Who will bag a Tony?

So, it’s that time of year again when Broadway’s best dust off their tux and rent the gowns and jewels and gather to congratulate each other on the Broadway year just gone, yes it’s Tony time.

With nominations due in the next few days, I thought it would be fun to have a look at what you guys think are going to grab those nominations and sit biting their nails till the gongs are given out on June 13th.  After the nominations are announced we can start to predict our winners together, then once the whole affair is over we can look back and see how many we got wrong and laugh.
 
So let’s start with the Musicals shall we? It’s been a pretty empty and uninteresting new season on the great white way for new musicals. The Addams Family opened to terrible reviews, Memphis opened to mixed, Come Fly With Away is a dance show by Twyla Tharp, Million Dollar Quartet is a jukebox musical in the vein of Jersey Boys, Sondheim on Sondheim is more a celebration of his work and Everyday Rapture is a last minute entry which is racing to open before the cut off after replacing a cancelled play in the same theatre. The two standouts are Fela and American Idiot which have both generated some great reviews and a lot of talk.

My predictions of the 4 shows that will get the Nominations are:
American Idiot, Memphis, Fela and Everyday Rapture or Come Fly Away

Revival of a musical is also another mixed bag from the critically panned Promises Promises and Bye Bye Birdie to the rave reviewed La Cage Aux Folles and Finian’s Rainbow. Others in the running will be A Little Night Music, and Ragtime.

Best Musical Revival
I think it’s pretty clear to say that Finians, Ragtime, La Cage and Night Music’s producers will be hearing their shows read out when the nominations are read.

(It’s great to see La Cage and A Little Night Music generating the most buzz considering both are transfers from London)

Best new play is a lot more interesting. The brilliant Enron has moved out to Broadway and getting a lot of Buzz but the reviews were pretty negative so may not get a nomination. Next Fall is been tipped as one of the front runners, the other 3 plays which will fill the slots in my opinion are the Alfred Molina vehicle Red and the rave reviewed Time Stands Still and maybe In The Next Room (The Vibrator Play). The plays hoping that my predictions are wrong (because they really care about what I think) are A Beheading in Spokane, Collected Stories, Superior Donuts and the Hugh Jackman/ Daniel Craig play A Steady Rain (personally I think that has zero chance at a nomination.)

Best revival of a play is a little harder. I think A View From A Bridge and Lend Me a Tenor are a lock for Nominations, the others hoping their production will be listed are Fences, The Royal Family, Hamlet, Present Laughter, After Miss Julie and Miracle Worker. I will go out on a limb and say that Fences and either The Royal Family or Hamlet will get the other 2 nominations.

Shall we do some more?

Best actress in a musical (Lead). Now if you had asked me six months ago I would have said Bebe Neuworth would have been a lock, but after the reviews the Addams Family gained I think we can count her out. In my opinion the nominations will go to ‘Catherine Zeta Jones ‘(Night Music), ‘Sherie Rene Scott’ (Everyday Rapture),  and ‘Christianne Noll’ (Ragtime) who do you think will get the 4th slot?

Best Actor in a musical (Lead) is another tough one but I think I will predict that the nominations will go to Douglas Hodge (La Cage), Nathan Lane (The Addams family), John Gallagher Jnr. (American Idiot), and either Sahr Ngaujah (Fela) or Alexander Hanson (Night Music)

Yikes, I just realised that these predictions will be out there for the world to see, if I’m wrong I can’t hide or lie about it…… oh well, let’s move on shall we?
 
Best Actor in a play (Lead), OK so I’ve changed this one about 20 times but here is my prediction for who will get the nominations. I think Liev Schreiber (View from the Bridge), Alfred Molina (Red), Denzel Washington (Fences) and either Leo Norbert Butz (Enron) or Hugh Jackman ( A Steady Rain). And the ladies I think will snag nominations for Leading Actress in a Play are Valerie Harper (Looped),  Laura Linney (Time Stands Still), Jan Maxwell (The Royal Family) and Linda Lavin (Collected Stories)…. though I would not count out Viola Davis for Fences.

And the last 2 we will do today are

Featured Actor in a Musical, OK this one is tough very tough, but here goes nothing. Christopher Fitzgerald (Finians), Tony Vincent (American Idiot), Aaron Lazar (Night Music) and Tom Wopat (Sondhiem on Sondhiem).

And last but not least is Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and I’ve decided to not even list my prediction for nominations as it really does not matter since the wonderful Angela Lansbury will win (oh, come on you know she will!).
 
So there you go, some of the major categories and my predictions. So what do you think?  Am I crazy, have I got it wrong, should I be sent away for making such outrageous nomination choices or are we all thinking the same thing?

Tell me what you think below in the comments section, I will predict my other nominations in there as well for some of the other categories. This could be great fun or just plain and simple embarrassing (or maybe that’s the fun part?)

– Craig Hepworth