Drama Desk announces nominations for Best Book

If the award were called "Best" Book of a Musical, then I'd say you gotta pick someone. Someone has gotta be the best of the group, even if none of them are great.

But I am a bit sympathetic to the fact that this award is called "Outstanding" Book of a Musical. Maybe none of them were outstanding in the nominators minds and therefore none qualified.

Ultimately though, I tend to agree with the letter from the Dramatist Guild that says they need to try a little harder to look at the stories that were created. There were a lot of options this year, and I do think there are at least several that could be considered Outstanding. And even if not several, then just nominate one and deem it the winner.

Glad Michael John is getting his due this season with the Drama Desks. I'm desperately awaiting a return to Broadway, hopefully soon.

Sally Durant Plummer said: "Glad Michael John is getting his due this season with the Drama Desks. I'm desperately awaiting a return to Broadway, hopefully soon.



"

Absolutely. In my ideal world, LaChiusa has a new Broadway show every season (and is the go-to composer for adapting prior works)

Sally Durant Plummer said: "Glad Michael John is getting his due this season with the Drama Desks. I'm desperately awaiting a return to Broadway, hopefully soon."

Don't hold your breath.

Wilmington, I agree with you, especially about the 1985 Tonys. Dropping the Best Actor and Actress categories was unfair to both the Leading AND Featured roles. Daniel Jenkins played the lead role (Huck Finn) in ''Big River,'' just as Mary Beth Peil played the lead (Anna) in ''The King and I.'' They shouldn't have been shoehorned into the Featured categories. Even if it were a skimpy season, they still could've fielded abridged nominees. For instance, Best Actor could've been Daniel Jenkins (''Big River'' ), Mark Hamill (''Harrigan 'N Hart'' ) and Ben Vereen (''Grind'' ). Best Actress could've been Leilani Jones (''Grind'' ), Dinah Manoff (''Leader of the Pack'' ) and Mary Beth Peil (''The King and I'' ). ... In 1995, the Tonys would field only 2 nominees for Best Actress in a Musical. So why didn't they cancel that category if there were so few candidates? I'll bet no one wanted to deprive Glenn Close (''Sunset Blvd.'' ) of a Tony. And for Book and Score, they just gave the awards outright to ''Sunset Blvd.'' They didn't cancel those categories.

Updated On: 5/3/16 at 02:47 AM

It's pretty ridiculous to say nothing this season was good enough, especially the Drama Desk have both Broadway AND off-Broadway to work with, so they have a much larger pool to choose from than the Tonys.

As much as likes Waitress and love Daddy Long Legs, I'm a little confused as to why they ended up choosing two adapted works, vs. one of the many original ones. I don't know about Waitress because I don't know the movie, but DLL is very close to the book, and I would give most credit to the beautifully crafted story to the source material. If I was a nominator thinking nothing was "outstanding enough", but had to nominate something, I would give it to some of the original works they nominated for Best Musical, that were crafted just by the minds of those book writers.

That being said, I'm happy DLL got another nom, although I think it should have been Best Score and Lead Actress instead...