The Tony Awards will be held on Sunday night at Lincoln Center, airing live on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. Some of this year’s biggest awards are easily predictable – while others are the total opposite.
The acclaimed hit Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” will surely win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical – the culmination of a rags to riches saga for a bittersweet and challenging Stephen Sondheim musical that ignominiously flopped in 1981 but has survived on the strength of its score. Maria Friedman will also win Best Direction of a Musical.
Likewise, “Stereophonic,” David Adjmi’s conversational drama depicting the trials and tribulations endured by the members of a 1970s rock band as they struggle to complete an album in a recording studio, will win Best Play. (It is also expected to win Best Score for Will Butler’s original songs, which would make it the first play ever to win that award over a musical.)
On the other hand, Best Musical is a mystery since none of the five nominees has emerged as a clear favorite. It will probably go to “Hell’s Kitchen,” Alicia Keys’ jukebox/bio musical about developing as an artist during her teen years in Manhattan, which has been regularly selling out performances since transferring from Off-Broadway. But overall enthusiasm for the show is questionable. Do not discount the possibility of an upset by “Suffs,” the original musical about the leaders of the women’s emancipation movement of the early 20th century, or “The Outsiders,” the well-regarded adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel.
Also puzzling is Best Revival of a Play, where the nominees include three lauded productions: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ vicious family comedy “Appropriate” (which received a commercial transfer following a nonprofit debut early this season at a different Broadway theater), Ibsen’s social drama “An Enemy of the People” starring Jeremy Strong (which just announced recoupment of its investment costs), and Ossie Davis rarely-performed “Purlie Victorious” (which closed several months ago but has reemerged thanks to a live capture recording that just premiered on PBS).
Jessica Lange will probably win Best Actress in a Play for her performance as the self-centered, difficult title character of “Mother Play,” though it could also go to Sarah Paulson for “Appropriate” or Rachel McAdams for “Mary Jane.” The race for Best Actor in a Play is between Jeremy Strong for “An Enemy of the People” and Leslie Odom Jr. for “Purlie Victorious.”
“Merrily We Roll Along” will probably (and deservedly) dominate the acting categories, with awards going to Jonathan Groff (unless a sufficient number of voters were impressed by Eddie Redmayne’s super-creepy, physically-transformative Emcee in “Cabaret”), Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. (This would mirror how Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti, and Boyd Gaines all won awards for their performances in the 2008 revival of “Gypsy.”) Best Leading Actress in a Musical could go to Maryann Plunkett for giving the strongest performance in the tearjerker “The Notebook.”
All in all, this year’s Tony Awards will reflect a challenging year in which Broadway continued its ongoing struggle to recapture its commercial standing following the painful pandemic shutdown, and in which no new musical emerged as the kind of must-see blockbuster it so badly needs, though “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Stereophonic” offer genuine success stories. One wonders what next year’s Tony Awards will look like.
