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      5 Ways This Year’s Tony Awards Reveal That Theater Is Changing

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      As Broadway prepares to celebrate the best of the season, our theater reporter explores what the nominations tell us about the industry and the art form.Tonight’s Tony Awards ceremony will celebrate the best work on Broadway. For those of us who spend a lot of time in and around theater, the event is also a prompt, encouraging us to reflect on what the current crop of shows tells us about how the industry and the art form are doing.Here are some things I’ve been thinking about as this awards season unfolded:Nonprofit theaters are struggling. They’re also developing the most-praised work.Short of money, nonprofit theaters around the country are staging fewer shows, shedding jobs, and in a few cases, closing. Some observers worry that the model that has sustained regional theater for the last half-century is broken.But, at the same time, this year’s Tony Awards tell an amazing success story: 100 percent of the nominees for best new musical, and 100 percent of the nominees for best new play, were developed at nonprofit theaters.Among plays, “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,” “Mary Jane,” and “Prayer for the French Republic” were all staged on Broadway by the nonprofit Manhattan Theater Club. (“Mary Jane” had an earlier Off Broadway run at another nonprofit, New York Theater Workshop.) “Stereophonic” was transferred to Broadway by commercial producers after an enthusiastically received Off Broadway run at the nonprofit Playwrights Horizons, while “Mother Play” opened directly on Broadway, presented by the nonprofit Second Stage Theater.Among musicals, “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Suffs” were first staged at the nonprofit Public Theater before being transferred to Broadway by commercial producers. “Water for Elephants” had a pre-Broadway run at the nonprofit Alliance Theater in Atlanta, and “The Outsiders” did the same at the nonprofit La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. “Illinoise,” a dance musical, had a particularly nonprofit nurturing: it was staged at Bard’s Fisher Center, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and the Park Avenue Armory before commercial producers took it to Broadway.The season was also a big one for American artists.Broadway often frets about the perceived advantages of British productions, which have historically received more government support, cost less to develop, and can benefit from the Anglophilia of some American theater fans. The last five winners of the best play Tony Award all transferred from London (though one of those, “The Inheritance,” was written by an American).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren to Star in ‘Last Five Years’ on Broadway

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      Whitney White will direct the first Broadway production of Jason Robert Brown’s popular musical, which plans to open next spring.Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren are planning to star in a production of “The Last Five Years” on Broadway next spring.Jonas appeared in several Broadway shows as a child; his one starring role was in 2012, when he stepped into a production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and his most recent appearance on Broadway was for a Jonas Brothers concert stand last year.Warren is a Tony Award winner for playing the title role in “Tina.” She also had roles in Broadway productions of “Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed” and “Bring It On.”“The Last Five Years,” by Jason Robert Brown, is about the breakup of a marriage. Critics have rarely warmed to it, but it has a huge fan base, and is widely staged. It has never been on Broadway, in part because it is so small — just two characters and one act. The show also has an unusual structure: the male protagonist, a novelist named Jamie, tells the story from beginning to end, while the female protagonist, an actress named Cathy, tells it in reverse chronological order.It was first staged in Illinois, at Northlight Theater, in 2001, with Norbert Leo Butz and Lauren Kennedy, and then had an Off Broadway run at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2002, with Butz and Sherie Rene Scott. In the decades since, there have been numerous national and international productions and adaptations. There was a film adaptation, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, in 2015. More recently, Cynthia Erivo and Joshua Henry starred in a concert version in 2016, and at the height of the pandemic Out of the Box Theatrics and Holmdel Theater Company staged a memorable streaming production filmed inside an apartment with Nicholas Edwards and Nasia Thomas. (The number of licensed productions of the show doubled during the pandemic because the small cast and idiosyncratic narrative structure made it conducive to social distancing.)The Broadway production, directed by Whitney White (a Tony nominee for “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”), will be produced by Seaview, an increasingly prolific producing entity run by Greg Nobile; ATG Productions, a subsidiary of British theater owner ATG Entertainment; and the Season, which is the new producing entity of theater marketers Mike Karns and Steven Tartick. More

