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History

Vernon Rice Awards history: 72 seasons, and when they were renamed

Vernon Rice Awards history is the part of this record almost nobody looks up. The awards did not start under the name they carry now, and for their first decade they were not called the Drama Desk Awards at all — they were renamed only in 1964. Tracing the record back to its first season turns up a different title, a much shorter list of categories, and a set of decisions about what deserved recognising that look nothing like the ones made today.

Vernon Rice Awards history begins, 1955 to 1964

Vernon Rice Awards history starts with the 1954-55 season, the first on record. It was not a Drama Desk Award: it was a Vernon Rice Award, named for the theatre critic of the New York Post. That name stayed until the 1963-64 season, when the awards were renamed. Roughly a decade of the record therefore sits under a title most people searching for these awards have never heard. It is the single least documented stretch of the whole seventy-two years.

The early lists are short. That first season recognised productions, a performance, and direction, and little else. There were no design categories, no separate musical and play splits across every discipline, and no nominee shortlists — the record simply names who was honoured. Where several people appear under one heading in the same year, that is not a transcription error. Multiple awards in a single category were normal.

A critics' association, not an industry body

The back rows of a small theatre before curtain, a spiral notebook and pen resting on one seat and a rolled programme on the next, empty rows sloping away toward a dimly lit stage.
The reviewer's seat, not the industry's. Who votes decides what is eligible.

The awards are voted by an association of New York theatre critics rather than by the industry being judged. That structural detail explains the thing people most often get wrong about them: the scope. Broadway's own awards are limited to Broadway houses. These are not, and never were. Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway work is eligible, which is why a production can appear in this record and be absent from the better-known list entirely.

It also produces the seasonal oddity that catches out anyone comparing the two lists. A show that opens Off-Broadway in the spring and transfers to Broadway in the autumn belongs to one season here and to the next one there. Both records are correct, and they disagree, because they are counting different events — the opening a critic reviewed, and the Broadway run that followed it months later.

When the craft categories arrive after the awards were renamed

Set design first appears in these records in the 1968-69 season, costume design in 1969-70, and lighting design not until 1974-75. Sound design comes later again, and projection design later still — a category that could not have existed when the awards began. The shape of the category list is itself a record of what the theatre thought was worth naming, decade by decade, and it grew from a handful of headings to something closer to thirty.

That growth is uneven in a way worth knowing about if you use these records. A designer whose work spans the change can appear under two different category names for the same kind of job. A category renamed mid-run — set design becoming scenic design, then splitting across musical and play — makes a single person's record look scattered when it is not.

What is held here, and how reliable it is

Seasons up to 1974 come from the announcements issued at the time. For most of that stretch there is no other public structured index, which cuts both ways: it is the reason this record is worth consulting, and the reason parts of it cannot be checked against anything. Where a second source exists, the entries have been compared against it, and the small number that disagree are marked rather than quietly corrected.

From 1975 the picture is considerably better. Published sources cover the same seasons in enough detail to confirm entries category by category, and every row here states which source it rests on rather than presenting everything at one confidence. Anything still unresolved carries a visible flag instead of being quietly dropped or quietly corrected. That makes for a less tidy list than the alternative, and a more useful one to cite.

The record before the craft categories, season by season

Everything above describes the early record; this is the early record. Fourteen seasons ran before the first design heading appeared, and between them they hold 74 entries. They are reproduced in full here because they are the part of this archive that exists nowhere else in a structured form, and because a description of a gap is less useful than the gap itself.

Read them as announcements rather than as results. Several names under one heading is normal, not a transcription fault, and a season with no heading at all means the surviving announcement recorded none. Each season links to its own page, where the sources for that season are set out.

  1. 1954-1955 7 entries

    Best Direction Jack Landau (The Clandestine Marriage / The White Devil)

    Best Performance Nancy Wickwire (The Way of the World / The White Devil)

    Best Productions A Thieve's Carnival; The Merchant of Venice; The Way of the World; The White Devil; Twelfth Night

  2. 1955-1956 4 entries

    Best Direction Jose Quintero (The Iceman Cometh)

    Best Performances Janine Manatis (Village Wooing); Pernell Roberts (Macbeth)

    Best Productions The Iceman Cometh

  3. 1956-1957 2 entries

    Best Performances Arthur Malet (Volpone / The Misanthrope); Sada Thompson (The River Line / The Misanthrope)

  4. 1957-1958 2 entries

    Best Performances George C. Scott (Children of Darkness); Gerry Jedd (Blood Wedding)

