Tony nominations: It’s time for reckoning for a crowded Broadway

Broadway Takes Audiences on a Fascinating Journey

New York City saw one of the most diverse and exciting seasons in Broadway this year. The lights of Camelot, a female-led retelling of historical events, and a floating lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean, as well as a prison in Georgia during WWI, were some of the fascinating places audiences were taken. With the Tony Award nominations set to be announced on Tuesday, many of these venues and shows are hoping to bring in more visitors.

Lea Michele, star of “Funny Girl,” and last year’s Tony award-winner, Myles Frost of “MJ,” will announce the nominations. However, even with just a nomination, a show can attract dubious customers. The highly praised musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” starring Victoria Clark as a teenager who ages four times faster than the average human, and “Some like it hot,” a stage adaptation of the cross-dressing comedy film starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, are expected to garner the Best New Musical accolades.

Theatre category nominations are also anticipated for the intergenerational story of Jewish identity in Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” set in a Black family’s barbecue in the modern south, and “Prima Facie,” a show that focuses on sexual assault and the failures of the legal system. Two jukebox shows, “A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical,” and “& Juliet” are also on the list for Best New Musical.

This Broadway season featured two well-received Stephen Sondheim revivals, “Sweeney Todd” with Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban and the star-studded “Into the Woods,” both of which may be poised for musical revivals. Another show likely to enter this category is the doomed musical romance of “Parade,” set in pre-WWI Georgia against the real-life backdrop of a murder and lynching.

The legendary Andrew Lloyd Webber gave audiences a new show, the frothy and highly criticized “Bad Cinderella,” while bidding goodbye to his long-running “The Phantom of the Opera.” And then there was the lush revival of “Camelot,” with Aaron Sorkin reinventing the 1960 musical King Arthur.

The June 11th awards celebration will be hosted by Ariana DeBose, live from the United Palace Theater in New York City and broadcasted on CBS and Paramount+. This marks DeBose’s second consecutive year hosting the Tony Awards. Additionally, CBS and streaming service Pluto TV will partner to present “The Tony Awards: Act One,” a 90-minute pre-show of live content, including the first round of awards.

However, it wasn’t just a season of musicals and light-hearted shows. The Broadway season also featured new plays such as “Cost of Living” and “The Kite Runner,” along with revivals of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Death of a Salesman” led by Wendell Pierce. The season had an element of fantasy with a puppet-heavy adaptation of “Life of Pi,” satire in “The Thanksgiving Play,” and sheer silliness in “Shucked” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.”

With the Tony Award nominations around the corner, Broadway is hoping to attract more visitors to these diverse and exciting shows, bringing the magic of theatre back to life.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-music-tony-awards-theater-f3cd019a980228136b1858d689ebd13e

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