Once, the musical written by playwright Enda Walsh, was named Best Musical at the New York Drama Critics Circle Awards yesterday (7 May). Based on the 2007 film, Walsh's musical (yet to be seen in the UK) was also named Outstanding Musical at the Lucille Lortel Awards for off-Broadway shows in a ceremony on Sunday 6 May, and it leads the field in the Tony Awards with nominations in 11 categories prior to the awards ceremony on 10 June.

Walsh's play Misterman is currently at the National Theatre starring Cillian Murphy in a production described as 'a fantastic, whirring monologue of small town life and flickering faith... a ninety-minute rollercoaster, kaleidoscopic in mood and construction, a perfectly realised stage poem' Whatsonstage.com.

The New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play went to Nina Raine's Tribes, first seen at the Royal Court in 2010. Tribes, described by the Evening Standard as 'edgy, painful and shocking', beat off stiff competition from Richard Bean's widely acclaimed One Man, Two Guvnors to take the prize, and was a strong contender even in the Best Play category, where it eventually lost out to Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet.

Misterman and Tribes are both published by Nick Hern Books.