My reaction to the 2015 Tony Nominations. And how I did with my predictions.

Whew. The 2015 Tony Nominations are finally out.  Everyone can breathe now.

Well, everyone can breathe unless you’re in Harvey Weinstein’s office.  Those guys and gals might want to consider taking the day off from work.  Or leaving the country.

More on that later.  Let’s start with how I did on my predictions!

1.  BEST MUSICAL

2015 Tony Nominees:  An American in Paris, Fun Home, Something Rotten!, The Visit

I nailed all of these.

Obviously the biggest snub was Harvey’s Finding Neverland. Did it deserve to be snubbed?  Was it backlash?  Did the number they did on last year’s Tonys put a bad taste in the nominators’ mouths?  Does the lack of noms hurt the show even though it’s doing over $1mm a week?  One thing is for sure, Harvey is a genius producer, entrepreneur, lobbyist and scrapper.  It’ll be fun and educational to see how he promotes the show now.

Oh, and P.S.  Yay for The Visit!!!  🙂

2.  BEST PLAY

2015 Tony Nominees:  Disgraced, Hand to God, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two

I got three out of four here, and honestly?  I just screwed up.  How did I think that the Queen in The Audience would trump the Pulitzer Prize winning Disgraced?  I should have known that the nominators would give the credit to Helen for the success of The Audience and nominate her (which they did), and give the Tony nom to the challenging play about Islamophobia.

3.  BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL

2015 Nominees:  On the Town, On the Twentieth Century, The King and I

Those tricky nominators got me again here by only nominating three instead of four shows!  (I got the above three right, but predicted Side Show would sneak in as the fourth slot.)  I forgot about the little known Tony rule that says if there are only five eligible shows, then there will only be three nominees unless a fourth is within three votes of the others.  I’m not sure how I feel about this rule, to be honest.  I like the idea of it focusing on excellence, but at the same time, would it hurt to have a fourth?  I’d probably amend this rule to say that unless the fourth show got zero votes, there would always be four.

4.  BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY

2015 Nominees:  Skylight, The Elephant Man, This is Our Youth, You Can’t Take It With You

Boo.  I got three out of four right here.  The nominators chose to nominate the fall production of This Is Our Youth rather than the still running and still crackin’ people up production, It’s Only A Play.  Honestly, I think we got penalized for being such a big commercial hit.  I guess there are worse things that could have happened.  🙂

 

So overall, I scored an 81% or a B-.  Poop.  I should do better than that.  How did you do?

What did I think about the other nominations?  I was super excited for Micah Stock’s nom for It’s Only A Play and I want that guy to take it all the way!  And man, having three of the five ladies in the Best Featured Actress in a musical race from the same show (Fun Home) has to be a record.  That’s going to make some interesting backstage conversation over the next month.  I loved that all four Best Musical noms were American born and bred, even if two of the Best Plays were from the British non-profit system.  I was thrilled that my Gettin’ The Band Back Together director John Rando got a nod for his work dustin’ off On the Town.

One thing that I did find interesting . . . we haven’t seen this many shows (13) get snubbed (zero nominations) in five years.  Can anyone say, too much product?

Alright, the noms are over.  Everyone go about their day.

And tomorrow you can start holding your breath again, because the Tony Awards are in just 41 days!

 

(Got a comment? I love ‘em, so comment below! Email Subscribers, click here then scroll down to say what’s on your mind!)

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Ken created one of the first Broadway podcasts, recording over 250 episodes over 7 years. It features interviews with A-listers in the theater about how they “made it”, including 2 Pulitzer Prize Winners, 7 Academy Award Winners and 76 Tony Award winners. Notable guests include Pasek & Paul, Kenny Leon, Lynn Ahrens and more.

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