THE 43rd ELLIOT NORTON AWARDS held MONDAY NIGHT JUNE 1 at the HUNTINGTON THEATRE was a spectacular, heartfelt evening in which the BOSTON THEATER CRITICS ASSOCIATION honored the OUTSTANDING work of the greater Boston Theater Community! 142 nominations in over 3 dozen categories were represented as Actors, Directors, Writers, Choreographers, Musicians, Designers took their bows, performed onstage, cheered each other on, and celebrated until we closed the theatre at a gala afterparty! Below, is the jubilant cast of SpeakEasy Stage’s Ja Ja’s African Hair Braiding named OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE!
Photo: Nile Scott Hawver/Nile Scott Studios
Outstanding Productions included The Huntington’s musical The Light in the Piazza:
Photo: Nile Scott Hawver/Nile Scott Studios
Outstanding Play, Midsize Theater category, Gloucester Stage’s The Glass Menagerie:
Nile Scott Hawver/Nile Scott Studios
Outstanding Play, Small Theater category Front Porch Arts Collective production The Mountaintop:
Photo: Nile Scott Hawver/Nile Scott Studios
This year’s recipient of the 2026 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence is award-winning owner/producer Bill Hanney who re-opened the nationally recognized North Shore Music Theatre and decades of excellent work for 10’s of thousands of subscribers! Special Citations were awarded to Commonwealth Shakespeare Company in honor of its 30th Anniversary Season, Blue Man Group in honor of its 30-year residency in Boston, and to veteran arts administrators Temple Gill and Jim Torres in honor of their decades of service to the theater community.
The 2026 Elliot Norton Arts Education Award was presented to Open Door Theater, among the only integrated, accessible theater troupes in the nation to stage full-scale high-quality productions featuring actors who are Deaf, Blind, Disabled, Autistic and Neurodiverse!
The complete list of AWARDEES includes 5 VISITING AWARDS: Broadway in Boston’s SUFFS, Arlekin’s OUR CLASS starring Chulpan Khamatova, Eddie Izzard’s solo turn in THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, and American Repertory Theater’s Sam Tutty (also a Tony nominee!) in TWO STRANGERS (Carry a Cake Across New York).
Find more info and the complete list of awardees at the BOSTON THEATER CRITICS ASSOCIATION website. Below some fab photos of the evening by Nile Scott Hawver !
