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      Tony Awards Predictions: ‘Strange Loop’ and ‘Lehman’ Look Strong

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      We surveyed voters ahead of this year’s ceremony on Sunday. They are strikingly split in the races for leading musical performers.After a strange year on Broadway, it looks as if it could be a “Strange” night at the Tony Awards.Our annual survey of Tony voters — well, it was annual, until the coronavirus pandemic disrupted everything — suggests that Michael R. Jackson’s meta-musical “A Strange Loop” is favored to win the all-important race for best new musical at this year’s Tony Awards, which will take place on Sunday night. If there is an upset, it will come from “MJ,” the biographical musical about Michael Jackson.Over the past few days, I have connected with 181 of the approximately 650 Tony voters to talk about their choices in eight key categories. This is not a scientific poll — voting continues through Friday; the voting pool is distorted, and diminished, by coronavirus cancellations that left many ineligible to vote in some categories; and numerous voters have been scrambling to catch up with missed shows while hoping to vote at the last minute. To see actual statuettes handed out, you’ll have to tune in to the award show Sunday, which starts with a one-hour streaming segment on Paramount+ at 7 p.m. Eastern, and then continues at 8 p.m. with a three-hour segment broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.But interviews with a large subset of voters make clear which races are locked up, and which are insanely close.The race for best play is all sewn up.The best play Tony Award seems certain to go to “The Lehman Trilogy,” a riveting history lesson that chronicles the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers financial empire. The play was originally written by an Italian playwright, Stefano Massini, and then adapted by a British writer, Ben Power.The survey suggests that “Lehman” will win easily — a supermajority of voters believe that it was the best play of the season, and those who do not support it are splitting their votes among the other four contenders, making any other outcome improbable.A plurality of voters also favor one of the “Lehman” stars, the great English actor Simon Russell Beale, in the unusual seven-nominee race for best leading actor in a play. Beale’s career has been spent mostly on the British stage, and this would be his first Tony Award.Simon Russell Beale, center, with Adam Godley, left, and Adrian Lester in “The Lehman Trilogy.” All three are competing for a best actor Tony Award.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWhy is “Lehman” winning? The show, with a meaty subject that both explicates and implicitly critiques New York City’s hugely important financial industry, was a showcase for its three main actors, each of whom played many roles, and it had a showpiece set, designed by Es Devlin, that contained the action within a rotating glass box.Directed by Sam Mendes, it arrived on Broadway with a lot of buzz. After productions in Europe, it had been staged Off Broadway, at the Park Avenue Armory, in 2019, and that production was the talk of the town, becoming a best seller for the nonprofit, with some seats reselling for several thousand dollars.The road to Broadway was bumpy: “The Lehman Trilogy” began previews at the Nederlander Theater less than a week before theaters shut down in March 2020; it then resumed previews 18 months later and finally opened last October. The run sold well, particularly given that much of it overlapped with the pandemic surge associated with the Omicron variant, and it ended Jan. 2 before the production moved to Los Angeles for another brief run.Read More About the 2022 Tony AwardsHosting Duties: Ariana DeBose, who will host the ceremony, vows that this edition will celebrate the often unsung actors who have stepped in during the pandemic.Ruth Negga: The actress, who is nominated for her role as Lady Macbeth in Sam Gold’s staging of the play, infuses the character with intensity, urgency and vitality.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.Choreography: Musicals like “MJ” and “Paradise Square” take on dances of the past but miss some opportunities to elevate the dancing; “For Colored Girls” effectively weaves language and motion.The play faced some criticism from those who felt that it soft-pedaled the relationship between the Lehmans’ early business practices and slavery; the production sharpened its references to race via script revisions made during the theater shutdown.Among new musicals, ‘A Strange Loop’ is the favorite.“A Strange Loop” also arrived on Broadway with a big head of steam: During the pandemic, it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, based on an Off Broadway production staged by Playwrights Horizons and Page 73 Productions in 2019.The musical is about a young aspiring musical theater writer who is Black and gay, and who is haunted by a mostly self-critical inner dialogue that springs to life in the show.The musical, written by Michael R. Jackson and directed by Stephen Brackett, garnered the strongest reviews of the season, and picked up 11 Tony nominations, more than any other show.Voters praised the show’s originality and its raw honesty. As is true with every show, this one also has its skeptics — some voters find the songs unmemorable, or the explicitness off-putting — but in the Tony race, it is benefiting from the fact that there is no consensus about any of the other nominees.Some industry veterans have suggested that Tony voters who live outside New York might be reluctant to support “A Strange Loop” because its sexual content could make it challenging to produce on tour. But that does not appear to be a decisive factor: “A Strange Loop” is favored by half of the voters I spoke with; about one-fifth are supporting “MJ,” the musical about Michael Jackson, which they uniformly praised as entertaining, and the other contenders have less support.“Six,” the fan favorite that was all the rage in 2020, when it came within a few hours of opening before theaters shut down, seems to have lost some heat among voters who no longer think of it as a new show because its run began before the pandemic. But shed no tears for “Six”: it is proving to be hugely successful, with strong box office grosses and a thriving touring market.Several acting races are down to the wire.Voters are remarkably divided in the races for best leading musical performers.In the race for lead actor in a musical, the voters are evenly split between two young actors, Myles Frost, 22, and Jaquel Spivey, 23, each of whom is making his professional stage debut this season. Frost is nominated for his convincing depiction of a driven Michael Jackson in “MJ,” and Spivey is nominated for his soul-baring performance as the self-doubting protagonist in “A Strange Loop”; both have wowed audiences, in very different ways. Each of them has support from about one-third of voters.In the race for lead actress in a musical, the voters are torn between Sharon D Clarke, who played the pained but powerful maid at the heart of a revival of “Caroline, or Change,” and Joaquina Kalukango, who plays a determined tavern owner in the new musical “Paradise Square.”Joaquina Kalukango, left, of “Paradise Square” and Sharon D Clarke of “Caroline, or Change” are in a tight race for lead actress in a musical.Photographs by Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn the race for best actress in a play, Deirdre O’Connell, who uncannily lip-synced recorded interviews with a kidnapping victim in “Dana H.,” has a modest edge among the voters I talked to. But the margin was not big enough to predict what will happen with any confidence; the other leading contenders appear to be LaChanze, for her performance as a truth-telling actress in “Trouble in Mind,” and Mary-Louise Parker, for her performance as a woman abused by her uncle in “How I Learned to Drive.”