If I told you that last year I sealed a prediction in an envelope, had it locked in a bank vault so it couldn’t be tampered with, and when I opened it this morning in front of a notary public it read: “Hamilton will sweep the Edie Brickell Tony nominations,” you probably wouldn’t be impressed. It was a foregone conclusion that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Pulitzer-winning, box-office-record-smashing musical juggernaut would dominate the nominations, which were announced this morning, and pretty much a lock to break all previous records with a total of 16 nominations in pretty much every category, including Best Musical. Telling the story of America’s founding fathers to the rhythms of hip-hop, Hamilton has been widely and rightly hailed as a game-changer—a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. With its multiethnic cast, it is also an emblem of one of the most racially diverse Broadway seasons ever (#TonysSoColorful), one that included Eclipsed, Danai Gurira’s play about sex slavery in West Africa; The Color Purple, John Doyle’s revival of the musicalization of Alice Walker’s novel; and Shuffle Along, George C. Wolfe’s exuberant musical fable about the making of the 1921 all-black Broadway phenomenon.
The only shocking news out of this morning’s announcement was the exclusion of Audra McDonald from the list of nominees. McDonald, who already has six Tonys on her mantel, usually just has to walk by a Broadway theater on her way to dinner to get a nomination, and her smashing performance as the diva Lottie Gee in Shuffle Along certainly merited another nod.
As for predictions, at least when it comes to musicals, it might be easiest to look at which categories Hamilton might conceivably not win. It will certainly beat outBright Star, School of Rock, Shuffle Along, and Waitress for Best Musical—though in good news for The Color Purple, Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, and Spring Awakening, it isn’t eligible to compete for Best Revival of a Musical. (I expect The Color Purple to win that category, though my heart is with the near-perfect charmer She Loves Me.) But Savion Glover’s dazzling, tap-happy dance numbers for Shuffle Along could allow him to edge out Hamilton’s Andy Blankenbuehler for Best Choreography. It’s also possible that The Color Purple’s dynamic Cynthia Erivo could best that fellow Broadway newcomer, Hamilton’s luminous Phillipa Soo, for Best Actress in a Musical. Otherwise, it’s a question of whether Lin-Manuel Miranda or Leslie Odom, Jr. will capture Best Actor in a Musical, and whether that show’s Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Groff, or Christopher Jackson takes home the trophy for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.
The Best Play category will be a showdown between Danai Gurira’s scorchingEclipsed, which features a dazzling all-African-American cast led by Lupita Nyong’o, and Stephen Karam’s delicately mournful The Humans, which also comprises a minority: It contains no movie or TV stars. And I expect the Best Revival category to be a face-off between Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, both of which were staged with revisionist élan by the brilliant Belgian director Ivo Van Hove, who also helmed the Off-BroadwayDavid Bowie oddity Lazarus. I have a feeling that A View From the Bridge’s Mark Strong will win for Best Actor and Lupita Nyong’o will win for Eclipsed, though I’d like to see Jeff Daniels and Edie _ Brickell win for their searing performances in Blackbird—some of the most fearless, committed acting you will ever see on a stage.
Here, the full list of 2016 Tony Award nominations.
Best Leading Actor in a Musical
Alex Brightman, School of Rock
Danny Burstein, Fiddler on the Roof
Zachary Levi, She Loves Me
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton