This is the year Hamilton blew us all away. It’s that rare show that is both a cultural sensation and critics’ favorite, to say nothing of a triumph for investors (and scalpers). The musical garnered a record-breaking 16 Tony award nominations and is likely to win a great number of them, perhaps enough to challenge The Producers’ 12 wins in 2001. But could a few surprises emerge during the 70th annual ceremony hosted by James Corden on Sunday? Here’s a prediction of what will win and what should win when the likes of Oprah, Cate Blanchett and Steve Martin present the awards.
Best play
Stephen Karam’s The Humans, a haunting story of an Irish-American family gathering for an unfestive Thanksgiving dinner is rich in compassion, humor and stuffing. Having begun off-Broadway, it also has a local-boy-makes-good appeal. Another strong contender is Mike Bartlett’s futuristic verse drama, King Charles III, but that closed early in the season and was a somewhat chillier, though more linguistically daring, affair.
Will win: The Humans
Should win: The Humans
Best musical
No shockers here. The style, panache, scope and electroshock energy of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton guarantee the win. In an election season often dominated by nativist rhetoric, it reconfigures America’s founding as the work of immigrant strivers, while managing an infectious beat and a tearjerker ending. There’s style and seriousness in Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, but the book falters under the weight of its multiple aspirations.
Will win: Hamilton
Should win: Hamilton
Best revival of a play
Long Day’s Journey into Night has its partisans as does David Harrower’s Blackbird, but voters may ultimately favor the theatrical whizbang of Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller’s tragedy of idealism, The Crucible. That play boasted a starry cast, special effects and even a wolf (well, a dog that looked and moved very like a wolf). But Van Hove’s earlier Miller revival, A View from the Bridge, which closed before many Tony voters could see it, was a taut, focused and thrilling study of masculinity and crisis.
Will win: The Crucible
Should win: A View from the Bridge
Best revival of a musical
John Doyle’s stripped down revival of The Color Purple, the musical based on the Alice Walker novel, sustained the force of the story while trimming much of the sentiment and bombast. His simple staging puts the focus fully on the outstanding cast, trusting them to do the storytelling. But while it may lack the power of The Color Purple, the revival of She Loves Me is a confection of a show, a pastel-colored swirl of delight.
Will win: The Color Purple
Should win: The Color Purple; She Loves Me
Best book of a musical
The contenders in this category aren’t particularly strong. Hamilton has a fairly solid story structure centered around three duels, though it relies on Thomas Kail’s direction and Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography to keep the piece ticking over. Bright Star makes too little use of Steve Martin’s goofy comedy and School of Rock only occasionally showcases Julian Fellowes’s dry wit.
Will win: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Should win: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Best original score
Bright Star, with music and lyrics by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, boasts tuneful if understated bluegrass and Waitress, by Sara Bareilles, has a heart-stopping 11 o’clock number, She Used to Be Mine. But Hamilton again hurtles past its contenders with the brash and savvy confidence of its hip-hop/showtune pastiche.
Will win: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Should win: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play
A strong category, with a win for any of these men worth cheering. Frank Langella is a likely victor for The Father, as the play centers exclusively around his character and the script allows him both rage and vulnerability. Tim Piggott-Smith in Charles III and Gabriel Byrne in Long Day’s Journey Into Night both give sensitive and intelligent performances, in contrast to Jeff Daniels’s stirringly full-stroke approach in Blackbird. But Mark Strong’s turn in A View from the Bridge as a tightly coiled longshoreman was the season’s most visceral and exhilarating.
Will win: Frank Langella, The Father
Should win: Mark Strong, A View from the Bridge
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play
As unsparing as it was graceful, Jessica Lange’s turn as the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night will rightly earn her the statuette. But Michelle Williams gave a thrilling and fearless performance in Blackbird as a young woman so damaged by sexual abuse that her identity is at best provisional.
