The 2024 Tony Awards: About Those Nominations...

After a huge number of productions opening by the season deadline, the Tony Awards nominating committee certainly had their work cut out for them! With 10 new plays, 5 play revivals, 15 new musicals, 6 musical revivals, and 3 special even productions, there were a lot of choices. There are always surprises - happy and shocking - and this year is no different. Here are our two cents worth!

The 2024 Tony Awards:

About Those Nominations...

Earlier this week, we listed the nominees we hoped would make the list from the 12 shows we've seen so far. And we did pretty well, too. 40 of our "hoped for"s made the cut - including every nomination Back to the Future, Days of Wine and Roses, Illinoise, Lempicka, Purlie Victorious, The Notebook and Water For Elephants got!

 

  

Of course, there were some disappointments. It's a shame that the brilliant performance of Michael Esper's Appropriate performance was overlooked. Ditto the sharp villainy of Paul Alexander Nolan in Water For Elephants. That Joy Woods is missing from the list is a shame, as is the completely forgotten cast of Illinoise. As for the egregiously overlooked, I think history will show that both Ingrid Michaelson's score for The Notebook was too rapidly dismissed, as was the pitch perfect score of Water For Elephants by PigPen Theatre Co., and probably Lempicka's song list, too.

There were a few pleasant surprises, too. The bittersweet brilliance of Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood wasn't a shoo-in. Neither was the long-closed recognition of Here Lies Love, or the complex, often dissonant score for Days of Wine and Roses by Adam Guettel. And though I'd have loved to see Lempicka in a few categories (no lighting or costumes?), I'm glad Eden Espinosa and Amber Iman were honored.

  

We still have four shows to see (The Outsiders, The Who's Tommy, Suffs and Stereophonic) before the Tonys are handed out. With a combined 32 nominations between them, we have a lot to look forward to and debate their worthiness. I dare say Mike and I are even more excited to see them now! And the accolades heaped upon Hell's Kitchen has re-sparked our interest, too.

All of them can't win, but in most categories, I'm pretty sure we'll be thrilled no matter whose names are called on June 16th. Again, congratulations to all the nominees, and to all involved in every show of the season.