The Drama Desk Awards revealed nominations for its 70th edition, returning to The Town Hall on May 17 after the venue went dark during the 2020 shutdown.

Beau the Musical and Mexodus lead with 10 nominations each, followed by The Seat of Our Pants with nine. Death of a Salesman and Ragtime also scored big, with eight and six nods respectively.

The Drama Desks stand apart as the only major theater award honoring work across Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway. This year’s nominees span from big revivals to scrappy originals, with contenders including Preston Max Allen’s Caroline, Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot, and the immersive Masquerade reimagining of Phantom of the Opera.

The ceremony will honor Tom Schumacher, former Disney Theatrical Productions president, with the Harold S. Prince Award. Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire receive the William Wolf Award for their decades of collaboration and mentorship.

Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, and John Lithgow compete for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, while Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz are up for Musical honors.

Tickets are available now at DramaDesks.com. For a full nominations list and the complete announcement video, visit the Drama Desk website.

Suki Waterhouse is taking her indie pop across North America this summer. The Loveland Tour kicks off July 22 in Phoenix and hits 26 cities through mid-October, including stops at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA and Radio City Music Hall in New York.

The tour supports her third album Loveland, out July 10 via Island Records. She just dropped a new single, “Tiny Raisin,” which Billboard praised for taking “listeners on a ride.” Charlotte Lawrence, Rochelle Jordan, and Love Spells will open on various dates.

Waterhouse has been building serious momentum since her 2024 sophomore album Memoir of a Sparklemuffin earned critical praise and helped her sell out headlining tours. She’s opened for Taylor Swift and Laufey, and played Coachella and Lollapalooza. She’s returning to Lolla this summer as part of the tour.

Artist presale starts April 29 at 10am local time. General onsale follows May 1.

For indie artists watching Waterhouse’s rise, it’s a solid blueprint: strong songwriting, consistent releases, and strategic touring that builds from clubs to theaters to major venues. Radio City Music Hall is a long way from basement shows, but that’s the path when you put in the work.

UK heavy music outfit Loathe is bringing their genre-blurring sound to North America this September and October. The 19-city tour kicks off September 19 in Royal Oak, Michigan and wraps October 13 in San Francisco, with stops in Brooklyn, Atlanta, Houston, and Los Angeles. Fleshwater and Prostitute support all dates.

The tour celebrates their third album, A Stranger To You, dropping July 17 via SharpTone Records. Lead single “Revenant” just landed, and it might be their heaviest track yet. The song features NOWHERE2RUN, the new project from Code Orange’s Jami Morgan and Eric “Shade” Balderose.

Loathe’s trajectory since their 2020 cult classic I Let It In and It Took Everything has been wild. They sold out a full U.S. tour in 2025, moving over 30,000 tickets despite not releasing new music for years. Their fanbase kept growing anyway.

Tickets go on sale Friday, May 1 at 10am local time via Ticketmaster. Citi cardholders get early access starting today.

The album was engineered, produced, and mixed by the band’s Erik Bickerstaffe with additional mixing from Ed Al-Shakarchi. It balances brutal urgency with lighter, more considered moments. For a scene that sometimes feels stuck in formula, Loathe keeps pushing boundaries.

Hot Docs is bringing three BC documentaries to Toronto, and they’re tackling everything from Indigenous erasure to Olympic boxing dreams.

The standout is Banchi Hanuse’s “Ceremony,” which already won the Audience Award at SXSW. It follows the Nuxalk Nation in Bella Coola as the vanished ooligan fish run exposes deeper wounds of colonial disruption. Hanuse mixes testimony, watercolor animation, and rare archival footage to immerse viewers in a Nuxalk worldview. The film screens April 30 and May 1, with more than 20 members of the Nuxalk Nation attending.

Two world premieres round out the lineup. “Constant Battles” follows Nyousha Nakhjiri’s journey to become the first Iranian-born female boxer at the Olympics. She’s number one in her weight class and uses the sport to manage ADHD and anxiety. The film also explores her mother’s past, a woman imprisoned at 16 for activism against the Islamic Republic. It screens April 25 and 26.

“təm kʷaθ nan – Namesake” documents the Tla’amin Nation’s request for Powell River to change its name. The city honors Israel Wood Powell, who established residential schools and banned the potlatch. The doc captures heated community debates around this reckoning. It screens April 29 and 30 before heading to DOXA in Vancouver.

Three stories about resilience, identity, and fighting for what’s been erased.

Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s gut-wrenching graphic novel Pride of Baghdad is getting the anniversary treatment it deserves. Image Comics is releasing a new hardcover edition this September, complete with hand-painted wraparound cover art by Henrichon and a fresh afterword from Vaughan.

The book first dropped under DC’s Vertigo imprint in 2006 and immediately became a modern classic. Based on real events, it follows four lions who escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. The story tackles themes that hit just as hard today: freedom versus safety, lost innocence, and the cost of war.

“Twenty years later, I’m as proud of this book as I am depressed by how relevant it remains,” Vaughan said.

Pride of Baghdad earned spots on ALA’s “Great Graphic Novels for Teens” list and was named Best Original Graphic Novel by IGN. The New York Times, LA Times, and Publishers Weekly all gave it glowing reviews. Variety called it proof that Vaughan was “one of the best writers to grace the medium.”

Comic shops will get an exclusive edition featuring the original cover art. The standard hardcover hits shops September 23 and bookstores October 20. For English teachers who’ve been assigning dog-eared copies for two decades, this edition’s a gift.