‘Company’ leads in the musical revival category, but the best play revival is harder to predict.The death of the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, one of the most important writers in musical theater history, was among the biggest theater stories of the last season, and it appears that Tony voters are now inclined to honor the final Broadway production that he worked on with the prize for best musical revival.About half of voters say they are choosing the gender-reversed revival of “Company,” which Sondheim strongly supported before his death. The show, first produced in 1970, previously centered on a man contemplating his single life as he turns 35; this version, directed by Marianne Elliott, puts a woman in the same predicament.The revival of “Company” appears to be the leading contender in the best musical revival category.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Company” appears to have twice as much support as its nearest competitor, the revival of “Caroline, or Change.”Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Ariana DeBose on Hosting the Tonys: ‘Whatever We Do Is Going to Be Fun’

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      The Broadway ensemble member turned Oscar winner vows that the ceremony will celebrate the often unsung actors who have stepped in so often during the pandemic.A decade ago, Ariana DeBose made her Broadway debut as an understudy in the musical adaptation of “Bring It On.”This weekend she’s hosting the Tony Awards.DeBose’s rise to prominence, due in large part to her Oscar-winning performance in Steven Spielberg’s movie remake of “West Side Story,” has been hard-won. She was an understudy, an ensemble member, and struggled before breaking through; in 2018 she was nominated for a Tony Award as one of three actresses playing Donna Summer in “Summer,” and since then she has had multiple film and television projects, including “The Prom” and “Schmigadoon!”This year she became the first Afro Latina and first openly queer woman of color to win an Academy Award. Next, she will be featured in the action film “Argylle,” the superhero film “Kraven the Hunter” and the space thriller “I.S.S.”DeBose, 31, is now rehearsing the three-hour broadcast portion of the Tony Awards ceremony, which starts on Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS. (An earlier hour, starting at 7 p.m., will be streamed on Paramount+.)In an interview this week, DeBose talked about her determination to honor Broadway’s unsung heroes and her desire to return to the stage. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Ruth Negga: The actress, who is nominated for her role as Lady Macbeth in Sam Gold’s staging of the play, infuses the character with intensity, urgency and vitality.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Choreography: Musicals like “MJ” and “Paradise Square” take on dances of the past but miss some opportunities to elevate the dancing; “For Colored Girls” effectively weaves language and motion.What are your goals for Sunday night?This is the first time we’re back at Radio City. The community is still coming out of what has been an extremely challenging time. I do look at this as an opportunity to try and provide a real moment of celebration, because I think it’s a gosh-darn feat and a triumph to have been able to make work at all and get to this moment in time.You’re new to this. Are you nervous?I would like to throw up, if I’m honest. But I love a challenge. And I just feel like whatever we do is going to be fun.You’ve talked a lot about your identity. Tell me what you hope that prompts for people watching you?If I do my job right, it will be a reminder to young people out there watching that there is a place for us. And, to be perfectly frank, Broadway was the place that gave me freedom to explore my identity, freedom to explore my artistry. It was the place of love and acceptance that helped create the woman that you see now.There’s been a lot of discussion this season about the role of understudies and standbys, who kept many shows going when other performers tested positive for the coronavirus. Can you talk about what your intention is for Sunday on that front?In three of my six Broadway shows, I was an understudy. And I began in this industry in the ensemble. There’s no way in the world that a host like me is going to let this moment go by without acknowledging swings and understudies, but also the myriad groups of people that put in the work to keep this industry going, and that includes stage managers, dance captains, associates, hair and makeup departments, musicians. There’s not a version of the world where I don’t have something up my sleeve. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but what I am going to tell you is if it doesn’t happen, you can hold me accountable.One of the other important developments this season was the death of Stephen Sondheim. Should we expect to see that acknowledged?Well, we wouldn’t have the American theater as we know it without him. So while I will not tell you what we are doing, there will be a beautiful moment for the man that is Stephen Sondheim.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Ruth Negga Thinks Lady Macbeth Is Misunderstood

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      The actress, nominated for a Tony Award for her magnetic performance in “Macbeth,” is drawn to female characters who challenge the status quo.Ruth Negga dazzles onstage. Not just because, as Lady Macbeth, she briefly wears a gold metallic gown in Sam Gold’s otherwise fairly casual staging of “Macbeth” at the Longacre Theater. But, rather, it’s because she infuses her character, and her marriage to Macbeth (Daniel Craig), with such intensity, urgency and vitality that I found myself missing her when she came to her inevitable end.Negga was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actress in a play, which recognizes both her powerful stage presence and the gender parity that Gold’s revival sought to achieve. “Like a feral cat, she can seem quicksilver and weightless or, when enraged, menacing and bristly and twice her size,” Jesse Green wrote of Negga’s performance in a review in The Times.Even if Lady Macbeth appears in substantially fewer scenes than her husband, her cunning mind — and Negga’s command of Shakespeare’s verse — leave an indelible imprint. “Her language is very fertile, it’s very fecund and it’s very sensual,” Negga said last week in a video interview. “I think a lot of people associate that with darkness as well. But that’s another layer that I think this character has been burdened and muddied with.”Negga, left, with Amber Gray in the revival. “She’s not evil,” Negga said of Lady Macbeth. “It’s this archetype that chases her: the deadly villainess, the villain behind the man.