  5. 1958-1959 3 entries

    Best Direction William Ball (Ivanov)

    Best Performances Hal Holbrook (Mark Twain Tonight); Jane McArthur (Our Town)

  6. 1959-1960 4 entries

    Best Authors Edward Albee (The Zoo Story); Jack Gelber (The Connection); Jack Richardson (The Prodigal); Rick Besoyan (Little Mary Sunshine)

  7. 1960-1961 7 entries

    Heading not recorded Boris Tumarin (Montserrat / The Idiot); Clinton Wilder (Theatre '61 Productions); Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks); Joan Hackett (Call Me By My Rightful Name); Richard Barr (Theatre '61 Productions); Theodore J. Flicker (The Premise); Tom Jones (The Fantasticks)

  8. 1961-1962 5 entries

    Best Performances Association of Producing Artists (APA) for its entire repertory season; Barbara Harris (Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad); Cicely Tyson (Moon on a Rainbow Shawl); Geoff Garland (The Hostage)

    Best Playwright Arthur Kopit (Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad)

  9. 1962-1963 5 entries

    Best Over-All Productions The Boys from Syracuse; The Coach with Six Insides

    Best Playwright Murray Schisgal (The Typists / The Tiger); Oliver Hailey (Hey You, Light Man); William Hanley (Whisper into My Good Ear / Mrs. Dally Has a Lover)

  10. 1963-1964 5 entries

    Best Over-All Productions In White America; The Streets of New York

    Best Performances Gloria Foster (In White America); Imelda De Martin (The Amourous Flea)

    Best Playwright Lewis John Carlino (Cages / Telemachus Clay / Doubletalk)

  11. 1964-1965 6 entries

    Best Director Ulu Grosbard (A View from the Bridge)

    Best Performances Barbara Ann Teer (Home Movies); James Earl Jones (Othello); Susan Towers (Shout from the Rooftops)

    Best Playwright Harold Willis (A Sound of Silence); Robert Lowell (The Old Glory)

  12. 1965-1966 6 entries

    Best Performances Irene Dailey (Rooms); Kevin O'Connor (Six from La MaMa)

    Best Playwright Douglas Turner Ward (Day of Absence / Happy Ending); John Arden (Sargeant Musgrave's Dance); William Alfred (Hogan's Goat)

    Special Award The Living Theatre

  13. 1966-1967 7 entries

    Best Director Joseph Hardy (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown)

    Best Performers Bill Hinnant (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown); Dustin Hoffman (Eh?); Stacy Keach (MacBird!); Will Lee (The Deer Park)

    Best Playwrights Jean-Claude van Itallie (America Hurrah); Lanford Wilson (The Rimers of Eldritch)

  14. 1967-1968 11 entries

    Best Composers Al Carmines (In Circles); Galt MacDermot (Hair)

    Best Directors Robert Moore (The Boys in the Band); Tom O'Horgan (Hair)

    Best Performance by an Actress in a Repertory Company Helen Hayes (The Show-Off)

    Best Playwrights Donald Driver (Your Own Thing); Ed Bullins (The Ed Bullins Plays); Israel Horovitz (The Indian Wants the Bronx); Ron Cowen (Summertree)

    Best Theatres Joseph Papp's Public Theatre; The Negro Ensemble Company

Browse all 72 seasons in the index, or start with the first season on record.

Questions about the record

What were the Vernon Rice Awards?

The same awards under their first name. They ran as the Vernon Rice Awards from the 1954-55 season until 1963-64, named for the theatre critic of the New York Post, before taking the Drama Desk name they still carry across the decades that followed.

How do these awards differ from the Tony Awards?

Scope. The Tonys cover Broadway houses only. These awards are voted by an association of New York theatre critics and take in Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway too, so a production can be honoured here and be ineligible for a Tony entirely.

Why do early seasons list several winners in one category?

Because that is what happened. In the early decades several people could be honoured in the same category in the same year, rather than one winner being picked from a shortlist. Nominee lists appear in the records only from the mid-1970s.

How far back does the record here go?

To the 1954-55 season, the first one on record here. 20 seasons before 1975 are held from the announcements issued at the time, and for most of that stretch no other public structured index of them exists anywhere else at all.

Are the design categories as old as the awards?

No. Set design appears in the records from the 1968-69 season, costume design from 1969-70, and lighting design only from 1974-75. The earliest years recognised productions, performances and direction, and the craft categories were added one at a time as the awards grew.

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