Not everyone can wake up to good news on Tony nominations morning. Then again, with a panel of voters often un-wowed by celebrity, the roster typically turns up left-field choices and anoints young talent.
So it went Tuesday. Broadway royalty didn’t get the royal treatment — nor did the actors playing King Arthur and Guinevere in “Camelot.” But a 24-year-old Katy Perry-singing Juliet, and a playwright who stepped into the high heels of a whirlwind named Peaches, found themselves in a very welcome spotlight.
Here are some of the snubs, surprises and further observations about the nominations list:
Surprise: ‘Ain’t No Mo’’
By commercial measures, Jordan E. Cooper’s scabrous comedy “Ain’t No Mo’” was a Broadway failure, closing after 23 previews and only 28 performances. But the Tony committee gave the show’s team something to laugh about, lavishing six nominations, including two for Cooper himself: best play and best featured actor in a play. Cooper, who portrayed a saucy airline hostess named Peaches, gave it his all, onstage and off: When the show’s sudden closing was first announced, he took to Instagram to rally audiences. “They’ve posted an eviction notice,” he wrote, “but thank God Black people are immune to eviction notices.” His urgings led the play to stay open another week — perhaps long enough for more Tony nominators to see it.
Snub: Mr. and Mrs. Brustein
Responding to what they saw as pent-up demand to see “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” after a sellout run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, producers pulled a surprise by adding the revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s 1964 play to the Broadway season on the last possible night. Yet Tony voters passed on nominating Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan for their sexy, impassioned portrayals of a fraying couple in 1960s Greenwich Village. Only Miriam Silverman, as Brosnahan’s starchy sister, got an acting nod in her supporting part.
The race for leading actor in both plays and musicals was going to be tight, given the bounty of big performances in big roles — including several productions with two potential competing nominees. It wasn’t out of the question that only one actor would get in, but Tony nominators decided otherwise, recognizing both Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the brothers Lincoln and Booth in “Topdog/Underdog,” and Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee as jazz musicians on the lam in “Some Like It Hot.” Share-and-share-alike didn’t apply in all cases, however, as only Jessica Hecht was nominated for “Summer, 1976” — a two-hander with Laura Linney the only other performer onstage.
Snub: Broadway Royalty
Along with Linney, already a five-time nominee, other members of Broadway royalty woke up to a gloomy morning. Neither the former winners Nathan Lane nor Danny Burstein, beloved and vibrant Broadway presences and stars of “Pictures From Home,” secured a nomination. Then again, the six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald did get her 10th nod, for her fierce yet fragile performance in “Ohio State Murders,” where she’ll face off against Jessica Chastain (“A Doll’s House”), Jodie Comer (“Prima Facie”) — and Hecht, in an oddly sparse roster of four performers.
Surprise: Off Broadway Royalty
Amid the starrier names announced on Tuesday were a handful of lesser-known actors who have provided years, sometimes decades, of astonishing work Off Broadway. Arian Moayed, a versatile and ardent actor and a co-founder of the theater company Waterwell, was nominated for his turn as one of stage history’s all-time worst husbands in “A Doll’s House.” David Zayas, a familiar face in the early plays of Stephen Adly Guirgis before TV fame in “Dexter” and other series, received a nod for playing a wounded caregiver in “Cost of Living.” So did Kara Young, a firecracker of an actress, nominated for her brassy, anguished work in the play (Young’s second nomination in a row). And that’s not to mention Silverman, so canny and intense in “Sidney Brustein’s Window.”
Snub: A Native American Breakthrough
The producers of Larissa Fasthorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play” didn’t have much to be thankful for Tuesday morning. Thought to be the first play by a Native American woman to have a Broadway run, the show was entirely shut out. The play is a comedy that shows four white Americans fumbling toward a devised work that celebrates Native American Heritage Month, but it is also a parable of Native American erasure, which makes the exclusion disconcerting.
Seems like that “happy dagger” turned out pretty happy after all in “& Juliet,” an infectious jukebox musical that imagines what might have happened had Juliet found her way back out of the tomb. With competition from the likes of Phillipa Soo (“Camelot”), Patina Miller (“Into the Woods”) and Anna Uzele (“New York, New York”), a nomination for Lorna Courtney, the 24-year-old actress playing Juliet, seemed anything but assured. But with the love of the nominating committee, Courtney has something to roar about.
Snub: Song Sung Blue(s)
Portraying a legendary pop performer has become a sure path to a Tony. Just ask Adrienne Warren (“Tina”), Jessie Mueller (“Beautiful”) or Myles Frost, who helped announce the nominations after winning a prize last season for playing Michael Jackson in “MJ.” Will Swenson won’t be as fortunate, as his impressive impression of Neil Diamond in “A Beautiful Noise” went unnoticed, as did the musical as a whole. “So good, so good”? Not today.
