwrights Horizons this past fall. Practice was a fast and highly anticipated follow-up to Hassan’s play Bowl EP, which premiered at Vineyard Theater in May of 2025 and won them an Obie Award. In a review for CULTUREBOT, Playwriting student Charlene Adhiambo said the following, “Practice shows the artifice of power and prestige in our art world, and how its hollowness facilitates situations in which people must cling to abusive conditions in the hope of connection, financial security, artistic success, or spiritual wholeness.”

Initiative– a five-hour play whose narrative spans from 2000 to 2004– tells the story of a group of seven friends in a coastal California town encountering love, trauma, and Dungeons & Dragons. The production was noted for its innovative format, which mirrors a real-time Dungeons & Dragons campaign by stretching to five hours long, with multiple intermissions and a 90-minute dinner break.

Mexodus, created by Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijad, is a new musical exploring the unexamined history of The Underground Railroad’s Southern destination in Mexico. Examining individual stories of formerly enslaved people seeking refuge, Robinson and Quijad enact all the characters and are also responsible for the creation of the entire show’s music, which is done by a process known as Live Looping, which is re-created every evening. The process of live loopings means that a new recording is made during each performance. Mexodus premiered last at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater, and opened this past March at The Lucille Lortel theater. It is the most nominated show in this year’s Lortel awards. 

Bigfoot is a new musical comedy written by Amber Ruffin (lyrics) and David Schmoll (music). The production, co-produced by Manhattan Theater Club and Benson Drive Productions, opened at New York City Center. Danny Mefford, also the director of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, directed and choreographed this production. In the musical, set in the town of Muddirt, somewhere between a chemical dump and nuclear power plant site, an eight-foot tall hairy creature finds himself the sudden scapegoat of political corruption. 

The Lucille Lortel Awards, named after the celebrated actress of the same name, celebrate excellence and artistic achievement in New York Off-Broadway productions. In addition to production awards in categories such as writing, performance, and design, the award ceremony also grants honorary awards for career achievement. Past recipients include Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women (1994), Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out (2003), and Here There Are Blueberries created and directed by Adjunct Professor Of Theater Moisés Kauffman. 

This year’s award ceremony will take place at NYU’s Skirball Center For The Performing Arts on May 3rd.