Tony time!

Because one person asked (and that's all it takes), here are my picks for who I'd give the Tony to in the major categories and why. Such a good year!

Best Play

Good People Author: David Lindsay-Abaire
Jerusalem Author: Jez Butterworth
The Motherf**ker with the Hat Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis
War Horse Author: Nick Stafford

Here’s a category that makes me a little sad. Two great plays are heading off against one good play and a piece of theatrical hokum that I think is the most wildly overrated thing to hit the stage in years. And the hokum is going to win. I was pretty blunt in my opinion that War Horse was a dud. I know 99% of people who have seen it disagree. Unfortunately, the fact that this was actually a really strong year for plays means that its position here shuts out the very good (if flawed) Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and the wonderful Brief Encounter. Motherfucker is a solid play, but Jerusalem and Good People are the best of the season. I’m hard-pressed to choose between the two. Good People aims smaller and is more a solidly constructed old-fashioned drama. Jerusalem is big and sprawling and daring and new. I think my decision would depend on what day it was. Today, I feel like giving it up for something precise and beautifully constructed, so I’d pick Good People.


Best Musical

The Book of Mormon
Catch Me If You Can
The Scottsboro Boys
Sister Act

I don’t know how Catch Me pulled out a nomination here. I saw it during its out-of-town run in Seattle, and it felt like an incredibly flat show with the potential to be better. By all accounts, not nearly enough changed. I’d have filled that spot with Priscilla Queen of the Desert or one of the two critically loathed shows that I actually quite enjoyed: The People in the Picture and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. But I can’t really complain: every single one of these shows was better than last year’s winner Memphis. As far as the winner? Duh, it’s The Book of Mormon. I loved The Scottsboro Boys. I saw it three times. It’s wonderful and moving and deserved a long run. But Mormon is still better—a nearly perfect musical comedy that delighted the crap out of me.

Best Book of a Musical

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Alex Timbers
The Book of Mormon Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The Scottsboro Boys David Thompson
Sister Act Cheri Steinkellner, Bill Steinkellner and Douglas Carter Beane

The book of BBAJ was definitely strong, but as above, the choice comes to Scottsboro or the Mormons. And as above, I give the nod to Mormon. In a less competitive year (Memphis?!?!), Sister Act could have taken any of these categories.

Best Original Score

The Book of Mormon Music & Lyrics: Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The Scottsboro Boys Music & Lyrics: John Kander and Fred Ebb
Sister Act Music: Alan Menken
Lyrics: Glenn Slater
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Music & Lyrics: David Yazbek

I don’t think I’d change a single nominee in this category. As will be expected by now, we come to two nominees that are better than the other two. In this particular case, as much as I do love the Mormon score, I think a certain sentimentality has to make me choose The Scottsboro Boys, the last collaboration between John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, et al). I also feel like it was such a wonderful show that to get swept by another show (even if it, too, was wonderful) would be a shame.


Best Revival of a Play

Arcadia
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Merchant of Venice
The Normal Heart

Holy Jesus, this is an amazing category. I loved all four of these productions. Loved. I can find things to quibble with in some like Arcadia’s set design or Lee Pace in Normal Heart. So among four shows I loved, I have to go with the one I have literally nothing to complain about: The Merchant of Venice.

Best Revival of a Musical

Anything Goes
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

This production of How to Succeed blew chunks. Anything Goes for the win! To be fair, Anything Goes is also sweet, winning, charming, and wonderful (if sliiiiightly miscast). So REALLY...Anything Goes for the win.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

Brian Bedford, The Importance of Being Earnest
Bobby Cannavale, The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Joe Mantello, The Normal Heart
Al Pacino, The Merchant of Venice
Mark Rylance, Jerusalem

Poor everyone who isn’t Mark Rylance. This is an incredible category, and any one of these five deserves an award for one of their brilliant performances. But it’s four great performances against one holy fucking shit performance. Mark Rylance deserves it for Jerusalem. Hell, he also deserves it for La Bete earlier in the season, but who the hell would he have knocked out for a second nomination?

