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Broadway’s Biggest Night
And the Tony goes to…
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Broadway’s 2009-10 season was full of contradictions. It was blessed with works full of variety, quality, integrity and boldness, but it was also burdened by shows that, at times, were formulaic, mediocre, unscrupulous in their execution, and unapologetically tame. It is lucky that this season saw more of the former; it makes awards season so much tougher to predict.
There are Drama Desk awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards, but to many, the most prestigious prize of all is the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, better known as the Tony. Categories include overall production, performance, craft, and special awards for regional theater and theater excellence.
Vying for the Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Tony this year are Kelsey Grammar (La Cage Aux Folles), Douglas Hodge (La Cage Aux Folles), Sean Hayes (Promises, Promises), Chad Kimball (Memphis), and Sahr Ngaujah (Fela!).
The Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical nominees include Catherine Zeta-Jones (A Little Night Music), Kate Baldwin (Finian’s Rainbow), Montego Glover (Memphis), Christiane Noll (Ragtime), and Sherie Rene Scott (Everyday Rapture).
The Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play category reads like the cast list of a Hollywood blockbuster: Jude Law (Hamlet), Liev Schreiber (A View from the Bridge), Denzel Washington (Fences), Alfred Molina (Red), and Christopher Walken (A Behanding in Spokane). Each one of these men is incredibly talented; who gets the award will be a tough call.
The powerful women nominated for the Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play are Viola Davis (Fences), Linda Lavin (Collected Stories), Laura Linney (Time Stands Still), Valerie Harper (Looped), and Jan Maxwell (The Royal Family).
The Best Revival of a Musical category is incredibly diverse this year. The cultures of Ireland (Finian’s Rainbow), America (Ragtime), France (La Cage Aux Folles), and Sweden (A Little Night Music) are all on display in this category. It may not be a march of nations, but the shows certainly please a crowd.
This year marked a return of celebrated works by classic playwrights to the Broadway stage, and the Best Revival of a Play category reflects that. The nominees include August Wilson’s Fences, Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor, Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, and George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s The Royal Family.
The Best Play category showcases some of the most critically acclaimed playwrights working today. Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still is nominated, as is Geoffrey Nauffts’ hit Next Fall. Rounding out the category is John Logan’s homage to Mark Rothko, Red, and Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or the vibrator play.
The Best Musical category is unique this year in that all of the musicals are influenced by or entirely made up of contemporary music. From Afrobeat (Fela!) to punk rock (American Idiot) and even rock and roll (Memphis, Million Dollar Quartet), the Broadway stage is more dominated by the radio waves than ever before.
The 2010 Tony Awards television broadcast airs Sunday, June 13 at 8:00 p.m.. For more information, visit www.tonyawards.com.