\u201cPurpose.\u201d<\/a> (Both dramas are part of the Geffen Playhouse\u2019s next season.)<\/p>\nBut \u201cLiberation\u201d wasn\u2019t a shoo-in, by any chance. The play closed in February, putting it at a disadvantage with Tony voters whose theatergoing typically kicks into high gear in the spring. To make matters more uncertain, Mark Rosenblatt\u2019s Olivier-winning \u201cGiant\u201d and \u201cThe Balusters, David Lindsey-Abaire\u2019s satiric comedy on neighborhood politics in an age of ideological guerrilla warfare, had their champions. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Balusters,\u201d would be a strong awards contender in any season. As would \u201cLittle Bear Ridge Road,\u201d Samuel D. Hunter\u2019s savagely unsentimental study of an estranged aunt and nephew picking through the wreckage of their family history. Hunter\u2019s play had the added benefit of a magnificently calibrated production by Joe Mantello that provided a perfect showcase for Laurie Metcalf\u2019s astringent brilliance. \u201cGiant,\u201d which comes packaged in Nicholas Hytner\u2019s impeccable production led by an unflinching John Lithgow, is similarly elevated by its staging, making it difficult to separate the playwright\u2019s excellence from the director\u2019s. <\/p>\n
By contrast, \u201cLiberation,\u201d which was directed with captivating brio by Whitney White, left no doubts about the exceptional quality of the writing. At a time when women\u2019s rights are alarmingly being rolled back, Wohl, who\u2019s only the third solo women playwright to win this award, turned her attention to the generation of women before her \u2014 women like her mother, whose unlikely fight for equality revolutionized the world in ways that were hard to imagine back in the 1970s and are still challenging the stubborn patriarchal status quo. <\/p>\n
At a time of societal fracture and backsliding, \u201cLiberation\u201d offered audiences the opportunity to commune collectively with a watershed movement. Reminding us of the messy yet necessary work of grassroots activism, the play administered the equivalent of a political oxygen mask. But even more important, it reminded us that history is an indispensable tool for shaping the more equitable future we hope to inhabit.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bess Wohl\u2019s \u201cLiberation\u201d has won the Tony Award for best new play \u2014 a validation not just of her work but of the discernment of Tony voters. A playful work of historical reclamation, it re-creates a women\u2019s consciousness-raising group at an Ohio recreation center in the 1970s. The play, which received the Pulitzer Prize this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2449332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2449331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Tony-Awards-2026-Bess-Wohls-Pulitzer-Prize-winning-Liberation-is-crowned-best.com2Fc92F852Fff47f6294123a4326f27e66b.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2449333,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449331\/revisions\/2449333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2449332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}