Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive and Jeanine Tesori/Brian Crawley's Violet won 1997 Lucille Lortel Awards as Best Play and Best Musical, respectively, April 8.

The Lortels are given each year for outstanding Off-Broadway achievement. This year's ceremony, hosted by NY newscaster Ernie Anastos, will take place May 5 at -- where else? -- the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher St. (6:30 PM), with a gala reception to follow at Laura Belle Restaurant in midtown. The evening will serve as a benefit for the Actors' Fund Of America.

Told in time-shifting flashbacks, How I Learned To Drive is the story of a young woman's heartfelt but dysfunctional relationship with her uncle, who sexually molests her. The play won a total of four Lortels, including Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway.

Read Playbill On-Line's intereview with Vogel, Paula Vogel: How She Keeps Driving, in Theatre Features.

Violet, produced at Playwright's Horizons is the story of a disfigured young woman's adventures as she travels across the South in 1964, seeking the charismatic preacher she believes will heal her.The awards will be bestowed in a May 5 ceremony at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village.

Here is a complete list of the Lortel Award winners:

OUTSTANDING MUSICAL: Violet
OUTSTANDING PLAY: How I Learned To Drive
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR OF A PLAY OR MUSICAL: Mark Brokaw for How I Learned To Drive and This Is Our Youth
OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A PLAY OR MUSICAL: Mary-Louise Parker in How I Learned To Drive
OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A PLAY OR MUSICAL: David Morse in How I Learned To Drive
OUTSTANDING REVIVAL: June Moon
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN: Howard Crabtree for When Pigs Fly
OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGNER: Brian MacDevitt for By the Sea
OUTSTANDING SET DESIGNER: David Gallo for Bunny Bunny
OUTSTANDING BODY OF WORK: Gerard Alessandrini for the Forbidden Broadway series
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT: Rob Fisher for the "Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert" series

No separate awards were given this year for performance or direction of a musical.

The selection committee for this year's plays comprised Clive Barnes (NY Post), Peter Filichia (Playbill On-Line), Howard Kissel (NY Daily News), Alvin Klein, Jack Kroll, Michael Kuchwara, Jacques LeSourd, John Simon (NY Magazine), Linda Winer (Newsday), Edith Oliver (emeritus) and Lucille Lortel.

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-- By Robert Viagas