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      In a Chaotic Tonys Season, It Was an Honor Just to Open

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      If the roster of Tony Award nominees announced on Monday looks even odder and more random than usual, well, it’s been an odd and random season. For that matter, it wasn’t even really a season. The surfeit of nods — many categories that usually feature five nominations this year feature six or seven — pales in comparison to the scope of eligible productions, the first of which (“Girl From the North Country”) opened in March 2020, just before the pandemic blew an 18-month hole in Broadway. If my math is correct, that was 100 years ago.The pandemic that distorted the season also distorted the awards process. Of the 34 productions the 29 nominators were allowed to consider, 15 opened in April — six in the last week of that month alone. It couldn’t have been easy. I know that for critics it was a maddening game of Whac-a-Mole, trying to hit each show as it popped up before suddenly vanishing, riddled with shutdowns and star absences. In the end, I missed two: “Mr. Saturday Night,” which received five nominations, and “The Little Prince,” which was ineligible and by all accounts unintelligible.The nominators presumably missed none, and of those 34 eligible productions, they honored a whopping 29. No musical, not even the dreadful “Diana, the Musical” was skunked, even if some awfully good plays, including “Pass Over” and “Is This a Room,” found themselves forgotten. Was that because they were among the first to step up in the wishfully post-Covid Broadway reopening that began in August? Having opened perhaps too early they definitely closed too quickly.Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker in the revival of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” which received a nomination for costume design.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut those shows are also more cutting edge than commercial awards typically know how to handle, using downtown theatrical formats to present difficult dramatic material. (“Pass Over” is a surrealist look at violence against young Black men; “Is This a Room,” a spoken transcript of an interrogation about government secrecy.) The nominations suggest a willingness to accept only one of those challenges — just as, at the other end of the spectrum, they seemed ready to welcome plays that are hackneyed in form or content but not both. The revival of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, received one nomination, for Jane Greenwood’s costume design.Still, poring over my personal Tonys spreadsheet, which I keep in a special air-locked safe with my original cast vinyl recordings and Playbills printed on papyrus, I am impressed with the nominators’ determination to spread the wealth.There are plenty of familiar names, of course, including the previous Tony winners Mary-Louise Parker, LaChanze, Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster, Phylicia Rashad and Patti LuPone — the last two superlative in supporting rather than leading roles.But there are plenty of breakthrough names as well. The contest for best performance by a leading actor in a musical is likely to pit Broadway newbies Myles Frost (the star of “MJ”) against Jaquel Spivey (the star of “A Strange Loop”) — never mind Jackman or Billy Crystal in the same category. The nominees Sharon D Clarke (“Caroline, or Change”) and Joaquina Kalukango (“Paradise Square”) are likewise the pair to beat for best performance by a leading actress in a musical — never mind Foster.That those four leading contenders are Black underscores that the Tonys, like the season itself, are making some progress in their push toward greater diversity. By my count, more than a third of the 136 total nominations honored shows and people you might not formerly have seen much of on the Great White Way — which I think we can finally stop calling by that name.Not that you “see” all of that diversity even now. We are also benefiting from diversity backstage, including many of the directors and designers and choreographers behind “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” “Paradise Square” and “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Inclusion is insufficient if it’s merely public facing.A lot of that new-to-Broadway talent arrived not individually but en masse, thanks to Black authors, directors and producers who made diverse hiring a priority. One result is that this was a season of ensembles, including the six “thoughts” featured in “A Strange Loop,” the seven abstract nouns portrayed by the cast of “Thoughts of a Colored Man” and the seven colors of “For Colored Girls.”When the group is the star: The women of “POTUS” include, from left, Vanessa Williams, Julianne Hough, Julie White, Suzy Nakamura, Lilli Cooper and Rachel Dratch.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn some of those shows, as well as in “Six,” “The Minutes,” “Clyde’s,” “Skeleton Crew” and “POTUS,” there are no leading roles at all; the group is the star. When that’s the case, it can seem perverse to single out just one performer from a carefully balanced company, though the nominators did just that with their nods to Kenita R. Miller in “For Colored Girls,” Rachel Dratch and Julie White in “POTUS,” and John-Andrew Morrison and L Morgan Lee in “A Strange Loop.”Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      ‘A Strange Loop’ Star L Morgan Lee on Her Trailblazing Tony Nomination

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      L Morgan Lee made theater history on Monday, becoming what production officials described as the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as a featured actress in “A Strange Loop.”Lee’s Tony nod was one of 11 for the musical, which opened April 26 and is a meta-work about a Black gay writer trying to make art while being distracted by his intrusive thoughts. Lee plays one of those thoughts — “Thought 1.”In a telephone interview on Monday hours after learning of her nomination, Lee, who made her Broadway debut in the musical, said she found her nomination “overwhelming.”“I know of many trans and nonbinary and gender-expansive people who are out here trying to be seen and trying to put stories out into the world,” she said. “Having this happen today helps more people know that it’s possible.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.This was your Broadway debut. Tell me about what it was like to see your name on the screen this morning with a Tony nomination.I’m still trying to wrap my head around the importance of a Black trans woman in a principal role on a Broadway stage, period. And the importance of that, especially in a time when so many of us are simply fighting for our basic well being. So to be able to be part of a story that is challenging the form in so many ways — challenging what people have known Broadway to be — it’s a gift.It is all bigger than me. I’m really excited about what will happen after these steps. I’m very excited about who is in the audience that will see this show or my performance or now this nomination and know that it is possible for them to pursue theater.What does it say to you that a show that describes itself as a “big, Black, and queer-ass Great American Musical” can be the big winner of this morning’s nominations?I would like to say that it means that there is hope. I’m careful with the word change, because in order for us to be in the type of world and space we want to be in, it’s not as much about change as much as it is about growth. You’re not going to suddenly get rid of all the people who don’t agree with you. But we do need to figure out how to make space so that all of our stories can actually be told.To that point, for anyone out there who says “Hey, this got 11 nominations — I’m interested — but I’m not sure this musical is for me,” what would you tell them?Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      ‘A Strange Loop’ Nominated for 11 Tonys as Broadway Lauds Comeback

