British Actresses Top 2003 Tony Award Nominations

A British actress has an 80% chance of winning this year’s top Tony. Four out of the five nominees for the Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play category for the most prestigious American theatre awards are British: Victoria Hamilton (nominated for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), Clare Higgins (Vincent in Brixton, for which she has already won the triple crown in London of Olivier, Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards) and Fiona Shaw (Medea) are all nominated for reprising performances they originally gave in London, while Vanessa Redgrave is playing Mary Tyrone in a new production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The category is completed by Jayne Atkinson for her performance in Enchanted April.

In the Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play category, fellow Brit Eddie Izzard (who originally took over from Clive Owen in the West End production of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg) is in contention with Stateside competitors Paul Newman (for Our Town), Brian Bedford (for Tartuffe), Stanley Tucci (for Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Brian Dennehy (for Long Day’s Journey into Night.

The nominations for the contenders for this year’s Tony Awards were announced today in New York. Actress Melanie Griffith (wife of Antonio Banderas, currently appearing on Broadway in Nine and soon to join him on the New York stage by appearing in Chicago in New York this summer) and John Lithgow (seen last season in Nicholas Hytner‘s production of Sweet Smell of Success) announced the nominations at a breakfast ceremony at the fabled Sardi’s restaurant in the heart of New York’s theatre district.

Other British contenders for 2003 Tonys include Laurence Boswell and Deborah Warner, both nominated for their productions of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and Medea (both first seen in London), respectively, for the Best Direction of a Play category, where they compete against Robert Falls for Long Day’s Journey into Night and Joe Mantello for Take Me Out, the latter of which was a Public Theater co-production first staged last year at London’s Donmar Warehouse before transferring to New York. Former NT artistic director Richard Eyre, who took his Olivier Award-winning production of Vincent in Brixton to Broadway this spring, was snubbed.

For Best Direction of a Musical, fellow Briton David Leveaux (for Nine, which he also staged in an earlier incarnation at the Donmar Warehouse) competes with Australian film director Baz Luhrmann (for La Boheme), American Jack O’Brien (for Hairspray) and Twyla Tharp (for Movin’ Out). Both Leveaux and O’Brien are currently in rehearsals for new productions at Britain’s National Theatre, where they are respectively directing Jumpers and His Girl Friday. Neither Jonathan Kent nor Sam Mendes were named for their current Broadway stagings of the classic Broadway musicals Man of La Mancha and Gypsy.

Those two productions, however, were named in the Best Revival of a Musical category, where they compete against La Boheme and Nine. Nominations for Best Musical are Amour (the short-lived Broadway musical with music by Michel Legrand, lyrics by Didier van Caulwelaert and English adaptation by British writer Jeremy Sams, all of whom are also named in the nominations for Best Original Score), Hairspray, Movin’ Out and A Year with Frog and Toad.

British playwright Nicholas Wright is in contention for the Best Play Award for Vincent in Brixton, along with Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out, Matthew Barber’s Enchanted April and Rupert Holmes’ Say Goodnight Gracie. In the Best Revival of a Play category, the London-originated production of Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is in contention with Dinner at Eight, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Long Day’s Journey into Night.

In the Best Special Theatrical Event category, The Right Size’s Olivier Award-winning comedy about Morecambe and Wise, The Play What I Wrote, is in contention with Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home, Prune Danish and Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

For the major awards for musical performers, the Leading Actress nominees are Bernadette Peters (for Gypsy), Marissa Jaret Winokur (for Hairspray), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (for Man of La Mancha), Elizabeth Perkinson (for Movin’ Out) and Melissa Errico (for Amour. The Leading Actor nominees are Harvey Fierstein (for Hairspray), Antonio Banderas (for Nine), Brian Stokes Mitchell (for Man of La Mancha), John Selya (for Movin’ Out and Malcolm Gets (for Amour).

The awards themselves will be presented in a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall on 8 June 2003.

– by Mark Shenton