The Inheritance picks up six Drama Desk nominations

The Inheritance has earned six nominations at this year’s Drama Desk Awards, which will be held virtually on May 31 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s musical Soft Power topped the nominations list, with 11, while Jack Thorne, Ruth Negga and Tina star Adrienne Warren also made the shortlist for the 65th iteration of the New York-based awards.

The Inheritance, which started life at London’s Young Vic and went on to win four Olivier awards, has been nominated six times.

These include nods for lead actor Kyle Soller, fellow cast members Paul Hilton and Lois Smith, director Stephen Daldry and sound designers Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid.

Matthew Lopez’s play, told in two parts over seven hours, is also nominated for outstanding play.

Elsewhere, the Broadway transfer of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical picked up four nominations, including outstanding actress in a musical for Warren.

Negga’s title performance in Hamlet, which opened in Dublin in 2018 before transferring to St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn this year, earned her a nomination for outstanding actress in a play, while Thorne received a nod for his adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which ran on Broadway last year and is scheduled to return in 2020.

The production has run for three consecutive years at London’s Old Vic and is due to reopen the theatre following the coronavirus closures, in November.

Other high-scoring nominees included musicals The Wrong Man and Octet, with nine and eight respectively, Ivo van Hove’s West Side Story, with six nods, and the play Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, with eight.

Winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on May 31.