Every year, I frequently tell people in my office or my
friends that seeing all of the films doesn’t help you with predicting the Oscar
winners. Admittedly, it’s a slight
coup for the nominations (you can know to look for the Jacki Weavers and Alan
Aldas), but the winners is all about the buzz. Seeing the films, while fun for obvious other reasons, gets
in the way and distracts you. You
think “how could anyone possibly like The
King’s Speech more than The Social
Network” and you don’t pay attention to the writing on the wall. At least that’s how I feel.
And I’m hoping I am right, because for the first time in
four years, I haven’t seen any of the Tony nominees. A lack of funds (oh magic genie, please let a winning
lottery ticket and Russell Tovey in a speedo be awaiting me when I get home
tonight) has meant that I haven’t been to my beloved New York City, and so I am
therefore predicting the Tony Awards completely blind. We’ll see just what happens on Sunday
night on CBS. Meanwhile, here's where I think we’re headed…
Best Play
Act One
All the Way
Casa Valentina
Mothers and Sons
Outside Mullinger
It’s difficult to imagine a more “serious” drama than All the Way, the three-hour long LBJ
biopic that is the talk of Broadway these days. Terrence McNally and Harvey Fierstein are hardly gadflies
when it comes to the Tony Awards, but they will have to settle for being
nominees this time around.
Best Musical
After Midnight
Aladdin
Beautiful-The Carole
King Musical
A Gentleman’s Guide to
Love and Murder
A lot of talk this year has centered around how this is a
race without a frontrunner, but with ten nominations and almost everyone
claiming it will be victorious, Gentlemen’s
Guide sure feels like a frontrunner.
I’d be truly surprised if even the oddly well-reviewed (for a jukebox
musical) Beautiful stood a chance.
Best Revival of a
Play
 |
| Mark Rylance in Twelfth Night |
The Cripple of
Inishman
The Glass Menagerie
A Raisin in the Sun
Twelfth Night
Unlike Best Musical, I genuinely think this is a barnburner,
with Twelfth Night and The Glass Menagerie battling it out for
the win. I know that a lot of
people are going with Menagerie,
which probably was slightly better-reviewed, but after what happened to Follies a few years back I’m not going
with a show that is closed for such a high profile trophy. Twelfth
Night wins in a squeaker.
Best Revival of a
Musical
Hedwig and the Angry
Inch
Les Miserables
Violet
Whither poor Cabaret,
the only eligible contender not to get nominated here. And whither anyone who isn’t Hedwig, which is one of the surest wins
of the night even as Violet enjoys
strong reviews.
Best Actor in a Play
 |
| Bryan Cranston |
Samuel Barnett, Twelfth
Night
Bryan Cranston, All
the Way
Chris O’Dowd, Of Mice
and Men
Mark Rylance, Richard
III
Tony Shalhoub, Act One
Remember those old Almond Joy/Mounds commercials? Where they said “sometimes you feel
like a nut, sometimes you don’t?”
That’s the Tony Awards with movie stars-sometimes they love them
(remember the year ScarJo and Catherine Zeta-Jones both won?) and sometimes
they don’t (Tom Hanks missing last year).
This year feels like a movie star one, and so I do feel that Bryan
Cranston will add a Tony to go with all of those Emmy Awards in his portrayal
of LBJ (anyone want to bet when the Oscar happens-I’m guessing 2016 for some
reason?).
Best Actress in a
Play
 |
| Audra McDonald |
Tyne Daly, Mothers and
Sons
Cherry Jones, The
Glass Menagerie
Audra McDonald, Lady
Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill
Estelle Parsons, The
Velocity of Autumn
LaTanya Richardson-Jackson, A Raisin in the Sun
If Diahann Carroll had stayed in A Raisin in the Sun, she would have won. If Estelle Parsons had had a bigger hit, sentiment might
have finally gotten her that Tony.
If Cherry Jones had had a spring rather than a fall production, this
could be hers. But none of those
things happened, and as a result Audra McDonald is going to make history, by
not only being the first woman to win all four Tony acting categories, but also
by becoming the first performer to win six Tony Awards.