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      Ariana DeBose, Tonys Host, Just Might Be the Busiest Woman on Broadway

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      Back in New York City after filming a movie, the actress has been racing to shows while also rehearsing for Sunday night’s ceremony.“Baby,” Ariana DeBose confided, “you are always on.”DeBose, an Oscar winner and a longtime Broadway phenom, was speaking of herself, in the second person, last Saturday evening. Dressed in a beige ribbed tank, athletic shorts and chunky heeled boots, she was still glistening from a rehearsal for Sunday’s Tony Awards broadcast. “On” is an understatement: This will be her third time hosting the ceremony, and her first time producing and choreographing.“Why I did that, I’ll never know,” she said. “Dear lord, the Tonys is just one giant learning experience. You have to be humble.”Humble. And very busy. DeBose is 33 but still very much a theater kid. Her speech was fast, excitable, and when not vaping from a hot pink pen, she had a tendency to reach out to pat my arm or leg, an intimate form of emphasis. Soon, she would take herself out for a hurried plate of pasta before racing to an evening show. For the past two weeks, DeBose has been on a mission, however implausible, to see all of the nominated plays and musicals.Until the end of May, DeBose had been in Winnipeg, Manitoba, shooting an action film, “With Love.” She arrived in New York City the Saturday before Memorial Day and saw her first show that Sunday. On the day we spoke, a week before the broadcast, she had just three shows remaining. (One, “Water for Elephants,” she would see that night.) And this was in addition to arduous rehearsal days.DeBose has said that she will take a break as Tonys host, in large part because she hopes to return to Broadway. OK McCausland for The New York Times“These are opposite processes,” she said of hosting and spectating. “They’re very different disciplines, but you can’t host if you don’t know who’s involved. So to me, it’s a requirement.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Watch the Tony Awards 2024: Date, Time, Streaming

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      The main event will be broadcast on CBS and livestreamed for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers. A simulcast will also air at Damrosch Park in Manhattan.OK, Broadway fans: It’s showtime.The Tony Awards — the annual celebration of Broadway’s best — are on Sunday evening, with performances and prizes and who-knows-what-they’ll-say acceptance speeches.Here’s what you might want to know:When is the ceremony, and how can I watch it?The main event, featuring songs from most of the nominated musicals and the announcement of most of the big winners, is scheduled to start Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern and to end at 11.The ceremony will be broadcast live on CBS, and can be streamed live by Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers. (Paramount+ Essential subscribers can watch the next day.)A preshow ceremony, at which a number of awards for design and other crafts will be handed out, will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Eastern and will be streamed on Pluto TV, a free service. (Go to Pluto TV on whatever device you’re using, and then click on the ET channel.)If you’re in New York, you can also watch from Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center. That’s a seated area, outdoors, where a simulcast will play. Skylar Astin will host, and there will be some performances and guest appearances. The free event begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern; the simulcast begins at 8. Capacity is limited, and American Express cardholders are given priority seating.There are also a variety of ticketed watch parties taking place at bars and other venues. Here’s a list from BroadwayWorld.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Welkin’ Review: A Strong Ensemble and a Story That Resonates