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNegga, who plays the mysterious, seductive, blonde-haired Clare in the movie “Passing,” and the real-life civil rights activist Mildred Loving in “Loving,” is drawn to characters who try to circumvent the social circumstances into which they were born. Negga sees Clare, Loving and now Lady Macbeth as paying a price for such transgressions because they are either running out of time or, in the case of Loving, ahead of hers.Born in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian father and an Irish mother, and raised in Ireland and England, Negga, 40, spoke from her place in New York about the significance of seeing “Macbeth” as a love story, and why she finds the role of Lady to be liberating. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.You were playing Hamlet at St. Ann’s Warehouse right before everything shut down in March 2020. How has coming back to the stage, on Broadway with a different Shakespeare play, been for you?Revisiting the Tragedy of ‘Macbeth’Shakespeare’s tale of a man who, step by step, cedes his soul to his darkest impulses continues to inspire new interpretations. On Stage: Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in Sam Gold’s take on the play. Despite its star power, the production feels oddly uneasy, our critic writes. Onscreen: In the “Tragedy of Macbeth,” Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand embody a toxic power couple with mastery. Break a Leg: Shakespeare’s play is known for the rituals and superstitions tied to it. How does the supernatural retain its hold on the theater world?My isolation was book ended by two Shakespeare plays, which is really interesting because I hadn’t actually been onstage for 10 years before that. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. I think those two years of being so separate from people just compounded that feeling of “connect, connect.” It’s such a personal, visceral experience for the person playing onstage and the person receiving that performance. Because it’s so immediate and in the now, and it’s happening live, that kind of energetic exchange can only happen at that moment. It’s so weird — that’s why I love it.How did playing Hamlet prepare you for Lady Macbeth?I was approaching 40, playing this young man who was just entering his exploration of his adulthood and his place in the world, and I was guided by this moment of internal discovery and complete honesty. Hamlet is a truth-teller but he’s also a truth searcher, and for good or bad, and I think to his chagrin sometimes, nothing but the truth will do. That’s a very hard place to be, but it’s also where amazing transformation can happen. [The role] really tests your mettle, your physical and vocal stamina, and also what you’re willing to lay bare. And since everything’s laid bare, you can’t really hide anywhere. To be honest, anything’s a relief after Hamlet.With Lady Macbeth, was it hard to know what motivated her?Even before I started rehearsals I was like, “What’s all this jazz about her being evil?” She’s not evil, it’s this archetype that chases her: the deadly villainess, the villain behind the man. That’s what she’s become known for, and she’s been robbed of any idiosyncrasy or personality. But whereas we rail against [Macbeth] for his procrastination, I think she could have done a bit more thinking things through. But the thing is, time wasn’t on her side. This is what happens when you just have all these ideas and they seem great and you’re really getting things going and you don’t have much time. I mean she makes one bad mistake when you think about it.Which is?Well, I personally don’t think you need to kill people to get ahead! But I don’t come to a character trying to justify them, that’s not my job. I’m not interested in that. But very few people act from a core of badness or evilness. I loved her desire to be alive, to reach for things, to strive, and I was so excited to play someone who has such clear ideas of what they think they deserve, especially a woman. And when you realize that your desires and your ambitions are restricted by the status quo, one has to think quickly on one’s feet. They have to become quick and mercurial. That’s what she has a talent for. There’s a self-awareness there that I think makes her similar to Hamlet.Daniel Craig, left, stars as Macbeth. “There’s very much an awareness that this is a marriage of equals and respect, and I loved that,” Negga said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe chemistry between Macbeth and Lady is so palpable onstage. Was that important to you?When I read this script, I thought, “Wow, this dies on whether you believe that they love each other or not. This is key.” Their relationship is the backdrop or the environment of this play; that’s what their action is born out of. But there’s also a love there that is very robust. You feel like they both draw strength from that union in a very equal, balanced way. And that was something that was important for me to not let be put to the side, or laid to waste or watered down in any way. There’s very much an awareness that this is a marriage of equals and respect, and I loved that.Marriage is central to some of your other characters, like Clare in “Passing” and Mildred in “Loving,” whose marriages to white men challenge the status quo.To me race is in the foreground, the background, the present, and it’s not something I have had to chase or I’ve had to ignore. It’s with me, it’s in me, it’s who I am. So stories about race and stories written by people of color, Americans of color, have always piqued my interest. How do people go through the world as a person of color with the structures and limitations that have been imposed by society? And how does the status quo come up against your personal desire and ambition? And how do you live the life that you want as best you can within these structures that are telling you, “No.”In “Macbeth,” the other characters are casually dressed, but at one point, Lady is wearing a gold gown. Why?That was really important to me and to Suttirat [Larlarb], our amazing costume designer. I think we both fell in love with Lady. My heart spills over with joy when I see women, any type of woman, just embrace who they are. And for me, her femininity is important because I was familiar with this idea that she could seem like this sexless, austere, bloodless, lustless sort of shell. That just doesn’t chime with the Lady on the page, so I wanted her to have no shame, be lusty and alive, and really enjoy her sexuality and her femininity, and not be frightened to stand out from the crowd.Is there another Shakespeare character that you long to play?I remember in college I used to do the Queen Margaret speeches [from “Richard III”]. They’re great because they’re deadly, speeches that are powerful and about power. It’s extraordinary that Shakespeare gave them to her. What I love about him, he doesn’t make his women saints. He gives you complexity. He’s not presenting a Lady Macbeth we can hate; he’s presenting a woman that we can see ourselves in, and a woman overwhelmed by grief. She has a great catharsis and a great internal reckoning. And I feel for her deeply. More

