USA: MUSICAL "MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT" AND PLAY "DOUBT" DOMINATE TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS IN NEW YORK

Record ID: 517837

  • Title: USA: MUSICAL "MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT" AND PLAY "DOUBT" DOMINATE TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS IN NEW YORK
  • Date: 10th May 2005
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MAY 10, 2005) (REUTERS) NEWS CONFERENCE AT THE MARRIOTT MARQUIS HOTEL ANNOUNCING THE 2005 TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS MEDIA (SOUNDBITE) (English) 2005 TONY AWARD NOMINATION ANNOUNCER LYNN REDGRAVE SAYING: "The nominations for best play are Democracy - author Michael Frayn, Doubt - author John Patrick Shanley, Gem of the Ocean - author August Wilson, The Pillowman - author Martin McDonagh."
  • Embargoed: 25th May 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES/UNIDENTIFIED PLAY LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAF12923FAV8F8OVRNW0GXFBL6K
  • Story Text: The play "Doubt" and the musical "Spamalot" dominate
    Tony Award Nominations.


    "Monty Python's Spamalot," the hit musical based on
    the work of the offbeat British comedy group, led Tony
    Award hopefuls on Tuesday (May 10) with 14 nominations for
    Broadway's top honour.

    John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer-prize winning play
    "Doubt," about a nun who suspects a priest of child abuse,
    was the most nominated play, with eight nominations,
    including best play and best actor and actress for its
    stars Brian F. O'Byrne and Cherry Jones.

    The Tony Awards are presented by Tony Award
    Productions, a joint venture of the League of American
    Theatres and Producers and the American Theatre Wing.

    "Spamalot's" nominations included best musical, best
    book and best score of a musical and best direction, by
    Mike Nichols. Tim Curry and Hank Azaria were nominated for
    best leading actor in a musical, while Michael McGrath,
    Christopher Sieber and Sara Ramirez were nominated for
    supporting roles.

    Two other musicals won 11 nominations each, "Dirty
    Rotten Scoundrels," based on the movie about a pair of con
    artists and starring John Lithgow, and "The Light in the
    Piazza," a story of a mother and daughter visiting Italy in
    the 1950s.

    Eric Idle's medieval mayhem, based on the 1975 classic
    Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has been showered with
    critical acclaim since it opened on Broadway in March.

    Kathleen Turner's boozy performance in Who's Afraid of
    Virginia Woolf earned her a best actress nomination.

    Also nominated were Laura Linney for "Sight Unseen",
    Mary-Louise Parker for "Reckless", Cherry Jones for "Doubt"
    and Phylicia Rashad for "Gem of the Ocean".

    Best actor nominees include Billy Crudup for "The
    Pillowman", Phillip Bosco for "Twelve Angry Men", James
    Earl Jones for "On Golden Pond", Bill Irwin for "Virginia
    Woolf" and Brian O'Byrne for "Doubt".

    "Spamalot" will be up against surprise Broadway hit "The 25th
    Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee", "Dirty Rotten
    Scoundrels" and "The Light in The Piazza" in the best
    musical category.

    The nominees for best play are "Doubt", "Democracy",
    "Gem of the Ocean" and "The Pillowman".

    After the nominations had been read out at a news
    conference, one of the 2005 Tony Award nomination
    announcers, actor Brian Stokes Mitchell spoke to Reuters TV
    about the nominations.

    "The hardest part about the Tony Awards I think - any
    awards but the Tony Awards in particular is that there are
    only so many people in each category that you can nominate
    and there are so many other wonderful performances that
    just don't have the opportunity because they're only four
    or five people in each category that can be nominated",
    Mitchell said.

    Lynn Redgrave, also announcing the nominations,
    however, wasn't happy with the nominations in the "Best
    Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play" category.

    "I wanted to see my niece Natasha Richardson nominated
    so I am very disappointed that she's not. She gives a
    fantastic performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire,"
    Redgrave said.

    "A Streetcar Named Desire has Natasha Richardson in the
    role of Blanche Du Bois, Tennessee Williams' doomed
    heroine. The roles has previously been brought to life by
    Jessica Tandy in the original Broadway production and by
    Vivien Leigh in the 1951 film.

    The 59th annual awards will be presented on June 5,
    2005 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register