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

Nina Arianda, Born Yesterday
Frances McDormand, Good People
Lily Rabe, The Merchant of Venice
Vanessa Redgrave, Driving Miss Daisy
Hannah Yelland, Brief Encounter

One of two categories where I didn’t see a nominee. So I have no opinion about Vanessa Redgrave. Hannah Yelland was charming; Nina Arianda was far and away the best thing about Born Yesterday; Frances McDormand was wonderfully dry and droll in Good People; but I’d hand it to Lily Rabe for being exquisite as Portia in The Merchant of Venice.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

Norbert Leo Butz, Catch Me If You Can
Josh Gad, The Book of Mormon
Joshua Henry, The Scottsboro Boys
Andrew Rannells, The Book of Mormon
Tony Sheldon, Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Both of the lead acting categories in musicals include very strong performances by actors I just don't respond to for whatever reason. In this case, it's Butz in Catch Me. He's always so good, but I never really like him that much in anything. To be fair, I don't think it's at all his fault. Sheldon is lovely but doesn't have much to do. Henry was wonderful--his performance was heartfelt, beautifully sung, and deeply moving. But it comes down to the Mormon boys for me. Depending on the day, I waffle because they're both fantastic. Is it Gad for delivering a cartoonish performance that hits all the obvious notes but still manages to be shot through with heart and earnestness? Or Rannells for what seems like a slightly trickier performance that asks us not just to root for the misfit but the cocky, self-involved wunderkind who probably deserved to be taken down a peg? At this exact second, I'd give it to Rannells.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Sutton Foster, Anything Goes
Beth Leavel, Baby It's You!
Patina Miller, Sister Act
Donna Murphy, The People in the Picture

The likely winner, Sutton Foster, is the second actor that I just can't find it in me to love. She's the consummate professional and never hits a wrong note and always gives it her all. So why does she always disappear into the background for me? I didn't see Beth Leavel in Baby It's You, and Patina Miller is very fun in Sister Act, but I've gotta give it to Donna Murphy. I know people HATE this show. I happened to like it, thanks in no small part to Murphy's incredible performance as the old and young versions of the same character. Traversing styles from musical comedy to melodrama, playing a young theatrical dynamo and an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's, she is giving (for me), the most underrated performance of the season. If Foster doesn't take it, it goes to Miller, but I can't help but root for the underdog.


Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

Mackenzie Crook, Jerusalem
Billy Crudup, Arcadia
John Benjamin Hickey, The Normal Heart
Arian Moayed, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Yul Vázquez, The Motherf**ker with the Hat

This is a weirrrrrd category. First, Crudup’s totally solid in Arcadia, but he seems to out of place here. The other four are wonderful, but I guess I just really, really loved some players in tiny roles this year. I would have loved to see Hrach Titzian in Bengal Tiger or Jim Parsons in The Normal Heart get a nod. So I’m kind of disappointed with the nominees even though they’re all good. As for which of them is the best, I’m really torn between Crook and Moayed. It’s not his fault that I liked someone else in his show better, but because of that, I’m leaning against Arian and would give it to Mackenzie Crook for holding his own against Mark Rylance.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play

Ellen Barkin, The Normal Heart
Edie Falco, The House of Blue Leaves
Judith Light, Lombardi
Joanna Lumley, La Bête
Elizabeth Rodriguez, The Motherf**ker with the Hat

I kind of don’t get how Joanna Lumley got in here. Don’t get me wrong: AbFab is amazing. But she was just okay in La Bete and her portion of the play was the least interesting to me. Judith Light is actually pretty wonderful in Lombardi, but it’s not a terribly demanding role. Falco and Barkin (who I always call Burstyn) are both fantastic but neither delivered for me quite as much as Elizabeth Rodriguez who brought impressive depth to a role that could have been way too familiar. She kept her fiery Latina from seeming too stereotypical—a balance found almost exclusively in her performance, not the writing. She seemed to make the role better than what was written, and I admire that.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

