Drama Desk Award Nominations Announced in New York

New York's theater season has come to a close, which means that awards season is in full swing. Today, the Drama Desk Awards (which are to the Tony Awards much like the Golden Globes are to the Oscars) were announced, with quite a few stars of big and small screens getting nods.

Among the Outstanding Musical nominees were adaptations of popular films, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Sister Act. The new musical by the creators of South Park and one of the creators of long-running hit Avenue Q (Trey Parker & Matt Stone and Robert Lopez, respectively), The Book of Mormon, also got an Outstanding Musical nomination, and some of the best reviews of the year...or the past five years, come to think of it.

The all-star revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (starring multiple award-winning actor and director Joe Mantello, The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons, Ellen Barkin and Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace) already received one of the awards for Best Ensemble, meaning none of them can be nominated individually. Co-directors Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, however, were nominated for their work.

Hollywood heavyweights Al Pacino and Geoffrey Rush both got Outstanding Actor in a Play nominations for The Merchant of Venice and Diary of a Madman, respectively. Stockard Channing (Other Desert Cities), Lily Rabe (daughter of the late, lamented Jill Clayburgh and star of The Merchant of Venice) and Frances McDormand (Good People) also got nods for Outstanding Actress in a Play. (Sadly, the only one of these shows still running is Good People, which is a must-see.)

Daniel Radcliffe got a nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Musical for his work in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. (The show will be dark for several nights in July when Radcliffe goes to promote the final Harry Potter film.) TV and film star Zachary Quinto (late of Heroes and the Star Trek movie) was the only cast member of Signature Theatre Company's excellent revival of Angels in America to score a nomination (for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play), although his co-star Christian Borle was nominated in the same category for Peter and the Starcatcher. (This is a painful oversight, quite frankly. Quinto's performance in the show was excellent, but he was part of an ensemble that was equally gifted.)

Several stars of hit TV series were tagged in the Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play category: Edie Falco was nominated for her heartbreaking and hilarious turn as a mentally unstable housewife in the revival of The House of Blue Leaves; Linda Lavin got a nod for her role as a sarcastic alcoholic in Other Desert Cities; and Judith Light was noted for her role as football wife Marie Lombardi in Lombardi.

Similarly, two former TV stars earned nods as Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical: John Larroquette got a nomination for How to Succeed... and Tom Wopat, who has remade himself into a genuine Broadway leading man in the past decade, was tagged for his performance in the musical version of Catch Me if You Can. Brian Stokes Mitchell earned a nomination for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which closed in January.