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      A somber yet witty play set in 18th-century England is a clever perversion of a courtroom drama that features strong performances from an ensemble cast.The final word of “The Welkin” — a soft “oh” of realization that left the theater breathless — is more of an utterance, the coo of an innocent young babe. But the speaker isn’t a child; she’s a grown woman.And she’s accused of murder.It’s England in 1759, just around the time everyone is buzzing about the arrival of Halley’s comet. This woman, Sally Poppy (played by Haley Wong), and her lover are accused of the murder and dismemberment of the young daughter of the rich family for which Sally worked. She’s set to hang, but there’s a hitch: Sally claims she’s pregnant.“The Welkin” is a kind of courtroom drama or, rather, a clever perversion of such; technically we don’t see the courtroom, just a dim, dungeonlike room nearby where a forum of 12 matrons has been convened. They’re not Sally’s final adjudicators (that job is for the men, after all), but the jury ruling on the women’s issue in this case: whether Sally’s actually pregnant.A little bit “The Crucible” and a lot bit the 2022 film “Women Talking,” in all the best ways, “The Welkin,” which opened on Wednesday at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater, is a somber yet witty examination of how women labor — with housework, with children and with a society of men that doesn’t serve them — and how they negotiate their assumed responsibilities with their desires.“The Welkin” successfully depicts these women as unique individuals, representing women from different strata of society, and with different prejudices and viewpoints. Each one is memorable, from the stately outsider, Charlotte Cary (Mary McCann), a colonel’s widow in a stylish crown of a hat, to Mary Middleton (Susannah Perkins), an awkward, superstitious young woman who is worried only about getting home to her crop of leeks.Sandra Oh (center) is a standout of the ensemble cast. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tony Predictions: Expect Wins for ‘Merrily’ and ‘Stereophonic’

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      Our reporter surveyed a quarter of Tony voters before Sunday’s ceremony. One certainty: Sondheim’s onetime flop seems destined for redemption.Everyone loves a comeback story. And this year, Broadway will be celebrating one for the ages.“Merrily We Roll Along,” a Stephen Sondheim show that has long been one of musical theater’s most storied flops, will cement its long-sought redemption on Sunday by winning the Tony Award for best musical revival, according to my annual survey of Tony voters.This week I have connected, by phone or by email, with just over a quarter of the 836 Tony voters, and asked how they were voting. In a season in which lots of new musicals have admirers but none seem to have fully satisfied industry insiders, that race is tight, as are some of the key acting categories.But “Merrily,” more than any show since “Hamilton,” has won over not only the ticket-buying audience, which has made this production a significant hit, but also the group of producers, investors, writers, actors, designers and others whose work or volunteer lives are so theater-involved that they have qualified as Tony voters.The survey is not a scientific poll; some voters haven’t even cast their ballots yet. For the actual winners (and some song and dance, too), tune in Sunday for the awards show, which starts at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS and Paramount+ with Showtime. A preshow with some of the awards will stream on Pluto TV starting at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, and we’ll be live-blogging all evening at nytimes.com/theater.Until then, here’s a look at what those surveyed are indicating.Best musical: ‘The Outsiders’ could upset ‘Hell’s Kitchen.’“The Outsiders” is getting lots of love for its vivid depiction of violence and gritty physical production, but less for its score.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMany are loving the vocal performances and the choreography in “Hell’s Kitchen,” but are less enamored with the storytelling.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Hell’s Kitchen,” the Alicia Keys musical, is doing quite well: good reviews, lots of media attention and the strongest sales of any of the season’s new musicals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘How Long Blues’ Review: Twyla Tharp in Overdrive at Little Island

