Laura Klein in Broadway hit play, THE HUMANS – whose ensemble cast is called peerless in NY Times review – wins 4 TONY awards including Best Play.

Cast of The Humans at the Helen Hayes Theater. Laura (Lauren) Klein seated.
Photo; Sara Krulwich NYTimes

AWARDS UPDATE:
THE HUMANS received 4 TONY awards: Best play, Best scenic design, Featured actor (Reed Birney), Featured actress (Jayne Houdyshell). It was also nominated for best director, and best lighting.

Cast and producers on stage

Laura (Lauren) Klein on stage in silver jacket

It has received a Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a play

It has received a NY Drama Critic’s award for Best Play

It has received a Drama Desk Special Award for Best Ensemble

It received 4 Drama Desk nominations for Best Play, Best Director, Best lighting, Best sound.

The finest new play of the Broadway season so far — by a long shot — Mr. Karam’s drama has been beautifully transferred from Off Broadway, where it was presented by the Roundabout Theater Company last fall, with the production’s prized virtues intact: a peerless cast, whose members all inhabit their characters as if they’ve been living in their itchy skins forever.

Erik’s mother, called Momo (Lauren Klein), who is in a wheelchair and suffering from dementia. Although everyone showers tender care on her, Momo is having one of her “bad days,” as Erik puts it, only rousing from her near-slumber to mutter incomprehensibly. (Ms. Klein gives a remarkable performance, admirably free of showboating or sentiment.)

“The Humans” is a major discovery, a play as empathetic as it is clear-minded, as entertaining as it is honest. For all the darkness at its core — a darkness made literal in its ghostly conclusion — a bright light shines forth from it, the blazing luminescence of collective artistic achievement.

– NY Times Christopher Isherwood Review February 19, 2016
http://nyti.ms/1RbnsnP

Laura Klein. Photo Christina Maile

The Humans

By Stephen Karam; directed by Joe Mantello; sets by David Zinn; costumes by Sarah Laux; lighting by Justin Townsend; sound by Fitz Patton; production stage manager, William Joseph Barnes; production manager, Aurora Productions; company manager, Christopher Taggart. A Roundabout Theater Company, Todd Haimes, artistic director; Harold Wolpert, managing director; Julia C. Levy, executive director; Sydney Beers, general manager; presented by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller, Roundabout Theater Company, Fox Theatricals, James L. Nederlander, Terry Allen Kramer, Roy Furman, Daryl Roth, Jon B. Platt, Eli Bush, Broadway Across America, Jack Lane, Barbara Whitman, Jay Alix and Una Jackman, Scott M. Delman, Sonia Friedman, Amanda Lipitz, Peter May, Stephanie P. McClelland, Lauren Stein and the Shubert Organization; Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner and John Johnson, executive producers. At the Helen Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, 212-239-6200, telecharge­.com. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

WITH: Cassie Beck (Aimee Blake), Reed Birney (Erik Blake), Jayne Houdyshell (Deirdre Blake), Lauren Klein (Fiona “Momo” Blake), Arian Moayed (Richard Saad) and Sarah Steele (Brigid Blake).