Tony Awards nominee class boasts a huge selection of worthy contenders

Will Nicole Scherzinger, sizzling in “Sunset Blvd.,” beat out Audra McDonald, who made Rose a metaphor for the tragic human condition in “Gypsy?”

Could Jonathan Groff, a knockout Bobby Darin, win back-to-back kudos?

These and many other questions will be answered June 8 at Radio City Music Hall, where host Cynthia Erivo will present the 78th annual Tony Awards. The televised ceremony is the climax of the 2024-25 season and the reason that several struggling musicals (“Real Women Have Curves,” “BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical“) are hanging in there, hoping for a life-saving boost from the CBS audience.

Tony voters are casting their ballots as we speak. So let’s give ’em all a push in the right direction:

Matthey Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen in “Maybe Happy Ending.” (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Best New Musical

This one will, and rightly should be, a runaway victory for “Maybe Happy Ending,” a delightfully unnerving musical that most everyone on Broadway underestimated because it was an original love story between two retired South Korean “Helperbots.” (I mean, easy to do). To my mind, Will Aronson and Hue Park’s quirky, charming little tuner succeeds mostly because of one small but pivotal idea: the notion that a robot’s battery life can be a proxy for human mortality.

Oliver and Claire fall in love as their percentages drop, permanently. Thus the show managed simultaneously to tap into the fear we all have of the imminent robotic takeover (Oh, it’s coming) while also avoiding the problem of making a dystopian musical, upon which no-one wants to spend $250 a ticket.

Instead, by making the robots as vulnerable as us, they forged a charming romantic comedy performed by Helen J. Shen (who was robbed of an acting nomination) and Darren Criss (who dove deep into robot-land). Hallmarkian sentiment was avoided. Long may “Maybe Happy Ending” stay charged.

"Buena Vista Social Club" on Broadway. — Matthew Murphy

“Buena Vista Social Club” on Broadway. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)

The competition? Nothing credible. “Buena Vista Social Club” is a very good time, musically speaking, but has a predictably formulaic book. The inventive “Death Becomes Her” works just fine as a campy frolic but it relies much on its source movie. And “Operation Mincemeat” is the most jolly of pistaches, rib-tickling fun all the way. Only “Dead Outlaw” represents truly credible competition and deserves to syphon off some votes. But at the end of the day, it’s a musical about a corpse. “Maybe Happy Ending” hits the living moment.

Should/will win: “Maybe Happy Ending.”

From left: LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Glenn Davis, Kara Young, and Jon Michael Hill in "Purpose." — Marc J. Franklin

From left: LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Glenn Davis, Kara Young, and Jon Michael Hill in “Purpose.” (Marc J. Franklin)

Best New Play

There were two excellent, Tony-worthy new plays in this Broadway season: Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California,” a British pseudo-“Gypsy” set in the working-class resort of Blackpool, and Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Purpose,” both a high-style dissection of the dysfunctional family of a civil rights icon and a moving exploration of what it’s like to be an introverted kid in a high-pressure family.

“Purpose,” which is both still running and more relevant to most Tony voters, is likely to win. Butterworth’s play, though, forged a complex dramaturgical structure and the exploration of deeply empathetic characters. May young writers pay attention. Its central point? To explore how and why childhood trauma impacts our adulthoods.

Butterworth has been writing plays a lot longer than Jacob-Jenkins and his experience shows; I never wanted the perfectly crafted “Hills” to end. On the other hand, there was a raw audacity to “Purpose,” a play that no other writer in the world would have had the guts or the leave to write. It was less polished but seemed more felt.

"John Proctor is the Villain" on Broadway. — Julieta Cervantes

“John Proctor is the Villain” on Broadway. (Julieta Cervantes)

Kimberly Belflower’s very lively “John Proctor is the Villain” might sneak in there but I think that audiences at this drama about high-schoolers studying “The Crucible” are responding more to a brilliant production than to the play itself, which is at the end of the day a melodrama that relies on someone else’s intellectual property. No shame there, but not the equal of the competition and, with much respect, nor is the very smart and potent “English,” a show about ESL students that also leads to an inexorable conclusion matching the playwright’s point of view. In the best two plays of the season, you feel like it’s the characters who are taking you where they need to go, not the writer.

Should win: “The Hills of California” or “Purpose.” Will win: “Purpose.”