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      “The Lehman Trilogy,” as well as revivals of “Company” and “For Colored Girls,” led in their respective categories as the industry tries to recover from the long pandemic shutdown.A musical about making art and a play about making money dominated the Tony Awards nominations Monday, as Broadway sought to celebrate its best work and revive its fortunes after the lengthy and damaging coronavirus shutdown.The race for best musical — traditionally the most financially beneficial prize — turned into an unexpectedly broad six-way contest because the nominators were so closely divided they had to expand the number of nominees.Out of the gate, the front-runner is “A Strange Loop,” a meta-musical in which a composer who is Black and gay battles demons and doubts while trying to write a show. Even before arriving on Broadway, the show, written by Michael R. Jackson, had won the Pulitzer Prize in drama after an Off Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons; it opened on Broadway late last month to some of the strongest reviews for any new musical this season, and on Monday it picked up 11 Tony nominations, the most for any show.“I feel really grateful, and I feel validated for putting in all the years and all the hours,” Jackson said after learning the news. “It feels amazing to know better things are possible.”“MJ,” a jukebox musical about Michael Jackson, was nominated for 10 Tonys. Myles Frost, center, was nominated for best actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesScoring the most nominations is not always predictive of winning the prize, and “A Strange Loop,” which is adventurous in form and content, will face tough competition from “MJ,” a biographical jukebox musical about Michael Jackson; “Six,” a fan favorite about the wives of Henry VIII; “Girl From the North Country,” which combines the songs of Bob Dylan with a fictional story about a boardinghouse in the Minnesota city where Dylan was born; “Mr. Saturday Night,” about a washed-up comedian hungering for a comeback; and “Paradise Square,” about a turning point in race relations in 19th-century New York.Both “Paradise Square,” which picked up 10 nominations, and “Girl From the North Country,” with seven, have struggled at the box office, and will now hope that their multiple Tony nominations will help reverse their financial fortunes. For “MJ,” its 10 nods are a form of vindication after several influential reviewers criticized the show for sidestepping sexual abuse allegations against the pop star.“The Lehman Trilogy,” which arrived on Broadway with an enormous — albeit pandemic-delayed — head of steam following rapturously reviewed productions in London and Off Broadway, picked up eight nominations to dominate the best play category. The play, which follows the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers, was written by Stefano Massini and Ben Power, and featured a dazzling production centered on a rotating glass box designed by Es Devlin. All three of its leads — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor.“The Lehman Trilogy” was nominated for 8 Tonys, including best play. All three of its leads — from left, Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor in a play.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Lehman Trilogy” vies with four other dramas for best play. Among them are two dark comedies — “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner who was also nominated for writing the book for “MJ,” and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, an acclaimed British-Irish playwright who has now been nominated five times but has yet to win. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about factory workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the unsettling secrets of a small-town governing body.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are an annual celebration for American theater, but they are particularly important now as a potential marketing tool for an industry that is still grossing less, and selling fewer tickets, than it was before the pandemic forced theaters to close for a year and a half. The awards are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.“This Tony Awards will mean so much more than honoring the performances and the artistic work that’s been done this season — it’s also celebrating the resilience of the community, and that this much work is being done and being seen,” said Rob McClure, an actor who scored a Tony nomination (his second) for his comedic and chameleonic performance in the title role of “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Billy Crystal was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance in “Mr. Saturday Night,” based on his 1992 film. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWell known performers scoring nominations included Uzo Aduba, Billy Crystal, Rachel Dratch, Hugh Jackman, Ruth Negga, Mary-Louise Parker, Patti LuPone, Phylicia Rashad and Sam Rockwell. But several other big stars now working on Broadway were overlooked by nominators, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Daniel Craig, as well as Beanie Feldstein, starring in “Funny Girl” but unable to escape the long shadow of Barbra Streisand.This season saw an unusually large number of works by Black writers, and that created more opportunity for Black performers, directors, and designers, some of whom were nominated for Tonys. Among them are two performers new to Broadway, Jaquel Spivey, the star of “A Strange Loop,” and Myles Frost, the star of “MJ,” now facing off against Crystal, Jackman and McClure in the leading actor in a musical category.“Black playwrights have had an amazing presence this season, and I hope that continues,” said Camille A. Brown, who scored two nominations Monday, for directing and choreographing the revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf.” Reflecting on her own show, she said, “Having seven Black women on a Broadway stage has a lot of meaning, and speaks to the importance of sisterhood and love and Black women holding space for one another.”“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” was nominated for seven Tonys, including for best revival of a play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe seven Tony nominations for “For Colored Girls” are a bittersweet triumph for a production that has been languishing at the box office and had already announced an early closing date. The revival picked up more nominations than any other show in the race for best play revival, a strong category in which many eligible shows won positive reviews.It will now face off against four others: “American Buffalo,” David Mamet’s drama about a trio of scheming junk-shop denizens and “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s look at homophobia in baseball, as well as two plays that had never previously made it to Broadway despite being considered important parts of the playwriting canon, “Trouble in Mind,” Alice Childress’s look at racism in theater; and “How I Learned to Drive,” Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-winning drama about child sexual abuse.The competition for best musical revival is small, but strong. There were four eligible shows, and only three scored nods: “Company,” “Caroline, or Change,” and “The Music Man.” Excluded was the revival of “Funny Girl” which fared poorly with critics, but has been doing fine at the box office.“Company,” the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, was nominated for 9 Tony awards, including best revival of a musical. Patti LuPone, a nominee at left, performed with Katrina Lenk. Matthew Murphy/O & M Co./DKC, via Associated PressThe nine nods for “Company” pack an especially emotional punch because its composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, died soon after attending the first post-shutdown preview. “The longer he’s not with us, the more I miss him,” said LuPone, who picked up her eighth Tony nomination — she’s won twice — for her work in the production.The nominations were chosen by a group of 29 people, most of whom work in the theater industry but are not financially connected to any of the eligible productions, who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. There were 34 eligible shows, 29 of which scored nominations; the five left out were all new plays.Up next: a group of 650 voters, including producers and performers and many others with an interest in the nominated productions, have until June 10 to vote for their favorites, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 12. The ceremony, at Radio City Music Hall, is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; the first hour will be streamed on Paramount+, followed by three hours broadcast by CBS.Broadway’s grosses are down in part because tourism remains down in New York City, and in part because of ongoing concerns about the coronavirus. Many of the nominees interviewed Monday said they hoped the spotlight of the Tony Awards would lure more patrons back to Broadway.“Anyone that’s doing theater right now has been hit really hard by the pandemic,” said Marianne Elliott, a two-time Tony-winning director who scored another nomination for “Company.” “It’s gratifying to see that Broadway is coming back. To have the Tony nominations for all of these shows is just a celebration of what we do, and it’s lovely to be here.” More

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      Paula Vogel on ‘How I Learned to Drive’ Tony Nominations: ‘I’m Just Thrilled’

