2024 Outer Critics Circle nominations: ‘Stereophonic’ and ‘Suffs’ receive an end-season boost

Nominations for the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Awards were announced on Tuesday, April 23. The stars of the hit Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe, read off the nominees live from the Museum of Broadway.

Off-Broadway productions ultimately out-paced Broadway with this critics group. The new David Yazbek musical “Dead Outlaw” led the pack with nine nominations. It was followed by “The Connector,” another Off-Broadway musical, and “Stereophonic,” a lauded Broadway play, with seven nominations each.

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While there are no Tony nominators in the Outer Critics Circle membership, these nominations can provide some clues as to how theater aficionados are thinking about this season’s Tony race. Of the five productions cited for Best New Broadway Musical, only “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Suffs” made the cut in the all-important Best Score category. They were joined by two Off-Broadway entries, as well as the music from the play “Stereophonic.” Additionally, “Suffs” was the only Broadway show nominated for Book of a Musical. Though it should be noted that “Illinoise,” considered for it’s recent Off-Broadway run at these kudos, also turned up here.

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Additionally, it behooves Tony Awards prognosticators to pay attention to the acting categories in this announcement. The Outer Critics Circle recently adopted gender neutral performance categories, but unlike most other awards bodies, it did not expand those categories in the process. The OCC nominations never perfectly match the Tony nominations, but for an actor to make the grade in an all-gendered category with only five nominees is a true show of strength.

The group made special mention that they only considered new elements of the following Broadway productions after already considering the original Off-Broadway iterations: “Just for Us,” “Here Lies Love,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Harmony,” “Prayer for the French Republic” and “Mary Jane.” Many of those shows will still be hotly competitive at the Tony Awards even if they got skunked here, due to so few elements being eligible for consideration.

Read the full set of nominations below:

Best New Broadway Play
“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” by Jocelyn Bioh
“Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions” by Paula Vogel
“Patriots” by Peter Morgan
“Stereophonic” by David Adjmi
“The Shark Is Broken” by Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw

Best New Broadway Musical
“Days of Wine and Roses”
“Suffs”
“The Great Gatsby”
“The Outsiders”
“Water for Elephants”

Best New Off-Broadway Musical
“Buena Vista Social Club”
“Dead Outlaw”
“Illinoise”
“Teeth”
“The Connector”

Best New Off-Broadway Play
“Dig” by Theresa Rebeck
“King of the Jews” by Leslie Epstein
“King James” by Rajiv Joseph
“Primary Trust” by Eboni Booth
“Swing State” by Rebecca Gilman

John Gassner Award (new American play preferably by a new playwright)
“Job” by Max Wolf Friedlich
“Manahatta” by Mary Kathryn Nagle
“Oh, Mary!” by Cole Escola
“The Apiary” by Kate Douglas
“Wet Brain” by John J. Caswell Jr.

Best Revival of a Musical
“Cabaret”
“Here Lies Love”
“I Can Get It for You Wholesale”
“Monty Python’s Spamalot”
“The Who’s Tommy”

Best Revival of a Play
“An Enemy of the People”
“Appropriate”
“Doubt: A Parable”
“Mary Jane”
“Philadelphia, Here I Come!”
“Purlie Victorious”

Best Lead Performer in a Broadway Play
Jessica Lange – “Mother Play”
Rachel McAdams – “Mary Jane”
Sarah Paulson – “Appropriate”
Jeremy Strong – “An Enemy of the People”
Michael Stuhlbarg – “Patriots”

Best Featured Performer in a Broadway Play
Billy Eugene Jones – “Purlie Victorious”
Celia Keenan-Bolger – “Mother Play”
Alex Moffat – “The Cottage”
Jim Parsons – “Mother Play”
Sarah Pidgeon – “Stereophonic”
Kara Young – “Purlie Victorious”

Best Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical
Ali Louis Bourzgui – “The Who’s Tommy’
Brian d’Arcy James – “Days of Wine and Roses”
Casey Likes – “Back to the Future”
Kelli O’Hara – “Days of Wine and Roses”
Maryann Plunkett – “The Notebook”

