Yes it’s that time of year again, when Broadway shells out big bucks to congratulate itself on national TV regardless of its offerings for another year. Two years ago we had the infamous Hamil-tonys, which boiled down to a three hour commercial for one show (“Hamilton…Hamilton…some other guy from Hamilton…Hamilton….”) that, thanks to a whole new generation of theatre geeks, didn’t need it. Last year we had theatrical Mecca–a near unprecedented thirteen new diverse and high-quality musicals with more to offer than any other year in recent history, any of which could have been nominated in another season, and most of which could have won any other season–with two I can contest would have toppled even the “untouchable” Hamilton. Yeah, we’re still a little bitter about that three-hour waste of prime TV time.
This year is kind of a hybrid. Significantly less in numbers, no cultural phenomena, and the quality—I’ll leave that up to the individual to decide, but will maintain that it’s higher than it appears on the surface. Thanks again to lotteries and rush, it’s been easier to evaluate the current season at unprecedented prices (well, unprecedented since 1985…..). But if critics can dictate, there is a high risk of another unearned runaway award train. Here’s a quick run down of the big players:
1) THE DARLING: The Band’s Visit: The show that few have seen but the critics adore. So much so that when it was announced last season it would transfer from off-Broadway to on, in the midst of the post-Evan Hansen whirl, every critic preordained it to be this season’s winner before anything else had even opened. They have done everything to see that happen in the meantime. Justified or to save face? Debatable. Based on a 2007 award winning Israeli movie, it’s the story of an Egyptian band that arrives in the wrong town for a performance, and lives are changed by the acquaintances. It’s Come From Away halfway around the globe in the Middle East.
2) THE PHENOMEN: Mean Girls: Tina Fey opens up the book of her perfect movie for stage. Easily the best and most honest high school movie ever made, all the expected iconic elements are there, down to the special “On Wednesdays We Wear Pink” lottery for matinees. A home schooled teen, raised by her anthropologist parents in Africa, is unprepared for the jungle known as American High School, complete with the standard hierarchy at the top of which reigns Queen B* Regina George (Taylor Louderman tearing down the house in a no holds barred performance). Love the movie (and you should!), you’ll love the musical. Fey’s husband did the music. It’s the only best musical nominee doing serious box office, which should say it’s doing something very right.
3) THE SURPRISE: Spongebob Squarepants: Check your smirks at the door. The rest of us did. What sounded like either a bad joke or a great Saturday Night Live skit turned out to be the surprise feel-good show of the season. Totally the brainchild of innovative director Tina Landau, the show not only has land legs, but a brain, heart, and spirit too. The show that never should have been has turned some serious heads, especially due to Landau and unknown Ethan Slater as the simple minded, big hearted titular Bikini Bottom denizen.
4) THE FOURTH ONE: Frozen: Do we even need to do this? Disney, Elsa, “Let It Go”. Let’s just say based on all reviews and voters, it has the chances of one of Elsa’s ice bolts in hell. Suffice it to say the spectacle only received three nominations, and only when they needed a candidate to round out the category.
5) Only three revivals, Jessie Mueller in Carousel, Bartlet Sher’s latest revival project My Fair Lady, and Deaf West’s Michael Arden with a truly revisionist Once On This Island.
BEST MUSICAL
SHOULD WIN: Mean Girls; WILL WIN: The Band’s Visit
Let’s start this discussion on what the title Best Musical actually awards. The easy answer that most simplistic (and questionably qualified) voters follow is the formula Best Book + Best Score = Best Musical. But I maintain that Best Musical is the best overall production on Broadway, a sum of all the categories below. Or, in similar less linear mathematical terms, the sum of Book + Score + Design + Choreography + Performances to the power of the star quality, multiplied by Direction (and sadly) divided by the sum of Politics and Individual Voter Agendas.
Again, this one was WAY prematurely preordained by the critics before the season started, so there’s that (Politics). But despite being spoon-fed the news by the press, there are many other political factors that go into votes that the public doesn’t understand. Like the majority of the Tony voters are not New York insiders, but regional owners across the countries, so what is in their best interest? To truly proclaim the best of what is in New York, or anoint what will best sell their following season out of town (who do you think was behind Avenue Q upsetting behemoth Wicked?). Mean Girls has already proven it can sell out in town and on the road, and Spongebob and Frozen are fueled primarily by tourists as is, so they’re a lock also. But who in Omaha is going to pay to see something called The Band’s Visit from a movie they never heard of unless it has a “2018 Tony Award Best Musical” above its title? (Individual Agendas). It also panders to the predominantly older Jewish voters. And I’m taking nothing away from the artistry of the show. It’s intimate and heartwarming. But as a director, finding the heart in a show is what I expect of the lamest community director. To pull off a big, splashy mega musical with massive tech, big production numbers, and star performances is significantly more difficult. Mean Girls does all that and succeeds in every way. But Tony will pull the “we hate movies when it’s convenient” prejudice and take the safe route they were instructed to take last season.
