1966-1967 award record
- Categories
- 3
- Honoured
- 7
- Nominated
- —
- New this season
- 2
7 awards were given across 3 categories. Shortlists were not published in this period, so everyone named here was honoured — none of them is a runner-up. The entries come from the announcements issued at the time, the only public record of this season. 2 categories appear for the first time this season: Best Performers, Best Playwrights.
Three headings and seven names, with Best Performers alone accounting for four of them.
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown takes two of the seven — the direction and one of the four performances — the only production that season credited more than once. Two seasons later the first craft heading appears; on this page the record is still entirely about writing, directing and performing.
One name on this page was about to become very well known indeed. Dustin Hoffman starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh?, and he received a Drama Desk Award for that performance — which is the entry recorded here.
That is an outside source independently confirming this page. The Graduate followed in 1967, the year after.
It illustrates what these early pages actually document: not established reputations being confirmed, but off-Broadway work being noticed first. Alongside him, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown takes two of the season's seven credits, for Joseph Hardy's direction and Bill Hinnant's performance.
MacBird!, the production behind Stacy Keach's honoured performance, was Barbara Garson's satirical parody of Macbeth recasting Lyndon Johnson as the Shakespearean usurper — a work controversial enough on its 1967 off-Broadway run to draw public condemnation, in a season that also carries Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah, a landmark of the era's experimental theatre.
Will Lee, honoured this season for The Deer Park, later became known to a much wider audience as Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, a role he played from the show's 1969 debut until his death in 1982 — another case, like Dustin Hoffman's entry the same season, of a name recognisable well beyond the off-Broadway stage this record was built to track.
Lanford Wilson, honoured for The Rimers of Eldritch, went on to co-found the Circle Repertory Company in 1969 and later won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Talley's Folly in 1980 — a career that began, on this record, as a shared entry under Best Playwrights rather than a heading of his own.
Seven names across four categories is a small page by later standards, but three of them — Hoffman, Lee and Wilson — are independently traceable in outside sources well beyond this one record, a reminder worth stating plainly that a short page here is not automatically the same thing at all as a poorly sourced one, which the surviving citations for this particular season happen to bear out.
Sources: Dustin Hoffman, MacBird!, Will Lee (actor), Lanford Wilson
Best Director
Winner
- Joseph Hardy You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
Best Performers
These entries did not carry a heading of their own in the surviving announcement. They are placed here from their position in the original, so the heading above is the most likely one rather than a recorded one.
Honoured
- Bill Hinnant You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
- Dustin Hoffman Eh?
- Stacy Keach MacBird!
- Will Lee The Deer Park
Best Playwrights
These entries did not carry a heading of their own in the surviving announcement. They are placed here from their position in the original, so the heading above is the most likely one rather than a recorded one.
Honoured
- Jean-Claude van Itallie America Hurrah
- Lanford Wilson The Rimers of Eldritch
Questions about this season's record
Is this Dustin Hoffman's award?
Yes. He starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh? and received a Drama Desk Award for that performance, which is the entry recorded here. The Graduate followed in 1967, the year after this season. It is a useful illustration of what these pages document: off-Broadway work being noticed first, before any reputation existed to confirm.
Why is You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown credited twice?
It takes two of the season's seven credits: Joseph Hardy for the direction and Bill Hinnant for one of the four honoured performances. It is the only production that season credited more than once on this page. Two credits from one show was uncommon in a season spread across six separate productions.
Why are four names listed under Best Performers?
The heading honoured four performances together rather than choosing between them. Nominee shortlists were not published in this period, so all four are honourees and none of them placed behind another. Three of the four are credited to different productions, so the heading is spreading recognition rather than concentrating it.
What changes on this record after this season?
Two seasons later the first craft heading arrives: set design appears in 1968-69, the first time anyone building the physical show is named. Everything on this page is still writing, directing and performing. Costume design follows the next season, and lighting design not for another five after that.
Where do the entries on this page come from?
From the award announcements issued at the time, which for most seasons before 1975 are the only public record of them. Where a claim on this page rests on an outside source, that source is named beneath it. Nothing on this page rests on a source that is not either named or stated as absent.
Who else on this page appears elsewhere in the record
3 of the 7 names on this page appear in at least one other season held here. Reading a person as a run rather than a single entry is the point of an index like this one. A designer's work shows up under two or three different category names as the headings were renamed.