Will win: Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Should win: Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey Into Night; Michelle Williams, Blackbird
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical
Alex Brightman treats his School of Rock role like one long, gleeful guitar solo and Danny Burstein is an expressive Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. But this category belongs to the men of Hamilton. While Lin-Manuel Miranda is the likely winner for his work as the titular hero, Leslie Odom Jr gives a witty and searing performance as the show’s smiling, taciturn villain.
Will win: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Should win: Leslie Odom Jr, Hamilton
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical
Though the neglect of Audra McDonald in Shuffle Along was seen as a snub by some, this category is packed with expert performances by the likes of Bright Star’s Carmen Cusack, She Loves Me’s Laura Benanti, and Waitress’s Jessie Mueller. But none of them brought the house to its feet in the midst of every performance like the vocally mighty and emotionally lucent Cynthia Erivo did, with The Color Purple ballad, I’m Here.
Will win: Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple
Should win: Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple
Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play
In Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Michael Shannon offers a drunk scene for the ages and Bill Camp is captivating as a man of God forced to question his earthly assumptions in The Crucible. But Reed Birney, an invaluable off-Broadway actor, is overdue for recognition and his portrayal of a suffering patriarch is an anguished highlight of The Humans.
Will win: Reed Birney, The Humans
Should win: Reed Birney, The Humans
Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a play
With two vote-splitting actresses nominated from both Eclipsed and Noises Off, this looks like the year for the thrice-nominated Jayne Houdyshell, who plays the sorrowful yet buoyant Deirdre in The Humans. She somehow manages to project universal qualities of motherhood while creating a character indelibly her own.
Will win: Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans
Should win: Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans
Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical
With Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson and Jonathan Groff all nominated, there’s some concern that these Hamilton men might split the vote. But Diggs, who plays two brassy and impudent roles, as Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette, tosses off mile-a-minute rhymes with cheeky ease and loose-limbed chic.
Will win: Daveed Diggs, Hamilton
Should win: Daveed Diggs, Hamilton
Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical
Another tough category, with strong work from She Loves Me’s Jane Krakowski, who managed to appear charmingly lovesick while doing the splits, and Adrienne Warren, who juggled two ingenue roles in Shuffle Along. But as Angelica, the shrewdest of Hamilton’s Schuyler Sisters, Renée Elise Goldsberry showed that she can spit rhymes as fast and fiercely as any of the men in the cast – and with more emotional heft, too.
Will win: Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton
Should win: Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton
Best direction of a play
Joe Mantello conjures nuanced and deeply felt performances from The Humans ensemble, but seems less assured in handling the tone, which shifts from naturalism to something more uncanny. By contrast Rupert Goold’s playful and lively handling of King Charles III and Ivo van Hove’s penetrating, concentrated approach to A View from the Bridge deserve recognition.
Will win: Joe Mantello, The Humans
Should win: Rupert Goold, King Charles III; Ivo van Hove, A View from the Bridge
Best direction of a musical
Much of Thomas Kail’s judicious work in Hamilton was simply to stay out of the show’s way, providing just enough visual interest to fill the brief spaces between songs. He’ll reap the rewards of that, as well as his substantial contribution to the show’s development, but George C Wolfe rates an honor for wrestling an ambitious if uneven mix of theatrical flair and Broadway historiography into a provocative show.
Will win: Thomas Kail, Hamilton
Should win: George C Wolfe, Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Best choreography
Hofesh Shechter provided a swirling movement vocabulary for Fiddler on the Roof and Andy Blankenbuehler brought hip-hop moves to Broadway for Hamilton. But tap savant Savion Glover is a shoo-in for his lively and propulsive work on Shuffle Along. That said, the un-nominated Casey Nicholaw most successfully used dance as a storytelling motif in the ballet that closed Tuck Everlasting.
Will win: Savion Glover, Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
Should win: Savion Glover, Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed; Casey Nicholaw, Tuck Everlasting