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      Portraits of the 2022 Tony Nominees

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      The Broadway season that just ended, the first since the pandemic shutdown, will be remembered for many reasons — the persistence of Covid, the death of Stephen Sondheim, the dwindled tourism and the indispensable understudies. It was a season for renewed appreciation: of song and storytelling and shared experiences, of a beloved art form and a rebounding industry. And it was a season that featured an extraordinary volume of work by Black artists, catalyzed by the social unrest of 2020. The 2022 Tony Awards, which take place June 12, offer an opportunity to honor some of Broadway’s best work; in anticipation of that event, we photographed and interviewed many of the performers, and a few of the writers, directors and choreographers, nominated for awards. Below are portraits and edited excerpts from the interviews.“MACBETH”Ruth Negga“I’ve always wanted to be an actress, since I was a really young kid. I just love stories in all shape and form. And for me, there’s a whole different draw: There’s an aspect of the performer, the peacock — something kind of lovely about being looked at, at the same time I’m quite shy in my normal life, so that’s an interesting dichotomy.” — Ruth Negga“POTUS”Rachel Dratch and Julie White“People really, really want to laugh. The laughs are like hyperlaughs. Maybe that’s pandemic-flavored. Obviously, I’ve done a lot of comedies, but this one you can just feel the cackles coming off the audience. I think it’s because people have been shut in for so long.” — Rachel Dratch“All the lady shows — we’re all keeping our clothes on. It’s the boys that are taking them off. I feel like that’s a step in the right direction.” — Julie White“TAKE ME OUT”Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams and Michael Oberholtzer“I decided at the age of 5 I was going to become an actor or a baker or a zookeeper. My dad reminded me that zookeepers were going to have to pick up lots of poop, and so then I narrowed it down to the baker and the actor, and the acting just seemed more fun. So it was a very early decision, and I’m glad it panned out.” — Jesse Tyler Ferguson“I’m making discoveries every day. It’s really liberating. It’s incredibly stressful. And it’s a lot of pressure.” — Jesse Williams“This is something that I never really thought about, and it’s kind of all I ever thought about at the same time. Not so much the Tonys, but to be in a position to have an opportunity to be in a play, in a production that is seen by people, that excites people, that’s talked about.” — Michael Oberholtzer“hangmen”Alfie Allen“I was going to be a snowboard instructor at one point if the acting didn’t work out. Came back from getting that qualification, and then I got a part in a film.” — Alfie Allen“Paradise Square”Joaquina Kalukango, A.J. Shively and Sidney DuPont“There’s hope in community. There’s hope in love. There’s hope for this country. And I think the more we see the things that are alike within us, the less we see the differences.” — Joaquina Kalukango“There’s 40 of us in this cast. To sing in a big group like that, which has been unsafe for a long time, it feels wonderful. That first rehearsal back when we all sang together, we were all just crying.” — A.J. Shively“I’m hoping that by me being in this space and by doing what I’m doing, that I can inspire young Black boys and men and inspire young hearing-impaired people to believe that they can do it — that there’s nothing, nothing that can get in your way as long as you push for it.” — Sidney DuPont“dana h.”Deirdre O’Connell“Because everything had stopped so radically, it felt like there was a real wide open spirit to the way people were going to the theater.” — Deirdre O’Connell“funny girl”Jared Grimes“I started dancing in the subways. We would set up the board, and we would just dance.” — Jared Grimes“company”Patti LuPone, Jennifer Simard and Matt Doyle“To experience any of Steve’s work is to realize what a human is capable of. He is complex, deeply human, nuanced and daring. He dares to write about every aspect of the human condition with a deeply beating heart.” — Patti LuPone, on Sondheim“Thank God Stephen actually came to the first preview. It was like a rock concert. He adored it, and he laughed from his head to his toes.” — Jennifer Simard“The first preview back was just so magnificent and overwhelming. And to have Stephen Sondheim sitting there with us, it’s a night that I will never forget.” — Matt Doyle“the music man”Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster and Jayne Houdyshell“I get bored of myself. I think that’s why I like acting. With acting, you get to have complete freedom to do all sorts of things.” — Hugh Jackman“The pandemic was crazy. I remember when the theater shut down and all of a sudden you realize, ‘Wait a minute, what I do for a living just doesn’t exist right now.’ I don’t think anyone plans for that.” — Sutton Foster“It feels like a big privilege to be part of the group of people that have come together to make Broadway reopen and do it as safely as possible.” — Jayne Houdyshell“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf”Camille A. Brown and Kenita R. Miller“I didn’t grow up during the internet, so we went to the library and we got videos of our favorite musicals and we would watch them over and over again, and the dance sequences, and I would learn them.” — Camille A. Brown (nominated as director and choreographer)“I get this tribe of sisters that have shown me what it really means to be a sister.” — Kenita R. Miller“How I learned to drive”Mary-Louise Parker, Paula Vogel and David Morse“I didn’t think the play would ever be produced. I didn’t think I’d ever find actors who could do it. I thought I was going to be judged and condemned for writing it. I realized I shouldn’t be afraid of telling the truth.” — Paula Vogel (nominated as playwright)“Just living in a world right now where judgment of other people comes quickly and it’s severe. And what Paula wrote, it doesn’t allow you to do that. It just opens you up.” — David Morse“We all have darkness. We all have things we need to be forgiven for. And I think that is something kind of important to remember.” — Mary-Louise Parker“A STRANGE LOOP”Michael R. Jackson, Jaquel Spivey, L Morgan Lee and John-Andrew Morrison“I’m a writer because I have questions, and I have things that scare me, and the only way for me to get over my fears is to confront them directly.” — Michael R. Jackson (nominated as book and score writer)“I grew up watching movie musicals. I was obsessed with them. ‘Dreamgirls,’ the movie: As soon as I saw Jennifer Hudson singing, I thought ‘I want to do that!’” — Jaquel Spivey“In many ways, I feel like it took the world to turn upside down for me to start to find some sense of visibility.” — L Morgan Lee“When I first moved to this city, and I would be auditioning, I would hear things like ‘Oh, your pearls are falling out of your mouth,’ or ‘You’re not thug enough.’ So to be able to be in a show where I can be as queer and as flamboyant and as gay and as big as I possibly can be, and it’s not only needed but celebrated, is amazing.” — John-Andrew Morrison“Mr. Saturday night”Billy Crystal and Shoshana Bean“People are starved for entertainment, and you look out and they’re all masked and yet they’re laughing as hard as they can and we’re getting the same energy we would get. It’s so important that people get entertained and we get some sort of semblance of normal life. This show has been very healing for all of us in a lot of different ways.” — Billy Crystal“The first night that we had an audience and heard that laughter en masse: It’s a drug. It’s crazy.” — Shoshana Bean“Lackawanna blues”Ruben Santiago-Hudson“There was a lot of trepidation, and a lot of second-guessing. I wasn’t sure if one person would show up. But one of the things I discovered is people need theater as bad as we need people to need theater. Human beings need to do what is innate in us, and that’s to be social creatures and to have shared experiences with one another.” — Ruben Santiago-Hudson“MJ”Myles Frost and Christopher Wheeldon“What I cherish the absolute most is getting here — the journey that it took even before I hit the stage the first time, and learning myself, learning more about Michael, meeting my cast mates for the first time. It’s little moments like that that stick out to me the most.” — Myles Frost“The last few months have been filled with highs and lows and a lot of fear, just around whether we could actually get up and get running, keep our cast on the stage, get our audiences in the door. I have learned a lot about my capacity to handle fear as an artist, and also, like the rest of the world, as a human being, and actually to find the best ways that I can to turn that fear into some positive and creative energy.” — Christopher Wheeldon (nominated as director and choreographer)“Clyde’s”Uzo Aduba and Kara Young“It’s exciting to be a part of the thing that people are craving, which is community. Theater has always served as something that is more than just entertainment, but in this time, even more than in the past, it feels like a healing. Some days, when the curtain will come up, I’m not even sure they’re applauding the show. A layer of this feels like it’s for another need.” — Uzo Aduba“I have to admit that I really was very eager to work. And because this was the cards that were dealt, I really hugged this moment with all of myself.” — Kara Young“Clyde’s” and “MJ”Lynn Nottage“I feel very proud to be part of a season in which we’ve had more representation by Black writers than in the history of, probably, Broadway in its entirety.” — Lynn Nottage (nominated as playwright for “Clyde’s” and book writer for “MJ”)“Skeleton Crew”Phylicia Rashad“Theater is always bumpy. That is nothing new. But it was great to be back in the theater.” — Phylicia Rashad“American Buffalo”Neil Pepe and Sam Rockwell“It’s come back in such a big, big way. And we were shut down two years ago. I think that’s why it’s really exciting.” — Sam Rockwell (shown with Neil Pepe, who is nominated as director)“Trouble in mind”LaChanze and Chuck Cooper“We need more stories that are showing the diversity in our community, not just the broad strokes.” — LaChanze“I just hope that those who made it into our little theater and were able to go on our journey with us, I hope that they left the theater moved and thinking and curious.” — Chuck Cooper“girl from the north country”Mare Winningham“I’ve learned that marinating in a role is really good.” — Mare Winningham“Mrs. Doubtfire”Rob McClure“When I was 15, I saw a community theater production of ‘Sweeney Todd’ that changed me, and by that, I mean my DNA. I went into that theater as one person, and I left that theater a different person. It was a magic trick that I didn’t know existed. And then I discovered that I could provide that magic trick for other people. And that’s why I act.” — Rob McClure“THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH”Lileana Blain-Cruz and Gabby Beans“When a piece of theater is good — and I feel like everybody is struggling and reaching for that — you walk out of the theater feeling more alive. And for me, wrestling with what it means to be alive is the eternal question.”— Lileana Blain-Cruz (nominated as director)“This character is completely free. She has no boundaries or self-consciousness. So I feel like inhabiting that energy has made me just expand as a person.” — Gabby Beans“the minutes”Tracy Letts“I’ve never felt more camaraderie with my fellow theater artists. This does not feel like a competition to me, these Tony Awards. It feels like a celebration — getting to return to our art form.” — Tracy Letts (nominated as a playwright) More

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      Broadway’s Beloved Basement Club, Feinstein’s/54 Below, Turns 10

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      The venue beneath what was once Studio 54 will pick up a Tony Award for excellence in the theater as it marks its anniversary with a pair of concerts.On June 5, 2012, shortly after noon, a bevy of cabaret and theater artists and insiders gathered in a space beneath what had been the storied West 54th Street nightclub Studio 54. The occasion was a dress rehearsal for a show that evening that would open a new venue called, reasonably enough, 54 Below. Patti LuPone was the featured act, with other Broadway and nightlife luminaries, including Ben Vereen and Justin Vivian Bond, slated to appear soon afterward.Joe Iconis, a young composer, lyricist and performer who was part of that initial lineup, recalled the event as “a coming out for the room itself.” The bar was separated from the stage and dining tables by a curtain, which was later opened, “so there was this dramatic reveal of the room, to the people who would soon be playing it.”It was a fittingly theatrical debut for a spot that, 10 years later, still bills itself as “Broadway’s living room.” (The venue is now known as Feinstein’s/54 Below, acknowledging a creative partnership with the veteran performer and American songbook champion Michael Feinstein that began in 2015.) On June 12, it will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.“To me, Feinstein’s is not only about the American songbook; in some ways it’s become a sensibility, a lifestyle brand,” Michael Feinstein said.