The 2014 59th annual Village Voice ‘Obie’ Awards celebrating off and off-off Broadway was held on Monday evening May 19th at the olde time historic Webster Hall at 125 East 11th Street in the East Village.
The festivities began in the first level ‘Club’ where cocktails, beer, champagne, wine, and hor d’oeuvres were served. The large barroom was crowded with actors, directors, playwrights, and the press all of whom were busily chattering away as a band played in the background on stage. A lively affair. I chatted also with some of my colleagues of the theater world like the actress Gillien Goll, critic David Sheward, and Tim Cusack who runs the Theatre Askew. Cusack directed my play The Bed when it was performed on the streets of Greenwich Village. Also on hand as an Obie judge was Nicki Paraiso who runs ‘The Club’ at LaMama on East 4th Street. A charming and beautiful young woman handing me a glass of champagne introduced herself as ‘Diana Ross’ and when we talked she said her real name was Krystal Joy Brown and she was currently playing and singing as Diana Ross in Motown – The Musical on Broadway.
When the bell rang at 7:45 PM everyone headed up the steep marble stairs for the official awards presentation and Harvey Fierstein who now has three shows going on Broadway had the audience in an uproar with his bellowing rasping voice that reminded me of the frog-throat kid named Froggy from the Our Gang movie-shorts of yesteryear. Harvey spoke of his early days as an East Village actor and sometime drag queen when he came to the Obie Awards every year for ten years thinking he might win after appearing in so many plays at LaMama and at the Theater of the Ridiculous. At one point he gave an outlandish performance as H. M ‘Harry’ Koutoukas – the Cino playwright – wearing a black cape and with a stuffed green parrot on his arm for dramatic effect. Koutoukas himself grabbed an ‘Obie’ one year for “his outrageous assault on the theater.”
I first attended the Obies when they were held at Art D’Lugoff’s Village Gate on Bleecker and Thompson Street under the aegis of the then Voice critic Jerry Tallmer. Tallmer reviewed my very first play at the Cherry Lane Theater and called the actress Jean Bruno as Professor E. J. Krause in the one-character monologue play Hector ‘magnificent.’ Following Tallmer as lead critic at The Voice in the 1960s was Michael Smith who invited big names to emcee the awards show like Groucho Marx. After Michael Smith left his post as chief drama critic, Michael Feingold, a Yale drama graduate took on the job which he kept for 25 years until the Voice let him go in addition to many other great staff writers like gossip columnist Michael Musto, fashion editor Lynn Yeager and Nat Hentoff. The 2014 Obies found Feingold back on the job for a day and for that night this was a happy affair for all concerned and for the theater community at large.
The legendary Estelle Parsons came on stage to be presented a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award by Broadway luminary Kelli O’Hara. A letter was read honoring Estelle from Al Pacino who reminded her that back in 1968 she had handed him his ‘best actor’ Obie for his work in the Israel Horowitz play The Indian Wants the Bronx. Estelle proudly accepted her award and told stories about her early days in the 1950s first winding up on Broadway in the Ethel Merman musical vehicle Happy Hunting. From there she headed downtown to the Village to act at the Theater de Lys (Lucille Lortel now) on Christopher Street where she appeared with Lotte Lenya in the long running hit Brecht Weil musical The Three Penny Opera. After doing many plays, musicals, and cabaret shows she eventually landed the part of Blanche in Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and it was Estelle Parsons who won a Best Supporting Oscar for her performance in that film.
The Voice Obie Awards traditionally honors deserving new actors, theater groups, playwrights, directors and scenic and lighting designers with awards and this year was no exception. Some who took home prizes included the best new American play awarded to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and other Obie winners were Larry Pine whose play A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney was shown at SoHo Rep. Will Eno whose The Open House was presented by the Signature Theater. Oliver Butler also won an Obie Award for his direction of this play. The Ross Wetzsteon Awards with a $2,000 prize went to two different plays – 600 Highway Men and 48 Hours in Harlem presented by The National Black theater in Harlem. At the end of the evening congratulating my good friend and colleague Michael Feingold, I was introduced to the new editor at the Voice, Tom Finkel, who just came in from St. Louis. He said he hopes to bring journalism back to the paper. We all hope so too. I also got to shake hands with and meet the Voice publisher Josh Fromson. All in all a whirlwind evening; and we all are crossing our fingers hoping the ‘Obies’ will continue to prevail as a New York City and off and off-off Broadway tradition.
Fond memories, Bob. My favorite is attending the Obies one year at the Village Gate (with Helen Hanft), when Groucho Marx was the host, and meeting him in his dressing room, he admitted he had no idea what an Obie was, but was happy to be remembered.