Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, Oscar nominated for the smash film version of Broadway’s "Wicked,” will host the 2025 Tony awards on Sunday, June 8, at 8pm ET on CBS and Paramount+, uniting the two worlds of Broadway and Hollywood. Screen luminaries are all over the boards this year. George Clooney got nominated for his Broadway acting debut in “Good Night, and Good Luck.” “Succession” Emmy winner Sarah Snook is a Tony contender for “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” “Stranger Things” star Sadie Sink joins the nominees for “John Proctor is Dead.”
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal sprinkled star dust on “Othello.” OK, Tony snubbed their acting, though the crowds forking over $1000 a ticket to see them live must have eased the pain. Productions that were movies first are everywhere, along with “Good Night, and Good Luck” and ”The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the contenders include “Death Becomes Her,” “Sunset Blvd,” “Operation Mincemeat,” and “Buena Vista Social Club.”
The Broadway-Hollywood rivalry this year is bound to make the competition even more fierce and fun. And don’t we love it. But keep in mind that Broadway can go industrial-strength hostile on Tinseltown royalty who deign to try the stage for a few months while veterans tough it out for a year or more. I’ve interviewed many of this year’s nominees and sure they’re in it to win it, but it’s mostly what they did for love. In the movie campfest “Valley of the Dolls,” the stage legend played by Susan Hayward snapped fearfully at starlet Patty Duke: “Broadway doesn’t go for booze and dope.” That’s debatable. But it sure ups the pleasure of participating in the smackdown of predicting winners. After consulting with fellow critics, Tony voters and anyone who's stopped me on the street with a strong opinion, I feel ready to decide Who Should Win and Who Will Win.
Here are my picks in the major categories. If you want to go for the full list, check this printable ballot from Broadway World.
Best Leading Actress in a Musical
Jasmine Amy Rogers - Boop!
Megan Hilty - Death Becomes Her
Audra McDonald – Gypsy
Nicole Scherzinger - Sunset Blvd.
Jennifer Simard - Death Becomes Her
SHOULD WIN:
Nicole Scherzinger - Sunset Blvd.
I pick this category first because it’s the most hotly competitive. I know people who would kill or at least make fearsome faces depending on the outcome. Scherzinger, of the rocking Pussycat Dolls, has already won UK’s prestigious Olivier award (named after the lordly Sir Laurence) by proving she could sing and act with her face and body dripping stage blood. Glenn Close, who won a mega-deserved Tony for the first Broadway production of this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, did it without the gore. Still, there’s no denying Scherzinger’s talent and daring. But there is one not insignificant problem…
WILL WIN:
Audra McDonald - Gypsy
Come on people. McDonald has won six Tonys, more wins than any other actor, and she’s the only performer to win in all four acting categories. She also holds the record for the most Tony nominations, with a total of 11. Her latest nomination, for playing Mama Rose, the mother of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in “Gypsy,” is a bear of a role that won Tonys for three other actresses (Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Patti Lupone). Oddly, the one major non Tony recipient is the legendary Ethel Merman who only created the role. A few eyebrows were raised when a Black actress was cast in the true story of a white stage mother. McDonald is not one for limits. In my first interview with her, she seemed to revel in shaking thing up. So a win for Audra would serve as a sort of Tony coronation. How do voters resist that? They won’t.
Best Leading Actor in a Play
George Clooney - Good Night, and Good Luck
Cole Escola - Oh, Mary
Jon Michael Hill - Purpose
Daniel Dae Kim - Yellow Face
Harry Lennix - Purpose
Louis McCartney - Stranger Things, The First Shadow
SHOULD WIN:
George Clooney - Good Night, and Good Luck
In another tight acting race, some Tony balloters fervently believe that Clooney should win the popular vote by sheer dint of his audacity, at 64, to make his acting debut on Broadway and do it so well. Back in 2005, when Clooney directed the film of “Good Night, and Good Luck,” he played the supporting part of producer Fred Friendly, giving the lead role of legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow to David Strathairn, who reciprocated by winning an Oscar nomination for his excellence. But is daring enough in the face of tough competition, such as...
WILL WIN:
Cole Escola - Oh, Mary
Clooney losing to a dude in a dress? Oh, but what a dude and the dress isn’t bad either. Escola, who also wrote the nominated play, hilariously throws himself into the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of the so-called Gaybraham. Mary dreams of decamping the White House to make her name as a cabaret singer. And you know what, between the raucous laughter, Escola makes you feel for her. I don’t know a single person who’s seen “Oh, Mary,” who doesn’t revel in this campfest and Escola’s all-in commitment to his unhinged history. Sorry, George.
