Last year, the Tony Awards nominating committee expanded its Best Actor in a Play category to a whopping seven nominees so that none of the three British actors in “The Lehman Trilogy” would have to suffer the humiliation of Stay outside. Simon Russell Beale finally beat his colleagues Adam Godley and Adrian Lester.
So what will happen this year on May 2 when the Tony nominees are announced? The category most likely to expand again to absurd proportions is Best Game.
Twenty years ago, I worked as a theater reporter and wrote an article about there being no new plays on Broadway. By comparison, we are now living in a veritable golden age of new works. A staggering 17 titles qualify this season, which saw openings by three Pulitzer Prize winners (Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Martyna Majok’s “Cost of Living,” and James Ijames’ “Fat Ham”) and three Olivier Award (Stoppard’s Tom “Leopoldstadt”, Lolita Chakrabarti’s “Life of Pi” and Suzie Miller’s “Prima Facie”). Rather than snub any of those contenders, the Tonys will likely add David Auburn’s “Summer, 1976” and Larissa Fasthorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play,” both of which were released recently, which always helps.
Eight nominees is just two short of what the Oscars anointed as the best potential movie of 2022. Who cares that the film community has a couple hundred titles to choose from, and no fewer than a couple dozen?
It wasn’t a great crop of new musicals, and the Tonys can stick to nominating their standard four, with “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Shucked” and “Some Like It Hot” securing slots. Will Tony also include well-packaged nonsense like “& Juliet” or the flawed but more serious “New York, New York”? Or expand the category to five?
The need to punish Aaron Sorkin for his botched rewrite of “Camelot” could make the Lerner and Loewe show this year’s “Funny Girl” loser. Surest of recognition as Best Revival of a Musical are “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’,” “Into the Woods,” “Parade” and “Sweeney Todd.”
Although it has just been released, “Sidney Brustein’s The Sign in the Window” could be the “Camelot” in the category of Best Revival of a Play. Only “A Doll’s House” is still on the billboard, which makes it a safe bet. She expects “Death of a Salesman,” “The Piano Lesson,” and “Topdog/Underdog” to make the cut. Instead of “Sidney,” she’d prefer the short-lived “Ohio State Murders” be honored. It’s a much better play.
The Tony Awards require their voters to take an “unconscious bias training” test. One thing that is not covered in this video course is the bias of awards towards foreign directors. Brits tend to be very showy up front, as evidenced by the most likely candidates in the Best Director of a Play category: Jamie Lloyd (“A Doll’s House”), Patrick Marber (“Leopoldstadt”), Justin Miller (“Prima Facie ”) and Max Webster (“Life of Pi”). If the category reaches five nominees, Miranda Cromwell (“Death of a Salesman”) will likely join her British peers.
I hope to be wrong. I prefer the more subtle work of Saleem Ali (“Fat Ham”), Jo Bonney (“Cost of Living”), Kenny Leon (“Topdog/Underdog”), Austin Pendleton (“Between Riverside and Crazy”), Andrew Sullivan (“ Summer of 1976”) and Stevie Walker-Webb (“Ain’t No ‘Mo”). It is the difference between a director who focuses on the work and a director who shines, usually to the detriment of the work.
The Yankees should pull off a clean sweep for Best Director of a Musical. Likely nominees are Michael Arden (“Parade”), Lear deBessonet (“Into the Woods”), Thomas Kail (“Sweeney Todd”), Casey Nicholaw (“Some Like It Hot”) and Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo”) . .
Best Actor in a Play is much more competitive than Best Actress in a Play, so the Tonys won’t be merging the two categories any time soon to make them gender-neutral. Among the men, John David Washington (“The Piano Lesson”) and David Zayas (“Cost of Living”), along with Stephen McKinley Henderson (“Between Riverside and Crazy”), deserve to top the acting list. Only Henderson is guaranteed a position. Expect some serious competition from Corey Hawkins (“Topdog/Underdog”), Sean Hayes (“Good Night, Oscar”), Oscar Isaac (“The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”), Nathan Lane (“Pictures from Home”) and Wendell Pierce (“Death of a Salesman”).
Compare that extensive list with Best Actress in a Play nominees: Rachel Brosnahan (“The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”), Jessica Chastain (“A Doll’s House”), Jodie Comer (“Prima Facie”) and Jessica Hecht and Laura Linney (“Summer, 1976”). Audra McDonald (“Ohio State Murders”) and Zoe Wanamaker (“Pictures from Home”) deserve to be in the cut, but their respective shows have closed. At first glance, I thought the Tonys might snub Linney because she, as they occasionally do with McDonald’s and Nathan Lane, has been nominated many times. But then I checked: Despite five nominations, Linney never won Best Actress.
The Best Actress in a Musical category is a little more competitive: Annaleigh Ashford (“Sweeney Todd”), Victoria Clark (“Kimberly Akimbo”), Micaela Diamond (“Parade”), Phillipa Soo (“Camelot”) and Anna Uzele (“New York, New York”), but don’t count out Lorna Courtney (“& Juliet”).
The five nominees for Best Actor in a Musical will be Josh Groban (“Sweeney Todd”), Ben Platt (“Parade”), Colton Ryan (“New York, New York”) and Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee. (“Some like it hot.”)
The greatest performance usually wins an actor the Oscar. It’s also true of the Tonys, and in music categories, it helps if the artist is also really loud when he or she or they sing. No predictions here, but rather actors in plays and musicals who delivered outstanding performances that remain memorable to me. They include Kevin Del Aguila (“Some Like It Hot”), Sharon D Clarke (“Death of a Salesman”), Glenn Fitzgerald (“Sidney Brustein’s Window Sign”), Arian Moayed (“A Doll’s House” ), Bryce Pinkham (“Ohio State Murders”), Katy Sullivan (“Cost of Living”), Betsy Wolfe (“& Juliet”), Steven Boyer and Bonnie Mulligan (“Kimberly Akimbo”), Elizabeth Canavan and Michael Rispoli (“ Between Riverside and Crazy”), Gavin Creel and Julie Lester (“Into the Woods”), Jordan Fisher and Gaten Matarazzo (“Sweeney Todd”), and Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Potts (“The Piano Lesson”).
The 76th Tony Awards will take place on June 11 at the United Palace in Washington Heights, New York City. The ceremony airs on CBS.
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