Best Actor in a
Musical
Neil Patrick Harris, Hedwig
and the Angry Inch
Ramin Karimloo, Les
Miserables
Andy Karl, Rocky
Jefferson Mays, A
Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Bryce Pinkham, A
Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Every year, there’s at least one total blowout at the Tony
Awards. Due just as much to his
performance as to his years of service to Broadway and the Tony Awards
specifically, Neil Patrick Harris will win his Tony Award with likely 70-80% of
the vote. No one else will even
come close.
Best Actress in a
Musical
 |
| Jessie Mueller |
Mary Bridget Davies, A
Night with Janis Joplin
Sutton Foster, Violet
Idina Menzel, If/Then
Jessie Mueller, Beautiful
Kelli O’Hara, The
Bridges of Madison County
I am still perplexed as to how Marin Mazzie didn’t factor
and instead Mary Bridget Davies is a nominee here. That said, this is a battle royale between Kelli O’Hara and
Jessie Mueller (random fact-both of them starred in the same role in Nice Work If You Can Get It). Had O’Hara kept her musical open
through the run or gotten it a Best Musical nomination, I think she’d be taking
her long-coming Tony Award (she’s also getting to that age where you need to be
Patti LuPone to keep getting lead work on Braodway, so she better win quick). However, I think she’s about to get the short end of the straw
again, with Mueller (one of the new darlings of the Great White Way) taking the
trophy in a nailbiter.
Best Featured Actor
in a Play
Reed Birney, Casa
Valentina
Paul Chahidi, Twelfth
Night
Stephen Fry, Twelfth
Night
Mark Rylance, Twelfth
Night
Brian J. Smith, The
Glass Menagerie
Mark Rylance is an acting god. And he is perhaps the greatest Shakespearean actor of his
generation. It seems fitting that
if any member of the cast of Twelfth
Night pulls off a trophy, it should be the man that’s getting you to buy
the ticket (who is a dual nominee to boot!). I volunteer to console Brian J. Smith after his loss.
Best Featured Actress
in a Play
 |
| Celia Keenan-Bolger |
Sarah Greene, The
Cripple of Inishman
Celia Keenan-Bolger, The
Glass Menagerie
Sophie Okonedo, A
Raisin in the Sun
Anika Noni Rose, A
Raisin in the Sun
Mare Winningham, Casa
Valentina
It’s a risky game to go with a play that closed, but Celia
Keenan-Bolger, always a bridesmaid with the Tony Awards, seems like she’s about
to do something that Kelli O’Hara and Estelle Parsons can’t this year:
win. If there’s a surprise, expect
it to be one of the Oscar nominees, probably Winningham.
Best Featured Actor
in a Musical
Danny Burstein, Cabaret
Nick Cordero, Bullets
Over Broadway
Joshua Henry, Violet
James Monroe Iglehart, Aladdin
Jarrod Spector, Beautiful
If the Tony Awards want to reward the show most likely to
tour this year, they’d have no better option than Iglehart, who plays the Genie
in the Disney show (that did, it should be noted, get a Best Musical
nomination). If Iglehart falters,
it’ll probably be theater vet Danny Burstein who benefits (Burstein has never
won a Tony Award despite five nominations, a fact not lost on most of the
people voting).
Best Featured Actress
in a Musical
Linda Emond, Cabaret
Lena Hall, Hedwig and
the Angry Inch
Anika Larsen, Beautiful
Adriane Lenox, After
Midnight
Lauren Worsham, A
Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Like all of the female acting races, this is between the
long-nominated, never winning veteran (in this case, Emond) and Lena Hall (a
longtime ensemble player who got into the spotlight). Sentiment wants
me to go with Emond, who is in a part that is much bigger in the stage musical
than in the Liza Minnelli movie that we’re all familiar with, but my gut is
telling me to go with the newcomer in a category that’s built for them. Hall by a nose.
And there you have the nominees-what are your thoughts? Who are you hoping for on Sunday? And if you’ve seen them, which do you
like the best (and if you haven’t, which would you most like to see)? Share in the comments!
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