GOT ROBBED: Escape From Margaritaville. Please tell me you know I’m just kidding….
POTENTIAL SPOILER: A year ago I’d have laughed if you told me I’d say this, but Spongebob Squarepants is a delightful director’s dream of creativity, imagination, vision, and dedicated performances that have given life and reality to a show that on paper looked like an under-the-sea Springtime for Hitler. With the Band out of the way, it swept the Drama Desk and Outer Circle Awards. What a PR dream it would be if this upset occurred…..
BEST ACTOR
SHOULD WIN: Ethan Slater (Spongebob Squarepants); WILL WIN: Ethan Slater (Spongebob Squarepants)
You’re still laughing. Stop. The one category The Band’s Visit is shy on is Best Actor. TV star Tony Shalhoub is an amazing, acclaimed actor, but barely sings here. Young Slater is a revelation. And his would be the ultimate PR story, the legends Broadway is made of (or says it is, anyway). In a turn right out of 42nd Street, an unknown college student plucked from obscurity wins his first Tony in a role that perhaps only he can portray. Fortunately he looks freakishly like the cartoon character, and has the same seemingly invertebrate abilities as he sings at a 90 degree angle to his pelvis or hanging upside down from a rope. Not only that but he somehow turns the sponge into a heartwarming, fully fleshed out hero in the process. Give this kid his due. If Shalhoub wins, it’s the Hollywood favoritism Tony is know for.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Joshua Henry as Billy Bigelow is one of the few things talked about in the not very talked about Carousel revival, and he has one of the most complex characters of the season in his hands. Or Shalhoub, because, you know, Monk.
BEST ACTRESS
SHOULD WIN: Taylor Louderman (Mean Girls); WILL WIN: Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit)
Louderman exceeds everything the iconic character of Regina George needs to, but Lenk has been honored across the board as the emotional center of the critical favorite. But Lenk only has to give a warm performance and is asked to do no more than croon some cabaret style solos and duets. Louderman blows the best of Mr. Fey’s score away and serves up the best villainess in recent seasons in a big show with big needs. But expect the Tony voters to take the safe, “artsy” way out here.
GOT ROBBED: Mean Girls‘ Erika Henningson in Lindsay Lohan’s central role of Cady Heron carries the mammoth show on her slight shoulders. But like even Lohan, she gets overlooked from the troops of hilarious supporting characters, and downright trampled by the comparative weight of Louderman’s Regina George. Her contribution is much greater than seems. But this category is stuffed with an unprecedented extra 6th nominee, due to a nomination tie, and even that didn’t make room for Henningson.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Lauren Ambrose as Eliza Doolittle in the lavish Lincoln Center production of My Fair Lady. She’s the only nominee with TV name value, has the best character director around today to aid her interpretation, and her character’s early feminist stances play politically well into today’s #MeToo story. Redeeming Eliza as a hero is a good headline.
BEST FEATURED ACTOR
SHOULD WIN: Norbert Leo Butz (My Fair Lady); WILL WIN: Gavin Lee (Spongebob Squarepants)
Butz is the unequivocal reigning clown prince of Broadway, and handing him the prime show stealing role of Alfie Doolitle, which is basically award bait in the form of the only two showstoppers of the show and a few hammy scene-chewing scenes, it’s everything Butz has perfected as a comedian. But he has two Tonys already for even flashier leading roles, and Lee, like costar Slater, brings his cartoon character of Squidward to vivid life, culminating in an over the top production number featuring his to date unprecedented four-legged tap solo. (It’s awesome.) Lee is an easy nod to a show that deserves much more attention. #TonyReviewsINeverThoughtIdBeSaying
GOT ROBBED: Alex Newell (Once On This Island) Eating crow on this one also. Never a fan of his bitchy, second rate drag queen act on Glee, I had minimal enthusiasm about him embodying the prime supporting role of Asaka (Mother Earth), last inhabited by supernatural belter Lillias White in her prime when I first saw the show. But Newell, in director Arden’s amazingly skilled and visionary hands, is all woman, both warm and sassy, and his delivery of “Mama Will Provide”, which I already not so secretly dreaded, is in fact the high point of the revival. More #TonyReviewsINeverThoughtIdBeSaying
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Again, no surprise if Ar’iel Stachel rides the Band’s bus to a victory, and I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t say I’d love to see an upset by Mean Girls’ Grey Henson as best pal “too gay to function” Damian.
