Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre across collective Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway plays (distinct from full musicals) produced in New York City. This category was introduced at the 1980 ceremony, presented sporadically (seven times) through 2008, and has been regularly awarded since 2009.

Drama Desk Award
for Outstanding Music
Awarded forOutstanding Music in a Play
LocationNew York City
CountryUnited States
Presented byDrama Desk
First awarded1980
Currently held byWill Butler for Stereophonic (2024)
Websitedramadesk.org (defunct)

Winners and nominees

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1980s

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Year Composer Production
1980
Norman L. Berman Strider
Richard Peaslee Teibele and Her Demon
Stanley Silverman Bent
1981–89

1990s

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Year Composer Production
1990–91
1992
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
Richard Peaslee Akin
1993
Ladysmith Black Mambazo The Song of Jacob Zulu
1994
Stephen Warbeck An Inspector Calls
Jonathan Dove Medea
Duke Ellington & Stanley Silverman Timon of Athens
1995–98
1999
Jeanine Tesori Twelfth Night
Steven Edis Not About Nightingales
Drew McVety Corpus Christi
David Van Tieghem The Turn of the Screw
Richard Woodbury Death of a Salesman

2000s

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Year Composer Production
2000–01
2002
Willy Schwarz Metamorphoses
Crispin Cioe True Love
Nona Hendryx Blue
Peter John Still Cymbeline
2003–06
2007
Mark Bennett The Coast of Utopia
Adam Cork Frost/Nixon
Gerard McBurney Oliver Twist
The Propeller Company The Taming of the Shrew
Ray Rizzo, Adam Rapp & Lucas Papaelias Essential Self-Defense
David Van Tieghem Inherit the Wind
2008
2009
Dominic Kanza Ruined
Mark Bennett The Cherry Orchard
The Winter's Tale
DJ Rekha Rafta, Rafta...
Richard Woodbury Desire Under the Elms
Gary Yershon The Norman Conquests

2010s

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Year Composer Production
2010
Branford Marsalis Fences
Adam Cochran A Play on War
Adam Cork Red
Shelby Gaines & Latham Gaines A Lie of the Mind
Philip Glass The Bacchae
Hem Twelfth Night
2011
Wayne Barker Peter and the Starcatcher
Kathryn Bostic Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Lars Petter Hagen Baby Universe
Alan John The Diary of a Madman
Tom Kitt The Winter's Tale
Dan Moses Schreier The Merchant of Venice
2012
Grant Olding One Man, Two Guvnors
Mark Bennett An Iliad
Richard III
Tom Kitt All's Well That Ends Well
Gina Leishman Septimus and Clarissa
Duncan Sheik & Suzanne Vega Carson McCullers Talks About Love
2013
Glen Kelly The Nance
César Alvarez with The Lisps The Good Person of Szechwan
Jiří Kadeřábek, Mahir Cetiz & Ana Milosavljevic Act Before You Speak: The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Eugene Ma The Man Who Laughs
Steve Martin As You Like It
Jane Wang Strange Tales of Liaozhai
2014
Nico Muhly The Glass Menagerie
Lewis Flinn The Tribute Artist
Elliot Goldenthal A Midsummer Night's Dream
Rob Kearns The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle
Tom Kochan Almost, Maine
Duncan Sheik A Man's a Man
2015
Arthur Solari & Jane Shaw Tamburlaine the Great
Cesar Alvarez An Octoroon
Danny Blackburn and Bryce Hodgson Deliverance
Sean Cronin Kill Me Like You Mean It
Bongi Duma Generations
Freddi Price The Pigeoning
2016
Philip Glass The Crucible
Billie Joe Armstrong These Paper Bullets!
Estelle Bajou Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Shaun Davey Pericles
Tom Kitt Cymbeline
2017
Bill Sims Jr. Jitney
Daniel Ocanto, Graham Ulicny, & Sean Smith Alligator
Marcus Shelby Notes from the Field
2018
Imogen Heap Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Justin Hicks Mlima's Tale
Amatus Karim-Ali The Homecoming Queen
Justin Levine A Midsummer Night's Dream
Adrian Sutton Angels in America
2019
Jason Michael Webb and Fitz Patton Choir Boy
Paul Castles and Jongbin Jung Wild Goose Dreams
Justin Ellington Mrs. Murray's Menagerie
The House That Will Not Stand
Nick Powell The Lehman Trilogy

2020s

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Year Composer Production
2020
Martha Redbone for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
Steve Earle Coal Country
Frightened Rabbit Square Go
Jim Harbourne Feral
Adam Seidel, Jane Bruce, and Daniel Ocanto Original Sound
2021 No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City[1]
2022
Bill Sims Jr. Lackawanna Blues
Te'La and Kamauu Thoughts of a Colored Man
Michael Thurber and Farai Malianga (drum compositions) Merry Wives
2023 Suzan-Lori Parks Plays for the Plague Year
Ben Edelman, Zane Pais, & Sinan Rafik Zafar Letters from Max, a ritual
Mauricio Escamilla the bandaged place
Ian Ross Wuthering Heights
Daniel Schlosberg Montag
2024[2] Will Butler Stereophonic
Michael "Mikey J" Asante The Effect
S T A R R Busby and JJJJJerome Ellis (pray)
Dionne McClain-Freeney The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents The 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel
Ben Steinfeld Pericles

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Evans, Greg (2021-05-05). "Broadway To Reopen Sept. 14, Says Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Broadway League "Cautiously Optimistic"". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 2023-06-02. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  2. ^ "Stereophonic Leads 2024 Drama Desk Awards with 7 Wins Including Outstanding Play - Playbill.com". 2024-06-10. Retrieved 2024-06-13.