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAt the time of 54 Below’s start, the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, one of New York’s most established cabaret venues, had just announced its closure; Feinstein’s own namesake at the Regency Hotel shut down not long after. Don’t Tell Mama and the West Bank Cafe’s Laurie Beechman Theater still offered show tunes and standards, as did the jazz club Birdland. But as Richard Frankel, one of the four Broadway producers who started and still own 54 Below, remembered, “There was nothing geared towards the huge resource of the Broadway talent pool, and the continual renewal of new music that Broadway provided.”Today, 54 Below occupies a rare perch as a free-standing club offering just that. But it faces more competition. In 2017, the Green Room 42 arrived, which, like 54 Below, features name acts, rising stars and cult favorites alongside theme shows and special events. The following year, Birdland unveiled Birdland Theater, a space that has accommodated longer runs by Broadway performers and emerging jazz artists as well as freewheeling variety shows. Other venues have continued to pop up downtown, like the East Village spots Pangea and Club Cumming, where artists generally less associated with Broadway can wax theatrical in their own fashion.But Don’t Tell Mama’s longtime booking manager, the cabaret doyen Sidney Myer, conceded that 54 Below still “draws the best and the brightest” and called its team “creative and proactive.”The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Lifetime Achievement: Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star of stage, film and television, will be honored with a special award during this year’s ceremony.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Frankel and fellow owners Steven Baruch, Marc Routh and Tom Viertel — who have produced “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and the 2018 revival of “Angels in America” — recruited the Broadway mainstays John Lee Beatty, Ken Billington and Peter Hylenski to design the restaurant and its lighting and sound. Beatty even requested a story for inspiration; Viertel spun one about Jewish hustlers who, as Frankel relayed it, sold stolen car parts during World War I, “then started bootlegging when Prohibition came, and invited showgirls and opened a speakeasy. John said, ‘Fine—I’m good.’”On June 12, the venue will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesFor a pair of anniversary concerts on Sunday and Thursday, the club will spotlight young and emerging performers, composers and playwrights — among them the “Dear Evan Hansen” and “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” alumnus Andrew Barth Feldman, 20, who grew up “binging YouTube videos of people at 54 Below” before starting to visit the club in his early teens. (Minors are welcome but aren’t permitted at the bar without parental supervision.)When the coronavirus pandemic shut down live performances in March 2020, there was no guarantee the venue would make it to this milestone. Two rounds of government loans “really saved us from the abyss,” Frankel said, though he estimated that business was still down between 20 and 25 percent from 2019.54 Below inherited its first director of programming, Phil Geoffrey Bond, from the Beechman. When Jennifer Ashley Tepper joined the venue as creative and programming director a little less than nine years ago, she took a cue from Bond’s popular “Sondheim Unplugged” series. One of her first projects was “New Musicals at 54,” which has delivered concert versions of shows such as Iconis and Joe Tracz’s “Be More Chill” and Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize winner “A Strange Loop,” now up for 11 Tony Awards, both showcased before they were produced in New York. An eclectic assortment of additional series have come to include “New Writers at 54!” and “54 Sings …,” which mostly celebrates pop music. “A lot of these shows are done on the fly,” noted the composer Stephen Flaherty, whose musicals “My Favorite Year” and “Seussical” have been showcased at the club, which also features cast reunions and concerts of classic and underappreciated works. “You’ll have people dropping out and others replacing them, so you never know what you’re going to get, which is part of the excitement.”Slotting such vehicles and novelty acts alongside headliners like Chita Rivera, Ariana DeBose and Charles Busch into at least two shows per night, seven nights a week, can pose a challenge, Tepper says: “A big part of my job is making sure that the crowd is different at different performances.” 54 Below has drawn what the jazz singer Nicole Henry, one of several artists brought on board by Feinstein, calls “an informed, intelligent audience. They often know more about the music than I do.”Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      ‘MJ’: Dancing the Pain, and Dancing the Pain Away

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      What is the role of choreography on Broadway? Two musicals, “MJ” and “A Strange Loop,” shed light on the dancing body.Don’t get me wrong: The musical “MJ” is a misfire on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. “Thriller” looks like a scene out of “Cats.” The segment showing Michael Jackson’s dance influences — the Nicholas Brothers, Fred Astaire, Bob Fosse — is so poor in terms of skill level that I felt sorry for dance, the art form. Irritatingly, yet predictably, the show, directed by the ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards. It will run for ages. Michael Jackson — for all his flaws — is still Michael Jackson.But the production does have something to show about Jackson’s dancing body in all of its articulate anxiety. It made me think: What happened to that body when the boy became a man? How did his dancing change? Was something of his internal landscape exposed in his dancing for all to see? Did we ever really see it?When he was alive and building his pop canon of music and dance, it wasn’t always so easy to grasp how, beyond the nervous twitches of the choreography, his spirit was reflected in his dancing. So much about him was wrapped up in the fashion of the moment that you could forget about his body. (You couldn’t, after all, ignore the ever-morphing features of his face.) There were so many distractions along the way — the skin, the plastic surgery, the allegations of molestation against him.He was always hiding. His costumes were armor, masking his body, his interior life and even, for all of his extraordinary prowess, his physicality. In a sense, he made it possible for his impersonators to exist by crafting and perpetuating a Michael Jackson that anyone could borrow and put on. Like a rhinestone glove. Or a moonwalk.The Broadway musical tries its best to focus on Jackson, the perfectionist artist, MJ, as the adult Jackson is listed in the Playbill. By contrast, the role of Little Michael makes the adult seem more fragile and more bizarre. (There’s a third Michael, too, in between them in age; he makes less of an impression.) You can’t help but notice the dramatic, drastic changes that his dancing body displayed over time. From his childhood as the youngest brother in the Jackson 5 to the final rehearsals for his Dangerous tour of 1992, the moment that frames the show, we see the way turmoil ripples through his body. For Little Michael, tormented by his father, dance is an escape; for the older MJ, it’s a way for his body to scream in ways he couldn’t with words. His voice, high and whispery, never had the same emphatic force.Christian Wilson, front, as Little Michael in “MJ.” Wilson’s “ease, his winning blend of naïveté and wisdom,” bring the musical to life, our critic says.