The Walnut's large showing in nominations is in stark contrast to other such announcements over the last decade.
For five years beginning in 2002, Walnut president and producing artistic director Bernard Havard pulled the company - which has more subscribers than any other English-speaking theater in the world - out of the running for the Barrymores after taking exception to the way they were judged - creating a glaring hole in the awards and spurring ongoing reforms in the judging system.
The nominees were announced at New Freedom Theatre on North Broad Street by the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, which organizes the awards. Hosting were Philadelphia actors and Tony Braithwaite and Steven Wright.
Winners will be announced Oct. 4 at a ceremony at the Walnut, followed by a reception nearby at the Benjamin Franklin House ballroom.
The Walnut's production of Fiddler, the sweet, unsettling 1964 musical about Tevye the milkman and his family and their ill-fated Jewish village at the outset of the Russian Revolution, drew its power from a sincerity that constantly reminded audiences of life's precariousness - and was rewarded with 13 Barrymore nominations.
Fiddler, which met Walnut's $638,000 box-office target in heavy advance sales during a week of mid-May previews, was nominated for best musical production, best musical ensemble, overall direction (by Bruce Lumpkin), and music direction (by Douglass G. Lutz).
Mark Jacoby, Fiddler's Tevye, and Mary Martello, as his wife, Golde, received nominations for best actor and actress in a musical. Two of the family's daughters and their beaus - played by Rita Markova, Gianna Yanelli, Nick Dalton, and Marcus Stevens - received supporting-player nominations, as did Michelle Gaudette for her fiery choreography, Jack Jacobs for lighting, and Colleen Grady for costumes.