Audra McDonald in "Gypsy." — Julieta Cervantes

Audra McDonald in “Gypsy.” (Julieta Cervantes)

Best Revival of a Musical

This category will hinge on how many voters embrace Jamie Lloyd’s cleverly branded deconstruction over George C. Wolfe’s more nuanced approach to “Gypsy.” In many ways, the two leading candidates represent a kind of yin and yang of musical revival.

Lloyd’s “Sunset Blvd.” is showy and radical and replaced the gilded excess of the original production with an excess of concept, deceptively minimalist but only on the surface. Wolfe’s “Gypsy” aimed to excise the show from Patti LuPone-like drama. McDonald, who brought her classically trained voice to Rose, saw her antiheroine more as an everywoman and the production responded accordingly, as if Wolfe were trying to say that “Gypsy” was the American tragic musical that few previously understood.

I see the arguments against “Sunset Blvd.” and for “Gypsy,” but in the end, Lloyd’s staging was just so audaciously thrilling that it overcame them for me. As a director, he’s obsessed with film but then this is a musical about a movie star, so if ever there was a show that could stand such a metaphoric obsession, then here it was. And, although this may seem counterintuitive, I thought “Gypsy” missed the chance to stage this title with far more Black actors, allowing it to serve as a metaphor for the condition of Black entertainers in early 20th century America. It almost went there, but not quite.

Should win: “Sunset Blvd.” Will win: “Gypsy.”

Francis Jue, Marinda Anderson, Kevin Del Aguila, Daniel Dae Kim, Ryan Eggold and Shannon Tyo in "Yellow Face" on Broadway. — Joan Marcus

Francis Jue, Marinda Anderson, Kevin Del Aguila, Daniel Dae Kim, Ryan Eggold and Shannon Tyo in “Yellow Face” on Broadway. (Joan Marcus)

Best Revival of a Play

This was not a stellar season for play revivals. “Romeo + Juliet,” a pretentious and wildly uneven misfire, did not even remotely deserve its Tony nomination and, bracing moments notwithstanding, “Our Town” was uneven and derivative of David Cromer’s prior revival. “Eureka Day,” a piece about pretentious pre-school parents and teachers, was an effective satire but hardly surprising.

That leaves David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face,” an autobiographical piece about both Hwang himself and the racialized “Miss Saigon” casting scandal. “Yellow Face” has knocked around the American regions for years. But this was a truly excellent piece of new direction from Leigh Silverman and thus, for the first time, the play transcended its inside-baseball orientation and had much to say about America and race.

Should/will win: “Yellow Face.”

Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond in 'Sunset Blvd' on Broadway. — Marc Brenner

Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond in “Sunset Blvd.” on Broadway. (Marc Brenner)

Best Actress in a Musical

Team Nicole or Team Audra?

Both women were atop revivals (“Gypsy and “Sunset Blvd.”) and both deconstructed iconic characters (Norma Desmond and Madam Rose) using every ounce of their mutually formidable craft. With all due respect to McDonald, I’m Team Nicole (a) because her work was the more radical of the two performances in rescuing Norma from bathetic senility and giving her back her sexuality, and (b) because McDonald’s tragic approach to Rose inevitably deemphasized her chutzpah and self-aware vivacity, which is much of why “Gypsy” is “Gypsy.” Still, no shame in being on the other team.

It would feel strange for either Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard to win for “Death Becomes Her‘ at the expense of the other and I suspect Tony voters will feel the same way. But let’s add some props for Jasmine Amy Rogers, truly a perfect Betty Boop who managed to turn a vampish cartoon figure into a complex and vulnerable heroine. It’s hard to imagine she will better the two divas with whom she shares a Tony category but one day soon, she will.

Should/will win: Nicole Scherzinger.

Jonathan Groff in "Just in Time." — Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Jonathan Groff in “Just in Time.” (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Best actor in a musical

If you judge a performance by pizzazz, charm and growing star power, Jonathan Groff is your winner for his dazzling take on Bobby Darin in “Just in Time.” If immersion inside a character is your choice, you are choosing between Darren Criss for “Maybe Happy Ending” and Andrew Durand in “Dead Outlaw.”

I thought Durand was just astonishing as the titular outlaw whose corpse takes on an all-American trajectory of its own. Aside from the technical demands of playing a dead dude, Durand also nailed a guy with zero access to his own feelings. In other words, what he didn’t do was probably as important as what he did. I preferred that to Jeremy Jordan in “Floyd Collins” but I may be in a minority. And Tom Francis, who sings his way through Midtown eight times a week, will have deserved support.