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      The playwright Paula Vogel was first nominated for a Tony in 2017, for “Indecent.” Now she has a second Tony nomination for “How I Learned to Drive,” which she wrote in two weeks, 25 years ago. A play about abuse, love and survival, it interrogates the relationship between Uncle Peck and his underage niece, Li’l Bit.The actors who created the roles Off Broadway, Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, have returned for the play’s Broadway debut, as has its director, Mark Brokaw. Both actors have been nominated, too. Speaking from her home in Wellfleet, Mass., Vogel said she planned to spend the day “doing all of my chores, so I can get on a train and come down to New York tomorrow, which will be exciting.” Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.So how does it feel?It’s more fun and lovely the second time around. This one feels like just a joint celebration with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse and Mark Brokaw. I mean, we all came back 25 years later. So this is a real phenomenon to me. And I’m thrilled. I’m just thrilled.Why do you think it took this long for the show to come to Broadway?I mean, it’s interesting. Mary-Louise Parker was talking about The Village Voice. The cover was a photograph of that original production. And the headline said, “Too Tough for Uptown.” I remember seeing that and thinking, “That can’t be true.” We do tough things all the time on Broadway. I have to say that this season has made me so happy, with “Pass Over,” with “For Colored Girls.” It’s odd. I actually feel as if I’m home this season in a way that I never have before. I’m starting to accept that it took that much time for the play.And then of course the pandemic meant a further delay.I’m obstinate and stubborn. I held on. These actors have held on, Mark held on, we’ve all held on. We didn’t stop working even during the two years of Covid. We thought about it every day. We communicated our desire to each other every week. So it’s a miracle: that the entire community got through the two years and we’re back, that after 25 years this has transferred to Broadway.You wrote this play as a younger woman and at a time in which our culture was having fewer conversations about abuse. Would you write it the same way now?The difference between now and then is that I’ve grown comfortable with being a survivor. The play has been a gift to me in that it gets lighter every year. It gets farther away, that shore of adolescence and pain. It retreats in a certain way. Would I write it differently? I don’t think I would. There are certain plays in my life that have come out in two weeks. This is one of them. I sat down and didn’t stop. It was just straight from my heart. I don’t think those plays you rewrite.What is it like to watch the same extraordinary actors do the same roles 25 years later?The layers are incredible. You feel these actors processing every moment of their experience. And it makes it deeper and richer. I don’t have words to express how grateful I am to Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse. More

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      Tony Nomination Snubs and Surprises: Daniel Craig, ‘Funny Girl’ and ‘Paradise Square’

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      Tony nominations morning is always filled with joy for lots of performers, theater artists and producers who find themselves in contention for Broadway’s biggest recognition. But there are also always some who are overlooked, and others who are just gobsmacked.Here are some of the snubs, surprises and observations about Monday’s list:The nominators spread out their admiration quite widely: Of the 34 eligible shows, 29 got at least one nod, including the critically scorned “Diana.” But five new plays were completely overlooked. Most surprising: “Pass Over,” the well-reviewed and bracing drama by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, and also the first play to open after the pandemic lockdown. Also scoring no nominations: “Birthday Candles,” by Noah Haidle; “Chicken & Biscuits,” by Douglas Lyons; “Is This a Room,” by Tina Satter; and “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” by Keenan Scott II.The Civil War-era musical “Paradise Square” has had an especially tortuous road to Broadway, and so far ticket sales have been quite weak. But the show’s fortunes on Monday had to offer comfort and hope: It snagged an impressive 10 nominations, tying for the second most of any show. Joaquina Kalukango was always a sure thing in the lead actress in a musical category, but nominators also singled out two of her supporting co-stars, Sidney DuPont and A.J. Shively. The show drew attention in most of the major technical categories as well, including for Bill T. Jones’s choreography, but one key member of the creative team was left out: the director, Moisés Kaufman.Several major stars who are drawing big crowds to their shows failed to impress. Among them: the married couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, who are starring in a smash revival of “Plaza Suite” that scored just one nomination, for costume design, and Daniel Craig, who is playing the title role in a revival of “Macbeth.” (His co-star, Ruth Negga, did get nominated, and the production was also nominated for lighting and sound design.)Tony nominators followed the critics, raining on the parade for the highly anticipated revival of “Funny Girl.” While it was the beloved musical’s first time back on Broadway in nearly 60 years, it scored only one nomination, for the tap-dancing supporting actor Jared Grimes. And Beanie Feldstein, who drew tepid notices filling Barbra Streisand’s shoes as Fanny Brice, did not receive a best actress nomination.How to handle the many ensemble-driven shows was always going to be a challenge for the nominators. In the case of “The Lehman Trilogy,” they bestowed riches on everyone, nominating all three lead actors — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — and expanding the category to make room for them all. For the musical “Six,” on the other hand, a cast twice the size proved hard to rank, and none of the actresses playing the six wives of Henry VIII were crowned.That Jesse Tyler Ferguson would be nominated for his role in “Take Me Out” seemed a sure bet. And the suave star power of Jesse Williams, as the baseball demigod Darren Lemming, vaulted him to a nomination as well. But the big surprise was a third nod in the supporting actor category for the far less well-known Michael Oberholtzer, whose wounded ferocity as a racist teammate put him in (friendly?) competition with his co-stars.Another show also struggling at the box office — a revival of the choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf” — also did quite well on Monday. The production had announced an early closing date of May 22, and must now decide whether its seven nominations, plus a social-media-fueled pay-it-forward campaign to get tickets into the hands of those who might not otherwise be able to afford them, are enough to extend the run. More

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      The coronavirus posed a special challenge to the Tony nominators.