Colman Domingo, The Scottsboro Boys
Adam Godley, Anything Goes
John Larroquette, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Forrest McClendon, The Scottsboro Boys
Rory O'Malley, The Book of Mormon

I LOVE Night Court, and Larroquette is pretty good in How to Succeed. Though he has a solid shot of winning, he's an also ran for me with the other four doing considerably stronger work. Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon were both fantastic as Bones and Tambo in Scottsboro. Both were required to work in caricature (performing the white roles in the minstrel show set-up). Domingo's song about "Jew money" was one of the most uncomfortable and searing I've ever seen. McClendon nudges him out for me, though, by hitting higher heights when called upon to be the Jewish lawyer fighting for the freedom of the boys. He so deftly balanced satire with just the right amount of actual feeling; it was a remarkable performance. Then we have Godley and O'Malley nominated for very funny, very small roles. Godley is wonderful in Anything Goes, and in a large ensemble piece, he grabbed the spotlight without overshadowing his castmates. But O'Malley, in what may be the smallest role of the bunch, delivers one of the funniest performances of...ever. As the mission leader trying desperately to not be gay, he is a revelation. Great as McClendon was, I walked out of Mormon wanting to start a campaign to get O'Malley the Tony. My favorite performance in a musical of the entire season. In lesser hands, the character would feel like just part of the ensemble, but he owns it start to finish.


Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical

Laura Benanti, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Tammy Blanchard, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Victoria Clark, Sister Act
Nikki M. James, The Book of Mormon
Patti LuPone, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

What the…Tammy Blanchard? She played her role like Jennifer Coolidge trying to do drama. Victoria Clark is wonderful in Sister Act but doesn’t really have to do very much other than show off her gorgeous voice. Nikki James is radiant in The Book of Mormon, and I’d be thrilled if she got it. Patti LuPone is Patti LuPone, and I want her to get it just for the speech. But really, I’d give it to Laura Benanti who was exquisite in Women on the Verge. Her endless song about having accidentally fallen in love with a terrorist was a master class in comedic timing. Love. Her.

Best Direction of a Play

Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, War Horse
Joel Grey & George C. Wolfe, The Normal Heart
Anna D. Shapiro, The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Daniel Sullivan, The Merchant of Venice

This is the category I most disagree with the nominees in. The directors of Bengal Tiger, Jerusalem, Brief Encounter, and The Importance of Being Earnest should demand a recount. That said, for me there are three incorrect nominees (I loved The Normal Heart, but took issue with the direction) and one brilliant one. Credit to Daniel Sullivan for a stunning Merchant.

Best Direction of a Musical

Rob Ashford, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Kathleen Marshall, Anything Goes
Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker, The Book of Mormon
Susan Stroman, The Scottsboro Boys

There are so many better choice than Rob Ashford in this category. He has proven time and again that he’s not much of a director. Marshall, Nicholaw, and Stroman have each done work that I’ve HATED, but each was at their best this year, and when they’re at this level, they’re tough to beat. Still, someone has to rise above, and it’s Nicholaw with Trey Parker who has the most fun, controlled the tightest production, and kept Mormon from soaring over the top.

Best Choreography

Rob Ashford, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Kathleen Marshall, Anything Goes
Casey Nicholaw, The Book of Mormon
Susan Stroman, The Scottsboro Boys

WTF, Rob Ashford? Does not belong. He puts his dancers through the paces, but they always seem to be exerting maximum effort to minimal effect. The other three are gangbusters. But the hands down winner is Susan Stroman who turned a tap dance into a nauseating, horrifying, and mesmerizing moment of stagecraft. Her choreography was so much a part of the storytelling where the others were more grafted on.