Will win: Jeremy Jordan. Should win: Jonathan Groff

Sarah Snook in "The Picture of Dorian Gray." — Marc Brenner

Sarah Snook in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” (Marc Brenner)

Best Leading Actress in a Play

Mia Farrow has acted only rarely in the past decade but her empathetic performance as a vegan, pot-growing Iowan in “The Roommate” was a reminder of her astonishing ability to fuse what actors think of as externals and internals: Her work felt deeply authentic but savvy observers also noted the sophistication of her comic technique and dramatic timing. Both weird and Tony-worthy, all the way.

Alas for Farrow, this is an extraordinary category and by far the most competitive at this year’s Tony Awards. Take for example Sarah Snook, whose work in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a solo tour-de-force, came replete with not a single syllable out of place on the night I saw the show, notwithstanding the huge technical demands of a video-fueled production that made her a co-star with numerous versions of her recorded self. That was Tony-worthy, too. She’s one of the world’s great performers.

(Left to right) Helena Wilson as Jill, Laura Donnelly as Joan, and Ophelia Lovibond as Ruby in "The Hills of California." — Joan Marcus

(From left) Helena Wilson, Laura Donnelly and Ophelia Lovibond in “The Hills of California.” (Joan Marcus)

And then there was the less-famous Laura Donnelly, who played both a mother and (later) her adult daughter in “The Hills of California,” all in service of the writer’s point that we all eventually have to live the way we were raised. So distinct were these two characters that some punters in my row clearly did not know they were watching the same actress they’d seen in a different role just a few minutes before. Donnelly was at once empathetic and Medea-like in her intensity. In this play, we were supposed to be scared of both of Donnelly’s characters and I swear I could not tell you which terrified me the most. A stunning piece of work.

Sadie Sink has a lot of fans and that was indeed a savvy turn in “John Proctor.” But this competition is between Snook and Donnelly and it was a hard choice for me. Donnelly haunts me the most.

Should win: Laura Donnelly. Will win: Sarah Snook.

Cole Escola in "Oh, Mary!" — Emilio Madrid

Cole Escola in “Oh, Mary!” (Photo by Emilio Madrid)

Best Leading Actor in a Play

George Clooney is on the list of nominees and I hardly need to recount his formidable talents here, but he was fundamentally filmic in “Good Night, and Good Luck” rather than truly translating his subtle version of Edward R. Murrow to a stage the size of the Winter Garden Theatre.

So, with an additional nod of admiration to the delightfully quirky Louis McCartney, who managed to survive all of the crashes and bangs of “Stranger Things,” I preferred Jon Michael Hill, playing a young man born into a famous and famously dysfunctional Black political family even though he just wanted to take photographs and stay as far away as possible from his father and his actions. Hill was understated but also the most rooted actor in this stellar Steppenwolf Theatre production.

But I suspect Cole Escola, the star of “Oh, Mary!,” a silly but strikingly effective satire of Mary Todd Lincoln and her bearded spouse, will take the prize. No complaints here. Escola hardly was subtle but he has introduced Charles Ludlam-esque camp to a whole new generation with a guileless, all-in performance that has been packing the house. It’s a one-of-a-kind show and that’s been its greatest selling point. But Cole also offers a clever commentary on present-day America, fueled by fun, freedom and frustration.

Will/should win: Cole Escola.

Best Direction of a Musical

David Cromer’s work on “Dead Outlaw” was typically detailed and worthy, and Christopher Gattelli wrangled “Death Becomes Her” with witty aplomb but “Maybe Happy Ending” was an eye-popping career high for Michael Arden, who created the most romantic of dreamscapes and yet also insisted that the audience look precisely and only where the director wanted their eyes to be.

Will/should win: Michael Arden.

Best Direction of a Play

Speaking of career highs, Danya Taymor convinced her youthful cast in “John Proctor was a Villain” that the stakes in this high-school English class were a matter of life and death. And then some.

Taymor has to compete with Kip Williams, who employed multiple screens and videographers for what was more conceptual authorship than direction, and Sam Mendes, whose mastery of the exquisite ensemble cast of “The Hills of California” was formidable. Mendes has won many kudos; most Tony voters will want to reward Taymor, a rising talent. Fair enough.

Will win: Danya Taymor. Should win: Sam Mendes.

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