The theater season is now awash in awards, some silly and some significant. Among the latter are the Obies, created in 1955 by the Village Voice, to honor Off-Broadway. They were announced on Monday, May 23, at Webster Hall, and not only is it the most casual of the season’s honors but it also highlights just how essential Off-Broadway is to the content stream of its richer uptown cousin. The non-profit theaters typically ruled the night. The Atlantic Theatre Company’s production of “Guards at the Taj” by Rajiv Joseph was honored as best new American play, and an award for musical theater was given to playwright Steven Levenson and the songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the creators of “Dear Evan Hansen,” which recently opened to rave reviews at Second Stage.Rajiv Joseph’s “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” starring Robin Williams, had a short run on Broadway in 2011 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. But it is off-Broadway and in regional theaters that the Ohio-born playwright has been a mainstay, from his first play, 2006’s “Huck and Holden” at the Cherry Lane, to “Guards,” a bloody meditation on power in the persons of two men standing guard at the Taj Mahal on the eve of its public unveiling in 1653. The actors Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed were also honored with Obies for their performances.The jury, chaired by veteran critic Michael Feingold, also gave awards to two rising playwrights: Lucas Hnath (“The Christians” and “Red Speedo”) and Stephen Karam, whose “The Humans” was short-listed for the Pulitzer and is now favored to win the Tony Award for Best Play. (Its strongest competition is “Eclipsed,” whose acting ensemble, led by Lupita Nyong’o, was also feted at the Obies.) Last month, Hnath’s latest play, “Hillary and Clinton,” a political fantasia, opened at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre to strong notices. (“An audacious, whip-smart, highly entertaining piece of writing,” opined Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune.)In the musical theater arena — the Obies does not designate specific categories — “Dear Evan Hansen” picked up Obies not only for its creative team but also its star Ben Platt as a nerdy high schooler who rides to popularity on a fellow student’s suicide. The acclaimed show ends its sell-out run at off-Broadway’s Second Stage on May 29, and word is that it will transfer to Broadway in the spring of 2017.Also recognized with lifetime achievements citations were the playwright A.R. “Pete” Gurney (“Sylvia”) and Carmen de Lavallade, the actor-dancer-choreographer, who, with her husband Geoffrey Holder, delighted audiences in theaters around the world. The Obies, which were in danger of being eclipsed due to the financial problems of the Village Voice, were given a major boost in visibility when the American Theatre Wing entered a partnership to dole out the awards. The ATW, which co-administers the Tony Awards with the Broadway League, was eager to add their imprimatur to an area that, free of the commercial pressures of Broadway, is bolder and far more experimental. At the time of the alliance, Heather Hitchens, the president of the Wing, said, “We’re about excellence in the theatre. And I think what this says, very powerfully, is we find excellence where it lives. It certainly lives on Broadway and it certainly lives Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway.”
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