BEST FEATURED ACTRESS
SHOULD WIN: Ashley Park (Mean Girls); WILL WIN: Lindsay Mendez (Carousel)
For some unconceivable reason, Carrie Pipperidge seems to be Tony bait (it won Audra her first of 6 in the last revival), and Mendez has captured the critics and the awards so far in this category. And although it is not a weak category in performances, it is shy in perormance material. The legendary Dame Diana Riggs is perfection but her role as Mrs. Higgins is too small. Ashley Parks is hysterical as Mean Girl hot mess Gretchen Weiners, but like Henningson herself she is also apparently getting overshadowed by Louderman’s massive queen bee.
GOT ROBBED: Merle Dandridge and the sublime Lea Salonga (Once On This Island). Dandridge is utterly terrifying as the truly demonic (traditionally male) Papa Ge, Demon of Death, and musical theatre royalty Salonga is a gracious and otherworldly beauty embodying Erzulie, Goddess of Love. But both get overlooked because they spend as much time inside the ensemble as out of it, appearing to have little stage time when in fact they never leave it and have the burden of hiding their megawatt star power when needed to blend in.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: If Parks can register under Louderman’s shadow, she has a chance. Plus how many times does Tony get to give and Asian actor an award that isn’t for The King & I, Miss Saigon, or M Butterfly. (Don’t think that doesn’t happen too—Politics 102.). But the legendary Renee Fleming as Nettie Fowler in Carousel is a much more realistic upset, having the show’s 11:00 landmark number in her very capable hands.
BEST REVIVAL
SHOULD WIN: Once On This Island; WILL WIN: My Fair Lady
Director Michael Arden has taken a piece that has always fallen short in this critic’s eyes and re-envisioned it into a breathtaking masterpiece of immersive theatre, rethinking the characters, the interpretation, and making the show infinitely better than it really is. But it is up against favorite Lincoln Center’s My Fair Lady with an equally brilliant performance director, Bartlett Sher. The difference is in scope. Circle in the Square is barely the size of a typical regional theatre, and his immersive take is very intimate and touching, small but painstaking in its approach. Lincoln Center is Lincoln Center, a full out Broadway house with a long history of big beautiful musical revival spectacles. Voters will go for quantity over quality.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Carousel. (What else could it be?)
BEST DIRECTION
SHOULD WIN: Michael Arden (Once On This Island); WILL WIN: Bartlett Sher (My Fair Lady)
As a director, this is the deepest and most competitive category of the season. Each nominee excels in a different aspect of direction. Sher is an actor’s director, the critical darling who can invest new and reconceived but not revisionist life into the classics, allowing them to expand and survive for another generation. Tina Landau is the technical director who took an inconceivable concept on paper and envisioned and built the entire world around populating the stage with the characters, surroundings, and spirit of Spongebob Squarepants with everything intact from the cartoon. Casey Nicholaw is the blood of the show, conceiving how to turn the iconic Mean Girls into the biggest spectacle of the season, as well as doubling as choreographer, maintaining the sexy and contemporary world of Regina George in both physicality and dance language (again, always give bonus points to the director who can do extra jobs and sell spectacle—It’s an art amongst itself). But Arden has taken the weaker and far more inferior material and reinvented it in a breathtaking new vision that takes on a whole new life in his intimate, enveloping environment, and has literally meticulously interpreted and directed every beat of this piece from first to last note. Arden is the most amazing of the visionaries nominated this season, but his product, even though being the most consuming and emotional of the season, is also the smallest, which will probably hinder him. And David Cromer rode the right train to the station with The Band’s Visit. I could literally make a case for any of the first four, but…
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Cromer rode the right train to the station. My vote for upset would be Tina Landau for what she turned Spongebob into–the impossible.
BEST SCORE
SHOULD WIN: Mean Girls; WILL WIN: The Band’s Visit
Here’s how I envision the creative team of Mean Girls was assembled:
TINA FEY: Honey, they want me to turn Mean Girls into a Broadway musical!
Mr. TINA FEY: That’s great! Do you think maybe I could do the score!
