Boston's Elliot Norton Awards highlight the best of theater on stage and behind the scenes

CBS News

26-05-2025

For more than four decades, the Elliot Norton Awards have honored the best of the best on stage in Greater Boston.
Former WBZ-TV arts and entertainment anchor Joyce Kulhawik reported on the awards for years. Now, as president of the Boston Theater Critics Association, she hosts the show known as "Boston's Tony Awards."
"This is a night when we say 'we see you, we hear you, you lift us up, we for this one night want to celebrate all the intangibles that you bring to Greater Boston,'" said Kulhawik.
140 nominations across Greater Boston
This year, there are more than 140 Elliot Norton Award nominations in nearly two dozen categories. They recognize those both on stage and behind the scenes.
"Every single night, our theater artists bring to the stage realities that we may not be familiar with," said Kulhawik. "They encourage understanding, connection, empathy by showing us who we are. They shed light on the human condition, if you will. And they also entertain us and lift us up and make us feel connected."
Now in their 42nd year, the awards are named for Elliot Norton, who worked as a theater critic in Boston for nearly half a century.
"It's a legacy we carry on in his name and appreciating his standards of excellence," said Kulhawik. "We acknowledge the entire theater community. There were 120 productions onstage this past season."
From pre-Broadway runs like "The Queen of Versailles" starring Kristin Chenoweth, to national tours with big-name performers and smaller, black box theaters, Kulhawik said every production is a credit to the Boston theater scene.
"We are a place where creative work originates," said Kulhawik. "We have Pulitzer Prize winners, Tony Award winners. We have amazing talent in this town."
Among this year's nominees are several plays in the Ufot Family Cycle. The two-year city-wide festival features a series of nine plays about a Nigerian-American family over the generations.
"The writing has been extraordinary. The performance's remarkable and it's reflected in a lot of our nominations this season," said Kulhawik. "It has been a really amazing thing for Boston to embrace work like this and to be a breeding ground for work like this."
Theater at any budget
And you don't have to break your budget to experience it.
"These are affordable places to see theater and there are even places where you can see great theater for a pay-what-you-can. Doors open, anybody come in, just immerse yourself," said Kulhawik. "It's very hard to pull off phenomenal theater and allow you to suspend disbelief. But when you do that, when the caliber of the acting is phenomenal and it all comes together and it's more than the sum of its parts, there is almost no more gratifying, uplifting experience."
When WBZ-TV spoke with Norton in 2000, at the age of 97, he knew his legacy was secure. "Some of the work I've done has paid off. These people have come to love the theater. And I love the theater. I'm grateful to them," Norton said at the time.
At the awards, which will be held on June 2 at the Huntington Theater, the Boston Theater Critics Association will also award a theater arts education grant to support the next generation.