SETPIECE Independent critical review Skip to content Issue 07 / 26

Award record

1968-1969 award record

Categories
9
Honoured
37
Nominated
New this season
9

37 awards were given across 9 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.

The first season with craft categories of any kind, and the shape is unlike anything later. Thirty-seven people were honoured across nine headings, with no nominee lists at all — several names could share one category, so nobody on this page is a runner-up.

The Great White Hope, Dames at Sea and Promises, Promises each took three. Set design appears here for the first time in the whole record; costume followed the next season, lighting not for another five.

A darkened theatre auditorium seen from the side: an ornate proscenium arch with lit wall sconces, a drawn curtain glowing at the stage opening, and rows of empty seats in the foreground.
A proscenium house of the kind the early awards were judged in. Photographs on these record pages illustrate the period; they do not depict the productions listed.

Most Promising 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

  • Charles Gordone No Place to be Somebody
  • Elaine May Adaptation
  • Lonnie Elder III Ceremonies in Dark Old Men

Outstanding Book

Winner

  • Peter Stone 1776

Outstanding Choreography

Winner

  • Grover Dale Billy

Outstanding Directors

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

  • Alan Arkin Little Murders
  • Edwin Sherin The Great White Hope
  • Gordon Davidson In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer
  • Michael A. Schultz Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
  • Neal Kenyon Dames at Sea

Outstanding Lyrics

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

  • Fred Ebb Zorba
  • George Haimoshn, Robin Miller Dames at Sea

Outstanding Music

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

  • Al Carmines Peace
  • Burt Bacharach Promises, Promises

Outstanding 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

  • Al Pacino Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
  • Alec McCowen Hadrian VII
  • Bernadette Peters Dames at Sea
  • Brian Bedford The Misanthrope
  • Donald Pleasence The Man in the Glass Booth
  • Dorothy Loudon The Fig Leaves are Falling
  • Douglas Truner Ward Ceremonies in Dark Old Men
  • Dustin Hoffman Jimmy Shine
  • Frank Langella A Cry of Players
  • James Coco Next
  • James Earl Jones The Great White Hope
  • Jane Alexander The Great White Hope
  • Jerry Orbach Promises, Promises
  • Joseph Wiseman In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer
  • Linda Lavin Little Murders
  • Marian Mercer Promises, Promises
  • Nathan George No Place to be Somebody
  • Nicol Williamson Hamlet
  • Ron Leibman We Bombed in New Haven
  • Ron O'Neal No Place To Be Somebody

Outstanding Set Design

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

  • Patricia Zipprodt 1776 / Zorba
  • Tanya Moiseiwitsch The House of Atreus

Vernon Rice Awards

Winner

  • Joseph Chaikin

Who else on this page appears elsewhere in the record

10 of the 37 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.

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