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      The pandemic has made this comeback theater season an unusually rocky one. After a joyous reopening following the long, painful shutdown, the Omicron surge led to a ton of holiday closings, and another spike in positive cases this spring led to a rolling wave of performer absences and occasional show cancellations.That disruption was upsetting for artists and fans, and damaging for producers and investors.It also posed an unprecedented complication for Tony nominators, who are not only required to see every eligible production, but also to see the performances of all Tony-eligible actors.That’s always hard — most of the nominators have day jobs, and some of them live outside New York, and many shows have limited runs. But this season, two factors made it even harder: a higher-than-normal number of shows opened in April, just before the deadline to be eligible for a Tony, and the spike in spring cases meant that key actors often missed performances. (Among the possible nominees who tested positive for the coronavirus near the season’s end: Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Ramin Karimloo. Plus: Billy Crystal canceled two performances of “Mr. Saturday Night,” citing the flu.)For nominators, that made the ordinary complexity of end-of-season scheduling far trickier — so difficult, in fact, that the Tony administrators wound up delaying the nominations by six days to give the nominators more time to see shows.Even so, the number of nominators who managed to get to the finish line is low. There are usually about 50 nominators per season, some of whom wind up recusing themselves when a conflict of interest develops; this season there were just 29 who were able to participate in the voting. More

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      The Tony nominations are being announced right now.

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      As the theater industry continues its attempt to rebound after its lengthy pandemic shutdown, the industry this morning began its effort to celebrate the best work on Broadway by announcing a new set of Tony nominees.The first nods, to designers, are being followed by nominations for performers and shows.The nominations are being announced, on YouTube, by the actors Adrienne Warren and Joshua Henry.We have an updating list of all the nominees here.There are 34 eligible shows, all but one of which opened after theaters reopened. (The exception: “Girl From the North Country,” a musical that opened just before the shutdown.)The shows were all hoping to win nods in some of this year’s 26 competitive categories. Producers hope that nominations will lead not only to awards, but also to a bump in the box office, which has not recovered to prepandemic levels. And for artists, a nomination or a win can lead to more job opportunities and higher salaries.The nominees were chosen by a group of 29 nominators who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. Next, the 650 Tony voters have until June 10 to cast their ballots, and the Tony Awards will be announced on June 12. More

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      The Tony nominations are being announced this morning. Here’s how to watch.

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      This year’s Tony Awards nominations, honoring work on Broadway as the industry tries to bounce back after the long coronavirus shutdown, are being announced at 9 a.m. Eastern today.The nominations will be announced by the actors Adrienne Warren (she won a Tony Award for portraying Tina Turner in “Tina”) and Joshua Henry (he’s a three-time Tony nominee, most recently for “Carousel”).We’ll have news and reaction throughout the day, and you can stream the announcement here.The Tony Awards, formally known as the Antoinette Perry Awards, honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway. They are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.The nominations were determined by a committee of 29 people who saw all of the eligible shows and then voted on Friday by secret ballot. The nominators are not allowed to have a financial interest in any of the eligible shows.This is the first Tony Awards for which shows that opened after the start of the coronavirus pandemic will be considered — all but one of the eligible shows opened after theaters reopened following the lengthy pandemic shutdown. (The exception — “Girl From the North Country” — actually opened in 2020, but theaters shut down so soon afterward that not enough Tony voters were able to see it for it to be considered during last year’s awards ceremony.)This year there are 34 shows vying for awards in 26 categories; to be eligible, the shows had to have opened between Feb. 20, 2020, and May 4, 2022. (Last year, there was a delayed Tony Awards ceremony honoring shows that opened during the abbreviated 2019-2020 theater season.)This year’s awards ceremony will take place on June 12 at Radio City Music Hall; a three-hour performance-heavy segment will be broadcast on television by CBS, preceded by a one-hour awards-focused segment streamed on Paramount+. The ceremony will be hosted by Ariana DeBose, who earlier this year won an Academy Award for “West Side Story.” More