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe older MJ, in the show, fights for rigid precision — movement phrases are knotty, spiky, full of angles, while Little Michael is smooth and enviably relaxed. (Obviously, dance styles changed drastically during that time, but the contrast seems as emotional as it is physical.) Two young boys alternate as Little Michael, Walter Russell III and Christian Wilson. I can only speak for Wilson, whose performance I saw, but it was his dancing that repeatedly snapped me back to attention.The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Lifetime Achievement: Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star, will be honored with a special award during this year’s ceremony.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Feinstein’s/54 Below: The beloved basement club, which bills itself as “Broadway’s living room,” will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.As a musical, “MJ” can feel as distant and as inaccessible as a music video. Wilson’s presence — his ease, his winning blend of naïveté and wisdom — brought it to life. Even during the curtain calls, his hips kept flowing, perhaps more quietly, more internally than when he was in character, but he never lost hold of his gentle yet powerful groove.That unselfconscious fluidity throws into relief the rigidity and the constraint of MJ, as played by Myles Frost. Frost’s dancing accuracy is extraordinary; it reveals a body turning in on itself and hardening — lonely, brittle, concave. The tipped hat and rounded shoulders weren’t just about Jackson imitating one of his idols, Bob Fosse. Weren’t they also a way to hide (and guard) himself from the world?Jackson’s music was pop, but the way he used his body had such a hard edge that to watch footage of his actual Dangerous tour is to see something related to punk — not in sound, but in angst and speed, anger and attack. The tone is confident and clipped, but beyond the gleaming exterior, you sense pain. Did he even want to move in front of people? I can’t decide. At the start of a performance in Bucharest, he stands still, in profile, with his arms tense at his sides, for what seems like ages while the camera pans to a crowd on the brink of hysteria.Wait for it: Michael Jackson in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on the Dangerous tour.Alain Benainous/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesIt’s impossible to know who Jackson really was. “MJ” delivers yet another impersonation of the man we saw onstage and in videos. Often a dancing body reveals a certain truth about a person, but in Jackson’s case dancing might have been one more thing to hide behind, like another costume; it was a place he could control his body. He could be himself or the person he wanted to be: strong, powerful, sexy. Maybe the dancing body was the man, or his fantasy of himself.I don’t want to honor the choreographic approach in “MJ,” which is mostly cartoonish. But watching the dancing left me thinking about Jackson and what dancing became for him — something he was chained to, rather than a way to break free of the box he found himself in.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Why the Biggest Ovation at the Tonys Luncheon Was for a Waiter

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      The Rainbow Room event is meant to honor nominees; guests aren’t allowed. But when your father works there, that changes everything.Klay Young, a 63-year-old Harlem resident who immigrated to New York as a teenager from Belize, has worked as a server at the landmark Rainbow Room for 30 years, taking orders, ferrying food, clearing dishes for any number of rich and famous people. He has pictures with Mikhail Gorbachev, Liza Minnelli, John Travolta, and Presidents Carter and Clinton.This week, he served a newly minted dignitary: his daughter, a stage actress who in November made her Broadway debut in a new Lynn Nottage play called “Clyde’s” and this month scored a Tony nomination for her quick-witted performance as a formerly incarcerated sandwich maker.Something about that confluence — a breakout performer reaching the literal heights (the Rainbow Room is on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center) where her immigrant father has long toiled as a waiter — brought a much-needed moment of inspiration to an industry still struggling to rebound from a very rough few years.Here’s what happened: The Rainbow Room, once a restaurant and now an event space, has for years been the home of a treasured Tony Awards ritual: a nominees-only luncheon at which the actors, writers, directors, designers and others up for awards share a meal, get a plaque and bask in a moment of shared glory.This year, seated among the honorees was Kara Young in her white-and-black Maje dress with the gold necklace she borrowed from her mother. Working the room in his lunchtime uniform of dark blue pants, white shirt and dark blue vest was Klay Young, making sure everyone had what they needed.When Emilio Sosa, who was helping preside over the ceremony as chairman of the American Theater Wing, got up for the routine recitation of the names of honorees, he paused at Kara Young. He noted that her father was present — as it happened, he was getting a Diet Coke for a celebrant — and had worked there for years. The celebrants rose to their feet.“The whole room just lost it,” Sosa said. “To see her coming full circle, from a little girl watching him serve, and he had worked this luncheon for years, to having his daughter be a nominee was just one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Lifetime Achievement: Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star of stage, film and television, will be honored with a special award during this year’s ceremony.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Among those moved to tears: Kara Young, who as a little girl on special occasions had come to the Rainbow Room with her father, taking in the sweeping views and dancing with him on the rotating floor.“I know that job has put food on our table and has given us a really beautiful life,” Kara Young said later. “He’s such an honorable man, and for him to get a standing ovation was the most unexpected moment ever.”Young, left, with Reza Salazar, was nominated for best featured actress in a play for her performance in “Clyde’s.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesKlay Young, who had been serving chicken paillard and arranging coffee cups at the lunch, was stunned. “Oh my goodness,” he said later. “I had to pause for a second. I looked at her. She looked at me. It was riveting. I could not say anything but ‘gratitude.’ And there were silent tears of joy coming down my face.”Sosa, a costume designer who immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic and whose parents were janitors and factory workers, said he recognized the emotional power of the moment as soon as he realized the coincidence.“A lot of times, when young people say they want to be artists, the first thing they get is pushback about how they’re going to earn a living,” Sosa said. “So the pride in this man’s eyes really touched me. And I could not let that moment pass.”Among those also struck by the event was Nottage, who snapped a picture of the father-daughter pair.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Hugh Jackman Is Having Fun Playing as ‘Arrogant as You Possibly Can’

