Here are two Tony Awards truths, as confirmed by Tuesday’s announcement of the nominations for the 2026 awards.
No. 1: It’s better to do mediocre work in a show likely to get lots of awards than to do excellent work in a flop.
No. 2: If you open in autumn, it is all too easy to get forgotten.
Take, for example, the absurdity of Rachel Dratch, who pops up for a few moments as a campy narrator, enjoying a Tony nomination for best supporting actress in a recent but mostly floundering revival of “The Rocky Horror Show” (floundering with Luke Evans aside). While Kristen Chenoweth, who sang her heart out in “The Queen of Versailles” after having had the guts to play a mostly unsympathetic leading character, got snubbed in the category of best leading actress.
Frankly, when it comes to musical entertainment, the cast of “Beaches,” which at least trafficked in genuine human emotion and moved many in Broadway’s core female demographic, was far better than “Rocky Horror,” a show mostly devoid of sincerity.
In other complaints, I can’t imagine that the Stephen Schwartz score for “Queen of Versailles” will, years from now, be seen as inferior to that for “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).” Tony nominators filled out what admittedly was a challenging best score category by including two suites of underscoring for two plays, “Death of a Salesman” and “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” The first of those was quite beautiful but, to my mind, hardly comparable to what Schwartz, one of Broadway’s greatest composers, penned for “The Queen of Versailles.” A very tricky assignment, I might add. In a season with only 11 musicals and otherwise bereft of serious scores, that was, to say the least, unfortunate.
Aside from Chenoweth, two other women were, to my mind, egregiously overlooked.
One is Ayo Edebiri, the star of “Proof,” whose lovely, soul-bearing central performance as a mathematical genius fighting mental health problems moved me to tears even as it apparently left others cold.
The other is Lea Michele of “Chess.” Michele’s character, Florence, gets three power ballads in a musical that relies almost entirely on the appeal of those three ballads and she did all anyone could possibly ask. No Lea Michele and that show would have been dead in the water.
Of course, Tony nominators are not always in sync with why ordinary ticket buyers drop big bucks on a Broadway show, which explains the lack of nominations for “Proof,” a beautifully structured play that was superbly cast by director Thomas Kail, exploring the themes that were added with a mostly Black cast.
At least the category of best revival of a play was genuinely competitive, given the overall excellence of “Death of a Salesman,” “Becky Shaw” and “Oedipus,” although I’d argue the last of that distinguished trio was far closer to a new play than a revival.
“Every Brilliant Thing” on Broadway starring Daniel Radcliffe at the Hudson Theatre in New York. (Matthew Murphy)Daniel Radcliffe is unlikely to win for best actor in a play, because that category is also richly competitive, and it’s also not entirely true to say he is the one and only actor in that show, given that I witnessed one of the “audience members” leaving through the stage door. But it is a magnificent solo performance nonetheless. I always admire actors who take genuine risks, and if you are a celebrity of Radcliffe’s wattage, that means interacting with the unpredictable general public in the generous way that Radcliffe is willing to do in “Every Brilliant Thing.” By giving a hefty percentage of his audience what they desired most, which is a personal encounter, he opens their hearts for what the play has to say. Few of his peers would dare to do the same.
Radcliffe has my highest admiration, notwithstanding the superb and more traditional work in this category by Nathan Lane, whose Willy Loman is agonizing to watch, and John Lithgow, who, like Chenoweth, was also willing to take on the role of a deeply unsympathetic character.
‘The Lost Boys’ and ‘Schmigadoon!’ earn 12 Tony nominations each to lead the field
There were two excellent revivals of a musical this season, “Ragtime” and “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” with the latter for me being the superior choice by dint of how much it freshened and rejuvenated the original material, surely one of the prime criteria for a Tony Award-winning revival.
Best new play is also a two-horse race between Bess Wohl’s “Liberation,” which won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday and captured a generational moment for women, and Samuel D. Hunter’s beautifully spare “Little Bear Ridge Road.” Both are excellent and both are worthy. Voters will take their pick.
And, sad to say, there is only one candidate, really, for best musical, and that is “The Lost Boys,” a flawed tuner in Act 2, for sure, but a genuine Broadway experience that knows how it wants to sing and move and does so with artistry and without apology. It is also a design tour-de-force and deserves to be so rewarded.
Great performances always are difficult to judge against each other —sometimes painfully so. Alden Ehrenreich does fabulous work an actor in a featured role in a play in “Becky Shaw,” but then so does Ruben Santiago-Hudson in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” And Christopher Abbott is no slouch in “Death of a Salesman.” Whoever wins that category will be lucky while all the others can hold their heads high.
Joshua Henry stands alone in the category of best actor in a musical, although Evans did all within his power to bring a shot of truth to “Rocky Horror.” And in the best actress category, it’s hard to imagine Tony voters picking anyone other than Caissie Levy, also for “Ragtime.” In the world of plays, Susannah Flood, the star of the ensemble-based “Liberation,” deserves her nomination while Lesley Manville from “Oedipus” will give her some formidable competition.
Among directors, David Cromer is missing from the impressive slate for the superbly directed “The Fear of 13,” given the issues with that piece are with the script, not the nuanced staging.
But overall, this surely will be the year of Joe Mantello, whose staging of “Death of a Salesman” revealed that you can forge a simple production, stripping away the unnecessary to reveal the agonizing truths of the life of an ordinary, 20th century American working stiff.
The nominations imply that “Salesman” will have a very good night at the 79th annual Tony Awards ceremony in New York on June 7, broadcast on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. So should “Ragtime,” with “Jellicle Ball” running some fabulous interference.
As for great new musicals, the true lifeblood of a healthy Broadway, we will all have to wait for next year. Assuming enough people are willing to risk millions to produce them.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