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      Her frenetic new dance-theater work, which opens a new festival at the new park on the Hudson, includes references to Camus and music by T Bone Burnett.On a recent dusky evening, a dozen or so visitors to Little Island in Manhattan were gazing into its outdoor amphitheater from a nearby perch. They didn’t have tickets, sold out at $25 each, to “How Long Blues,” the first outing in a new summer festival that hopes to fulfill the site’s promise as a lively platform for the performing arts. So the slope of a rolling, manicured hill offered the best vantage point.Halfway through the hourlong show, though, most of them had wandered off.To be fair, the lush, dynamic public park, rising from the Hudson River and privately funded by the media titan Barry Diller for $260 million, can be delightfully distracting. But “How Long Blues,” a new dance-theater work conceived, choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp, now running through June 23, is a chaotic head-scratcher. While a riverside setting can be overstimulating (a heliport is less than 20 blocks uptown), the action onstage pulls your attention in so many directions at once that you feel you’re always missing something.In addition to an excellent band on elevated platforms, a standing piano rides in on the back of a tricycle. (The music, a mercurial flow of jazz that ranges from swingy and upbeat to trippy and dissonant, is by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield.) There are appearances by performers wearing doll heads with cartoon features, a demonlike figure covered in straw fringe and Sisyphus carrying a rock on his shoulder — all of this while two smartly dressed men (played by the Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris and a Tharp regular, John Selya) vaguely pantomime amid a swirl of vibrant dancers. (The show has only a few spoken lines.)You would have little way of knowing, without reading Tharp’s interview in The New York Times, that “How Long Blues” concerns the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, and specifically elements from his 1947 novel “The Plague” about a pandemic in Algeria (coughing fits by a dancer or two are not sufficient clues). Notes shared privately with the press confirm that Cerveris is meant to be Jean-Paul Sartre, a close friend of Camus, played by Selya, and that “literal thinking” about narrative “is not helpful here,” according to Tharp.That’s certainly true, but nor is “How Long Blues,” named for a song by Leroy Carr, coherently abstract. Consistent gestures toward an illegible story undercut the show’s components, which are less often in harmony than in competition.Tharp’s choreography, when it has sufficient room to breathe, is the star attraction: a medley of vigorous and precise ballet technique — graceful suspension, expansive limbs — with the sort of unexpected pivots and urgent expressiveness that distinguish her muscular style.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Listen to the Best Songs From 8 Tony-Nominated Shows

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      “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Stereophonic” and others are up for top prizes at Sunday’s ceremony. Our critic takes stock of their cast albums, all available now.Cast albums are both keepsakes and fantasies, preserving a show for those who have seen it and implying it for those who have not. At their best, they are also stand-alone works of musical-theater art. Listening to the recordings of the eight shows nominated for Tony Awards in the best musical and best score categories — all of which are now available — I was impressed by how often and how variously they reached that standard. Below, in chronological order by opening date on Broadway, a guide to the latest batch of future treasures.‘Here Lies Love’The first of the season’s best score nominees, this sung-through biography of Imelda Marcos was the only one not to release a cast recording. That’s a shame, but die-hards can seek out the 2014 Off Broadway version or the 2010 concept album, with its whacka-whacka disco-beat ditties by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. Remastered in 2023, and with a very different collection of songs from the Broadway show, the concept album is naturally less theatrical; with each track featuring a different singer in a totally distinctive style — Tori Amos, Florence Welch, Natalie Merchant, Sia — character development is impossible. Instead, it offers hypnotic dance-floor euphoria, as in Cyndi Lauper’s take on Imelda’s “Eleven Days” of courtship.“Eleven Days”“Here Lies Love,” featuring Cyndi Lauper, from the 2010 concept album (Nonesuch)‘Days of Wine and Roses’A story of husband-and-wife alcoholics on diverging paths toward recovery and disaster is bound to be harrowing, but Adam Guettel’s score carefully balances the inevitable lows with the sometimes wild highs. The cast album brilliantly captures that full-spectrum range, especially in the edge-of-danger singing by Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James at their finest. Their quasi-operatic cries for relief and forgiveness effectively contrast (but do not contradict) the jazzy mania of songs like “Evanesce,” in which the snockered characters sound like xylophones and leap like dolphins, making you ache if not for drink then for these desperate drinkers.“Evanesce”“Days of Wine and Roses” (Nonesuch)‘Water for Elephants’Jessica Stone’s thrilling staging is a real eye-catcher in this circus-based musical at the Imperial Theater. But the cast album demonstrates how the songs, by PigPen Theater Co., a seven-man indie folk collective, can grab you by the ears. Avoiding the rut of some Americana scores, PigPen, along with its arrangers and orchestrators, offers a wide variety of sounds and formats that suit the milieu and the action: bravura showstoppers for the ringmaster, soaring anthems for the hero, haunting ballads for the woman caught between them. One of those ballads is “Easy,” a heartbreaker even if you have no idea that it’s sung to a dying horse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More