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      “There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had,” the Tony nominee said of “The Music Man.”“It was kind of a miracle that I got into musical theater,” the actor Hugh Jackman said the other day, recalling the start of his career in 1995. “I’d just graduated, and my agent said they couldn’t find anyone to play Gaston in [the Australian production of] ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ so I went in and gave it a go. I got the part, but it was in my contract to get singing lessons once a week. I’ve very much felt like an outsider from the beginning.”Now in the running for his third Tony Award, for his portrayal of the all-American con man Harold Hill in a revival of “The Music Man,” the Australian native recounted what it’s been like to return to the stage for his first Broadway musical since 2003. (Though he hasn’t been a total stranger; he starred in “A Steady Rain” in 2009 and “The River” in 2014.) Throughout an afternoon hour at a Midtown hotel, Jackman came across as a curious performer who leads with the affirmative; his is a disarming charm sculpted out of consideration and confidence.Despite his long list of credits and accolades, Jackman, 53, seems as eager to please as he is to jump into the next adventure. He has an inquisitive mind, which I experienced firsthand when he audited a graduate film history course at Columbia University that I also attended in the spring 2020 semester. His friend Annette Insdorf taught the course, and when the pandemic shut down in-person classes, Jackman continued attending the four-hour seminars through Zoom.“I have a layman’s understanding of film. I would ask directors for five films I should see before I die, and almost all of them I’d never seen,” he said. “I asked Annette for help, and she told me to just join her course.”At the time, he was promoting the HBO film “Bad Education,” in which he played a real-life former school superintendent who pleaded guilty to stealing $2 million from his district, and beginning early “Music Man” rehearsals with his future co-star Sutton Foster.Sutton Foster as the librarian Marian Paroo and Jackman as the con man Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” Jackman said of working with Foster: “I certainly have to bring my triple-A game.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThese are edited excerpts from our conversation.You play larger-than-life scammers in both “The Music Man” and “Bad Education.” Did one role inform the other?The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, which will be given out on June 12, are the first to recognize shows that opened following the long pandemic shutdown of Broadway’s theaters. Season in Review: Thirty-four productions braved the pandemic to open under the most onerous conditions. Game of Survival: During a time unlike any other, productions showed their resourcefulness while learning how to live with Covid. A Tony Nominee: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process. The Missing Category: This Covid-stalked Broadway season has made clear that a prize for best ensemble should be added, our critic writes.I’m very fascinated by the collective fascination with con men and scam artists, and there’s some crossover there with P.T. Barnum [whom he portrayed in the film “The Greatest Showman”]. I’m still not 100 percent sure where it comes from, but I think it’s deeply rooted in a very American individualist philosophy of not doing what the man tells you to do.You’ve lived in the United States for about 20 years. Do you consider yourself an American?I’m Australian. I think America’s an extraordinary place, though — there are very few places as generous of spirit.Do you think that generosity is what draws Americans to scammers?It goes back to this sense of individualism, and the ultimate expression of that is the con man, who goes against everything and flips the rules of hierarchy. Australia has got a little bit of that, but we saw during the pandemic that Australians follow the rules. There’s a collective, “We should really be doing this,” and people fall in line. And as we saw here, there’s no falling in line.So is your draw to these characters pure escapism?What I love about acting is exploring the sides of people who choose to live in a way opposite to how we were brought up, and can’t believe everyone around them is still following the rules. So it’s not escapism; it’s just fun to play something I wouldn’t allow or want myself to do in life. I’m glad everyone is not Harold Hill, but it’s great fun to play as arrogant as you possibly can for two and a half hours. Self-deprecating kind of gets boring after a while.How does the role feel six months into the show’s run?For me, this big show with a cast of 47 keeps growing. I’m in a lead role, but it doesn’t feel as exhausting as I’ve experienced [in other shows] in the past. I think it’s the way they built these old shows. I’m onstage a lot, and driving a lot of it, but it’s different: I go on at the beginning, sing the first number, and go off to have a costume change. I’m not a smoker, but it feels like a cigarette break, which I’m pretty sure is what a lot of them were doing back then.There are some days when I go in tired, but by the third scene: “Wow. I’m back.” There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had. And when you’re working with Sutton —Has she taught you about stamina? She’s a star who puts in the work of a swing.She’s a marvel. I certainly have to bring my triple-A game. Asking me to tap dance alongside Sutton Foster is like asking me to play Novak Djokovic on the court. Rehearsals with her were fun, but it was kind of dispiriting to spend a year and a half working on that and then watch these kids come in and learn it in three hours.“I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them,” Jackman said of his young co-stars in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYou’d never worked with this many children onstage, let alone in a show with 21 Broadway debuts. Do you find yourself parenting them?It has become a little bit like that, particularly with the youngsters. I guess some of them see me as Wolverine [the superhero character he plays in the “X-Men” film series], so it feels a little paternal. I think, particularly for the kids in their first show, I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them.Did you feel a danger of losing your own joy during your rise?There were times when I was doing the first “X-Men,” my first big American movie, when I found it quite lonely. I was mainly from the theater, and you could feel that sense of, “Mmm, it’s a bad smell.” I don’t know exactly when things turned, but when the studio said they liked what I was doing, I could feel everyone coming to me. It made me sad. I realized film was more individual, less of an ensemble. The theater thrives on, and has to have, a feeling of ensemble, or it dies. There’s just no way to get through rehearsals, or eight shows a week, unless you have each other’s backs.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More