Best Featured Performer in a Broadway Musical
Roger Bart – “Back to the Future”
Justin Guarini – “Once Upon a One More Time”
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer – “Spamalot”
Kecia Lewis – “Hell’s Kitchen”
Bebe Neuwirth – “Cabaret”

Best Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical
Jeb Brown – “Dead Outlaw”
Andrew Durand – “Dead Outlaw”
Alyse Alan Louis – “Teeth”
Ben Levi Ross – “The Connector”
Ricky Ubeda – “Illinoise”

Best Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical
Ben Cook – “Illinoise”
Hannah Cruz – “The Connector”
Julia Knitel – “Dead Outlaw”
Judy Kuhn – “I Can Get It For You Wholesale”
Jessica Molaskey – “The Connector”
Thom Sesma – “Dead Outlaw”

Best Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Play
Cole Escola – “Oh, Mary!”
Mary Beth Fisher – “Swing State”
William Jackson Harper – “Primary Trust”
Marie Mullen – “The Saviour”
Paul Sparks – “Waiting for Godot”

Best Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play
Gus Birney – “Our Class”
April Matthis – “Primary Trust”
Conrad Ricamora – “Oh, Mary!”
Jay O. Sanders – “Primary Trust”
Bubba Weiler – “Swing State”

Best Solo Performance
Eddie Izzard – “Hamlet”
Patrick Page – “All the Devils are Here”
Mona Pirnot – “I Love You So Much I Could Die”
Robert Montano – “Small”
John Rubenstein – “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground”

Best Book of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury – “Illinoise”
Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson – “Teeth”
Itamar Moses – “Dead Outlaw”
Jonathan Marc Sherman – “The Connector”
Shaina Taub – “Suffs”

Best Score (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Jason Robert Brown – “The Connector”
Will Butler – “Stereophonic”
Adam Guettel – “Days of Wine and Roses”
David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna – “Dead Outlaw”
Shaina Taub – “Suffs”

Best Orchestrations (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Timo Andres – “Illinoise”
Adam Guettel and Jamie Lawrence – “Days of Wine and Roses”
Marco Paguia – “Buena Vista Social Club”
Michael Starobin – “Suffs”
Erik Della Penna, Dean Sharenow, and David Yazbek – “Dead Outlaw”

Best Direction of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
David Cromer – “Dead Outlaw”
Michael Greif – “Days of Wine and Roses”
Daisy Prince – “The Connector”
Leigh Silverman – “Suffs”
Jessica Stone – “Water for Elephants”

Best Direction of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Knud Adams – “Primary Trust”
Daniel Aukin – “Stereophonic”
Robert Falls – “Swing State”
Kenny Leon – “Purlie Victorious”
Lila Neugebauer – “Appropriate”

Best Choreography (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll – “Water for Elephants”
Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman – ‘The Outsiders”
Lorin Latarro – “The Who’s Tommy”
Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck – “Buena Vista Social Club”
Justin Peck — “Illinoise”

Best Scenic Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Paul Tate dePoo III – “The Cottage”
Paul Tate dePoo III – “The Great Gatsby”
Dots – “Appropriate”
David Korins – “Here Lies Love”
David Zinn – “Stereophonic”

Best Costume Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Dede Ayite – “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
Enver Chakartash – “Stereophonic”
Enver Chakartash – “Teeth”
Linda Cho – “The Great Gatsby”
Sydney Maresca – “The Cottage”

Best Lighting Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Bradley King – “Water for Elephants”
Brian MacDevitt – “The Outsiders”
Justin Townsend – “Here Lies Love”
Tim Lutkin and Hugh Vanstone – “Back to the Future”
Amanda Zieve – “The Who’s Tommy”

Best Sound Design (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Tom Gibbons – “Grey House”
Gareth Owen – “Back to the Future”
Gareth Owen – “The Who’s Tommy”
Ryan Rumery – “Stereophonic”
M.L. Dogg and Cody Spencer – “Here Lies Love”

Best Video/Projections (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
David Bengali – “Water for Elephants”
Paul Tate dePoo III — “The Great Gatsby”
Peter Nigrini – “The Who’s Tommy”
Finn Ross – “Back to the Future”
Ash J. Woodward – “Patriots”

PREDICT the 2024 Tony Awards nominations through April 30

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