TINA FEY: [crickets] Oh…..Well I was thinking of asking Marc Shaiman…but, yes, that could be good too! [more crickets]
Mr. Fey, here billed as Jeff Richmond, in fact turns out a great and effective score for his better half’s book. It sounds like pop fun (which it definitely is and is much harder to accomplish than ever given credit for) with a few amazing production numbers (“Apex Predator” living up to its name). On top of that, each character has their own musical style in the biggest score of the season, culminating in Regina’s sexy and dangerous Bond Girl-esque “World Burn”. But I’ll grant some of the Nell Benjamin’s lyrics leave something to be desired, settling for easy or odd rhymes. David Yazbeck’s score of Band’s Visit is much less impressive initially, modest solos and duets, but more intimate and peppered with Middle Eastern flair, heavy on the sitar. But his lyrics range to the almost poetic. It’s what the Tony voters like because it makes them look smart. Plus they’ve been told to vote for it. Again, #RidingTheRightTrain
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Spongebob has a massive score comprised of individual songs by the biggest names of the last 5 decades, from Cyndi Lauper and Sarah Bareilles to Steven Tyler and Yolanda Adams. The songs are all great and surprisingly work as a score, but the fact that they were not a package from one creator will hurt.
BEST BOOK
SHOULD WIN: Mean Girls; WILL WIN: Mean Girls
They can’t play the “we hate musicals made from movies” card this year because all four contenders are products of movie or TV predecessors. The Band’s Visit is a small foreign art film (which gives it intellectual cred), but it’s easy to make a nice book from a nice screenplay. Tina Fey’s adaptation of her own brilliant, scathing opus of a screenplay, easily the most quotable movie of the millennium, should be a lock. Plus here’s the chance to salute more Hollywood. A Tina Fey acceptance speech is a great audience draw and guaranteed morning after publicity for the show.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Kyle Jarrow somehow made the nonsense of Spongebob work, but that’s more from director Landau’s vision. And of course, you know, a Band’s Visit sweep on the train…..
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
SHOULD WIN: Mean Girls; WILL WIN: Carousel
Director Casey Nicholaw’s contemporary choreography for Mean Girls is flashy, fresh, fun, intricate, and athletic on the verge of animalistic at times. But Tony tends to favor classic traditional dance when given the chance. Justin Peck’s work fits the bill.
GOT ROBBED: Once On This Island, which is literally choreographed every beat of the show in a continuous blend of authentic Caribbean dance and interpretive movement. But again, the scope will seem too small and it’s so exceptionally well done that it looks too easy.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: My Fair Lady also has its share of old time production numbers, re-envisioned through Sher’s smart and competent eye, sold by comic veteran Butz, and they’re more fun than Carousel.
BEST COSTUMES
SHOULD WIN: My Fair Lady; WILL WIN: My Fair Lady
She has the only show that lends itself to a mass of varied and elaborate costumes, but Catherine Zuber’s lavish costumes deserve the win regardless. Once On This Island is creative and gorgeous, but it’s basically a one (and a half) costume show. Zuber fleshes out a massive plot.
GOT ROBBED: Frozen, if only for the trick Elsa gown alone, which is the most amazing onstage transformation ever accomplished.
BEST SET
SHOULD WIN: Spongebob Squarepants; WILL WIN: Spongebob Squarepants
Taking a note from last season’s Great Comet, David Zinn draped the entire Palace Theatre in blue mylar rain curtains to manifest a world under the sea, and brings Bikini Bottom to life in a series of Rube Goldberg contraptions and underwater flora created from pool noodles and the like, looking exactly like the cartoon. This is the set that last seasons disappointment Charlie & the Chocolate Factory wishes they had. It’s creative, visionary, semi-immersive, and Zinn also designed the costumes as a further extension of his artistic design.
GOT ROBBED: Frozen hasn’t received much positive attention from anyone except the six year old girls showing up in their Disney Store polyester Elsa dresses, but the set, although depending on lots of high tech projection work, is breathtaking and keeps the ice magic rolling, escalating a dozen times at least in the time span in which “Let It Go” continuously unfolds alone. But the ancient Tony voters haven’t quite figured out how to honor projection sets as art yet. At least make Best Projections a category really soon if you can’t see it as a component of the set.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: My Fair Lady has more conventional but also impressive sets by Michael Yeargan. If Tony goes for traditional over innovative, which considering their average age of “velociraptor” is not out of the question, he could win.
BEST LIGHTING
SHOULD WIN: Mean Girls; WILL WIN: Spongebob Squarepants
Kenneth Posner does varied and effective lighting to move Tina Fey’s book along. But Kevin Adams’ interpretive work on Spongebob adds another layer to every collaborator’s work to bring Bikini Bottom alive
POTENTIAL SPOILER: As always, the de facto vote when they don’t know what they’re looking at is The Band’s Visit train.
BEST PLAY: Honestly, we all know the Tonys are only televised for the musicals. So, expect Angels in America, a Hollywood sweep of Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and a shit ton of Harry Potter. Till next year.