Emmy-winning filmmaker Nick Davis is bringing a forgotten chapter of World War II history to VOD on June 12. His documentary THIS ORDINARY THING tells the stories of non-Jews who risked everything to save Jewish strangers during the Holocaust.

The film drops on Apple/iTunes, Amazon, and major platforms, timed to what would have been Anne Frank’s birthday. It weaves together never-before-seen archival footage with testimonies from over 40 rescuers who, working alone and outside any organized network, saved thousands of lives.

Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, F. Murray Abraham, Ellen Burstyn, Carrie Coon, and Stephen Fry are among the A-list cast performing translated excerpts from original transcripts. Together, they’ve racked up five Oscars, over 60 Emmy nods, and more than 25 Tony nominations.

The film recently scored a Cinema for Peace Dove nomination for Documentary of the Year in Berlin. Music comes from Tony winner Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza).

What makes it powerful: none of these rescuers considered themselves heroes. They were ordinary people who saw someone in danger and acted. Davis frames their stories to ask a question we all need to sit with: What would I have done?

For indie doc makers tackling hard history, this is a masterclass in letting real voices drive the story.

A daughter goes home to face the family tragedy that broke everything.

“Hearse Chasing,” the new documentary from director Teresa Alfeld, follows singer-songwriter Cassidy Waring as she returns to Calgary with her brother Cooper to confront their mother’s death and the violence that led to it. The film screens at VIFF Centre on Mother’s Day, May 10th, with a live performance from Waring and her band.

Growing up in 90s suburban Calgary, Waring’s family looked stable until addiction and abuse shattered it. Years later, now deep into her music career, she’s diagnosed with Complex PTSD and starts unpacking what really happened. Through therapy sessions, home movies, and her songwriting process, the film traces what healing actually looks like when the past won’t stay buried.

The doc premieres on TELUS Optik TV and TELUS Stream+ on May 13th, then drops free on YouTube the same night during Mental Health Awareness Month. A live chat will run alongside the online premiere.

“My relationship with my mom is such a big part of both the film and my music,” Waring says. “I know this day can bring love and celebration, but also grief and heartache.”

Waring’s new album, “If I Had Only Been Better,” digs deeper into her experience with complex trauma. For indie artists turning their pain into art, this one hits close.

Emmy winner Nick Davis has a documentary coming that asks a question we should all be asking ourselves: What would I have done?

“This Ordinary Thing” tells the story of non-Jews who risked everything to save Jewish strangers during the Holocaust. The film drops on VOD June 12 across iTunes, Amazon, and major platforms, timed to Anne Frank’s birthday.

Davis weaves together never-before-seen archival footage with testimonies from over 40 rescuers who, working alone and putting their families in danger, saved thousands of lives. The kicker? None of them saw themselves as heroes.

To bring these stories to life, Davis assembled a cast of heavy hitters. Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, F. Murray Abraham, Ellen Burstyn, Carrie Coon, Stephen Fry, Bill Irwin, and Joanna Gleason perform excerpts from the original transcripts. The ensemble has five Oscars between them, plus dozens of Emmy and Tony nominations.

The doc was nominated for Documentary of the Year at the 2026 Cinema for Peace Awards in Berlin. Music comes from Tony winner Adam Guettel.

“The word ‘inspiring’ does not cut it,” wrote The Forward.

It’s a timely reminder that even in the darkest moments, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. And it forces you to wonder if you’d have the guts to do the same.

One of the greatest documentaries ever made about filmmaking is getting the deluxe treatment it deserves. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse hits 4K UHD on May 19, exclusively through Lionsgate Limited.

Eleanor Coppola’s raw, unflinching chronicle of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s chaotic production of Apocalypse Now remains a masterclass in documentary filmmaking. She captured everything, the disastrous weather delays, Martin Sheen’s health crisis, the political turmoil in the Philippines, and Francis spiraling under the weight of his own ambition. The documentary even includes secretly recorded conversations with Coppola at his most vulnerable.

The three-disc collector’s edition is loaded. Beyond the 4K restoration of the 97-minute doc, it includes audio commentary from Eleanor and Francis, plus a new featurette titled “Eleanor Coppola: Art Is All Around Us.” A third disc dives deep into Eleanor’s broader body of work, featuring her shorts from the ’70s and behind-the-scenes docs she shot on films like Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, and CQ.

Eleanor passed away in 2024, making this release a fitting tribute to an artist who understood that the struggle behind great art is often as compelling as the finished work itself. Pre-orders are live now at Lionsgate Limited for $79.99.

A surly middle schooler who only cares about plants might be the most relatable protagonist you’ll see this year.

“Mabel” opens today at Cinema Village in New York, marking the feature debut of director Nicholas Ma. The coming-of-age story centers on Callie, a biracial teen played by newcomer Lexi Perkel, who’s more interested in botany than people. After her family moves and she has to switch schools, Callie talks her way into a high school science class taught by substitute teacher Ms. G (Judy Greer). There, she starts an experiment growing chrysanthemums in complete darkness and somehow convinces her bubbly younger neighbor Agnes to help.

Christine Ko and Quincy Dunn-Baker round out the cast. Ma co-wrote the script with Joy Goodwin, and the film was produced by Ben Howe, Luca Borghese, and Helen Estabrook.

“Mabel” screened at the 2024 San Francisco Film Festival before landing its theatrical release. The film hits digital on April 21, just four days after its Cinema Village run begins.

It’s refreshing to see an indie coming-of-age story that ditches the usual teenage angst for something more specific. A precocious kid using plants as a bridge into adolescence? That’s a new one.