CONOR McPHERSON’S play The Seafarer has received four nominations for Tony Awards, Broadway’s top theatre honours, including best play, best direction, and two nominations for best performance by a featured actor in a play, for Jim Norton and Conleth Hill.
Sinéad Cusack was nominated for best performance by a featured actress in a play, for Rock ’n’ Roll.
The Seafarer, a dark tale about two brothers playing poker with the devil, got excellent reviews in New York when it opened there.McPherson said yesterday he was delighted with the news, if a little disoriented, having just arrived in Dublin from New York, where a production of his play Port Authority is previewing.
“My wife woke me, it was news I didn’t expect at all – though I knew Jim would get it because he’s great, and the play had a chance. But four nominations is out of the blue.”
The Seafarer was first performed in 2006 in a small studio theatre, the Cottesloe, at the Royal National Theatre. It later toured Britain before going to New York.
The Irish premiere at the Abbey opened last week in Dublin and will tour Ireland later. “I didn’t think it would end up in this place, it’s very strange, you don’t sit down to write a Broadway play,” said McPherson.
Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll juxtaposes 20th-century rock with the downfall of communism. Cusack said: “With so many plays on Broadway this season, I thought it was possible I wouldn’t be remembered, so I am completely delighted. I think I will come back for the ceremony. It’s a great honour. I think it would be discourteous not to come.”
McPherson was nominated for a Tony in 2006, for Shining City, so he’s a veteran. “Yes, plenty of scar tissue,” he said.
In the Heights, an original musical set in a working-class New York neighbourhood, led the pack with 11 Tony nominations.
Other big hitters include Sunday in the Park with George, Gypsy, Macbeth and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County (nominated for Best Play, along with Rock ’n’ Roll, The Seafarer and The 39 Steps).
The winners will be announced by Whoopi Goldberg at a ceremony on June 15th.
Minister for Arts Martin Cullen called the nominations “a testament to the quality of . . . Irish writing, acting and directing”.
Eugene Downes, chief executive of Culture Ireland, said they were “a sign of the extraordinary quality and international impact of Irish theatre”.