Best Leading Actor in a Musical
Darren Criss — Maybe Happy Ending
Andrew Durand — Dead Outlaw
Tom Francis — Sunset Blvd.
Jonathan Groff — Just in Time
James Monroe Iglehart — A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical
Jeremy Jordan — Floyd Collins
SHOULD WIN:
Jonathan Groff — Just in Time
In another photo finish, it’s Groff showing that the Tony he won just last year for finding the bruised soul of a complex character in Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” was no accident. Now in “Just in Time,” he finds the swing and the swagger in the late Bobby Darin, the pop phenom who died of a weakened heart at 37. The show itself, set on a nightclub floor (the place Darin felt most at home), captures the essence of a performer who lived to entertain. Groff’s tour de force isn’t a cheap imitation but an act of transference, merging his own personality and Darin’s into a performance that serves as a tribute to both their talents. But Groff already won last year, so...
WILL WIN:
Darren Criss — Maybe Happy Ending
Unlike Groff, who plays a real person, Criss is portraying a robot close to being unplugged in “Maybe Happy Ending.” That is until he falls in love with a new model hyperbot (Helen J. Shen) and starts showing concerning signs of being human. It’s a
wondrously original performance in a show that’s currently the top contender for best musical. Just don’t try to start feud talk between Criss and Groff. They’re friends and former costars on ”Glee” who belong in the Broadway fraternity. It’s a tossup over which one will win. And there’s no wrong answer.
Best Leading Actress in a Play
Laura Donnelly - The Hills of California
Mia Farrow - The Roommate
LaTanya Richardson Jackson - Purpose
Sadie Sink - John Proctor Is the Villain
Sarah Snook - The Picture of Dorian Gray
SHOULD WIN:
Laura Donnelly - The Hills of California
The Belfast-born Donnelly won raves for playing two roles in the play by Jez Butterworth, who is also her husband. She’s so good they cast her twice as a mother and daughter in a musical family living poor on the west coast of England while dreaming of success on the west coast of California. Rarely has nepotism resulted in such acting riches. Donnelly deserved every rave she collected, but her play has closed, leaving the Tony field open to an actress in a play that’s still doing business. Tony voters love that.
WILL WIN:
Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The “Succession” Emmy winner makes Donnelly look like a piker with only two roles. In this adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel, Snook is alone on stage and playing 26 characters. Don’t ask how. Tour de force was invented to describe a performance like this. You can’t compare Snook to the other actors in her show since there aren’t any other actors. Snook is in it to win it and she will.
Best Musical
Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
Death Becomes Her
Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
SHOULD WIN:
Dead Outlaw
Though Death Becomes Her has its fans and they’re loud about their adoration for costars Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard, the win should go to Dead Outlaw by sheer dint of its imagination. Who’d even think of making a musical about the life of Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw killed by police in a 1911 train robbery. There’s more. Elmer’s mummified corpse then became a tourist attraction. Now that’s something to sing about. And the score by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna has twang to spare. Still, Broadway insiders claim the show was better Off-Broadway, where I guess audiences could get closer to the corpse action. So that may clear the way for...
WILL WIN:
Maybe Happy Ending
That’s right, the robot musical, which started out in South Korea before making its way to the Great White Way. Thanks to Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen—perfection as the wayward bots—the show takes on a humor and tenderness—with a score to match from Will Aronson and Hue Park— that is quietly devastating. You'll be a puddle by the end. Never discount the power of song and story that is funny, touching and vital.
Best Play
English
The Hills of California
John Proctor Is the Villain
Oh, Mary!
Purpose
SHOULD WIN:
Purpose
Purpose, about religious and political hypocrisy in an upper-class Black American family, just won the Pulitzer Prize for drama so that should be a shoo-in. I liked the idea of “John Proctor Is the Villain” for exposing the sexist hypocrisy hiding in plain sight in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” But my guess is that both of these powerhouses will have to stand aside for the funniest play on Broadway...
WILL WIN:
Oh, Mary!
Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln bust out of the straightjacketed history with such gut-busting hilarity that the traditional approach favored by Steven Spielberg in “Lincoln” now seems hopelessly unhip. In the great tradition of Charles Busch, meaning tradition be damned, playwright and star Cole Escola turns the Civil War era upside down. He plays Mary as a boozing, rageaholic who wants only to sing pop song medleys while barely closeted Abe (Conrad Ricamora) flirts his way to happiness. Not since The Producers has a Broadway entertainment so smartly and shamelessly played everything, even costumes and sets, for laughs. If we could turn back time and ask, “Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?” there'd be no contest. Oh, Mary, she’d love it!
