Tony nominations: It’s time for a busy Broadway
NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway has taken audiences to fascinating places this season, from a female-led retelling of the events of 1776 to the lit-up land of Camelot, and from a floating lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean to a prison in Georgia just before World War II. War I.
All those places hope to attract many more visitors on Tuesday with a coveted Tony Award presentation. ‘Funny Girl’ star Lea Michele and last year’s Tony winner Myles Frost of ‘MJ’ announce the list. Even a nomination can lure insecure patrons.
There are few certainties, but critical musical treasure “Kimberly Akimbo,” with Victoria Clark playing a teenager who ages four times faster than the average human being will likely earn one of the esteemed best new musical nominations, as will “Some Like It Hot”, a musical adaptation of the cross-dressing comedy starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.
Likely nominations in the play category include Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity through an intergenerational narrative, and “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” set over a barbecue grill. black family in the modern South. . Also in shoo-in territory is “Prima Facie,” which deals with sexual assault and the justice system’s failure to take it into account.
Two jukebox shows hope to garner nominations for best new musical: ‘A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical’. a stage biography of the singer-songwriter who has had dozens of top 40 hits, and ‘& Juliet’, which re-imagines “Romeo and Juliet” and adds some of Max Martin’s biggest pop hits of the past few decades.
This was a Broadway season with two well-received Stephen Sondheim revivals – “Sweeney Todd” starring Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban and a star-studded “Into the Woods,” both of which are poised for musical revivals. Another likely entry in that category is “Parade,” a doomed musical love story set against the real-life background of a murder and lynching in pre-World War I Georgia.
Andrew Lloyd Webber gave the audience a new show – the frothy and widespread “Bad Cinderella” – even as he said goodbye to his long-running “The Phantom of the Opera.” And there was a lavish revival of “Camelot,” this time with Aaron Sorkin reinventing the 1960 King Arthur musical.
Ariana DeBose will host the awards ceremony on June 11 from the United Palace Theater in New York City, live on CBS and on Paramount+. It is her second consecutive stint as host.
CBS and the streaming service Pluto TV have teamed up to present “The Tony Awards: Act One,” a 90-minute pre-show of live content, including the first round of awards.
Broadway had some very serious works this season, such as the new plays “Cost of Living” and “The Kite Runner” and revivals of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Death of a Salesman” directed by Wendell Pierce. A revival of ‘Parade’, about the lynching of a Jewish businessman starring Ben Platt, was well received.
The season had an element of the fantastic in a puppet-filled adaptation of the lifeboat book “Life of Pi,” satire in “The Thanksgiving Play,” and sheer silliness in “Shucked” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.”
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Mark Kennedy is present http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits