We are now less than 2 weeks away from the 2018 Tony Awards, and speculation about who will win Broadway's highest honor on June 10th continues to intensify, including here at Broadway, Etc. After making predictions about the Featured Actor and Actress races, its time to move on to the Leading categories, where I will be predicting who will win as well as pointed out who most deserves it. Read on for more!
Best Actor in a Play
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| Andrew Garfield (left) as Prior Walter and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Belize in Angels in America. |
Nominees: Andrew Garfield, Angels in America; Tom Hollander, Travesties; Jamie Parker, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Mark Rylance, Farinelli and the King; Denzel Washington, The Iceman Cometh
As with Best Featured Actress in a play, this category is mostly made up of Brits from transferred productions. Tom Hollander seems like the longest shot to win here, as Travesties just doesn't have the awards momentum to overtake the other, more lauded productions represented here. Meanwhile Mark Rylance has never gone through a Tony season without a win (he wasn't nominated for La Bete but won for Jerusalem that same season, and won one of two Tonys he was nominated for in 2014), but this doesn't feel like his year, and honestly he's probably busier campaigning for Farinelli and the King to win Best Play so his wife, the play's author, can experience Tony glory.
Which leaves us with Jamie Parker, Andrew Garfield, and Denzel Washington. Parker seemed like the man to beat heading into this season, before the love for Angels in America somewhat surprisingly surpassed the excitement about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Parker certainly isn't down for the count, but his path to Tony gold is a lot harder thanks to an abundance of love for the revival of Tony Kushner's two-part epic. Angels is certainly the more "serious" of the two works, which fairly or not gives Andrew Garfield the edge. But Washington is a dark horse for The Iceman Cometh, a production that pleasantly surprised a lot of critics and provides the Tony and Oscar winner with quite the showcase scene in the final act. I still expect Garfield to win, but I wouldn't be overly surprised to see Parker or Washington sneak through in an upset.
Will Win: Andrew Garfield, Angels in America
Should Win: Abstain
As with Best Featured Actress in a play, this category is mostly made up of Brits from transferred productions. Tom Hollander seems like the longest shot to win here, as Travesties just doesn't have the awards momentum to overtake the other, more lauded productions represented here. Meanwhile Mark Rylance has never gone through a Tony season without a win (he wasn't nominated for La Bete but won for Jerusalem that same season, and won one of two Tonys he was nominated for in 2014), but this doesn't feel like his year, and honestly he's probably busier campaigning for Farinelli and the King to win Best Play so his wife, the play's author, can experience Tony glory.
Which leaves us with Jamie Parker, Andrew Garfield, and Denzel Washington. Parker seemed like the man to beat heading into this season, before the love for Angels in America somewhat surprisingly surpassed the excitement about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Parker certainly isn't down for the count, but his path to Tony gold is a lot harder thanks to an abundance of love for the revival of Tony Kushner's two-part epic. Angels is certainly the more "serious" of the two works, which fairly or not gives Andrew Garfield the edge. But Washington is a dark horse for The Iceman Cometh, a production that pleasantly surprised a lot of critics and provides the Tony and Oscar winner with quite the showcase scene in the final act. I still expect Garfield to win, but I wouldn't be overly surprised to see Parker or Washington sneak through in an upset.
Will Win: Andrew Garfield, Angels in America
Should Win: Abstain
Best Actor in a Musical
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| Joshua Henry as Billy Bigelow in Carousel. |
Nominees: Harry Hadden-Paton, My Fair Lady; Joshua Henry, Carousel; Tony Shalhoub, The Band's Visit; Ethan Slater, SpongeBob SquarePants
There were only 5 eligible performances in this category, a byproduct of it being a weaker year for musicals in general and a welcomed increase in musicals centered around women; 7 of this year's musicals have female leads or co-leads (a couple even feature 2 women sharing the spotlight with all men relegated to supporting roles). That said, the lack of quantity is certainly compensated for by an abundance of quality, with some truly excellent talent on display here. I can't imagine Tony Shalhoub actually winning for The Band's Visit - very much an ensemble show where his leading man status feels like a courtesy extended due to his fame - but he's certainly deserving of a nomination.
I'm not sure what to make of Ethan Slater's chances playing the title character of SpongeBob SquarePants. On the one hand, the young actor is beyond charismatic in his Broadway debut, so effortlessly embodying the eternally optimistic sea sponge that I have trouble imagining anyone else in the role. He has also already racked up Theatre World and Outer Critics' Circle Awards for his performance, so only a fool would count him out of the running (not to mention the Tonys love a Cinderella story). But at the same time, as great as Slater is, I'm not convinced that he's the best of the four nominated actors, or even the runner up.
Joshua Henry and Harry Hadden-Paton both take already great, award-worthy roles and run with them, exceeding expectations in two career milestone performances. Both also succeed in taking characters with extreme cases of toxic masculinity and making them both relatable and even empathetic for audiences hyper aware of how horribly sexist traditional male/female gender dynamics are. And no actor, male or female, tackled a role more closely associated with a specific performer than Hadden-Paton, who successfully makes My Fair Lady's caustic Henry Higgins his own in the wake of Rex Harrison's legendary, Oscar- and Tony-winning performance.
If I were voting, I'd probably choose Hadden-Paton, who I thought was perfection in a near perfect production. But Henry is offering up one of the best, if not the best, sung renditions of Carousel Broadway has ever seen. His "Soliloquy" is the musical highlight of the season, thanks both to his vocal prowess and his stellar acting ability, traits which carry through the entirety of his performance. Henry's just *feels* like a Tony-winning performance, thrillingly sung and expertly acted, and after two prior nominations it looks like the third time will be the charm for this consistently excellent performer.
Will Win: Joshua Henry, Carousel
Should Win: Harry Hadden-Paton, My Fair Lady (just barely edging out Henry)
Keep checking this space for more 2018 Tony Award predictions in the weeks ahead! In the meantime, make your voice heard in the comments, and check out the rest of my Tony coverage by clicking below:
Tony Nominations React
Book and Score
Direction and Choreography
Featured Actor
Featured Actress
Awards shows always seem to love a good underdog story, and SpongeBob SquarePants has certainly been a big underdog, which is why I think Ethan Slater will probably win.
ReplyDeleteTony Shalhoub may have a very small singing part in The Band’s Visit, but he is the veteran out of all the nominees. Plus, the awards for Best Musical and Lead Actor have so far gone hand-in-hand about five times before within this past decade. Ethan Slater may be the breakout star of the season with his energetic performance in SpongeBob SquarePants, but I wonder if he might suffer from the fact that the show hasn’t been doing great at the box office despite tying with Mean Girls for the most nominations. As we’ve seen in the past, Tony voters don’t like to waste a major award on a show that isn’t doing well. I actually think Harry Hadden-Paton could be a darkhorse for My Fair Lady. He’s in the frontrunner for Best Revival of a Musical, and he offers a different take on the role of Henry Higgins, which of course has previously won Rex Harrison both a Tony and an Oscar. Joshua Henry may be hurt by not only the polarizing response to Carousel, but people have also been divided on his performance. Some found him to be a highlight, others found his Billy Bigelow to be pretty inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Tony voters are overly concerned with box office. If they were Frozen would be the top nominee. If anything, I think they like to use the Best Musical award in particular to help boost the box office of shows they like but are perhaps underperforming.
DeleteI do think Harry Hadden-Paton is one to watch out for, but ultimately my gut says Henry wins. I just think back a couple of years ago when Leslie Odom, Jr. won. There were a lot of rational explanations for someone else to win (Lin-Manuel Miranda had created the most celebrated musical of the 21st century, Danny Burstein is beyond overdue a Tony), but I just felt Odom, Jr. gave the most exciting performance and apparently the voters felt the same. I feel like a similar thing will happen here.
But the difference between the Lead Actor in a Musical race two years ago and this year is that Hamilton was such a juggernaut while the current revival of Carousel is no Hamilton. As for the Best Musical winners in recent years, Tony voters have gone for the more accomplished piece over the commercial hit like Once winning over Newsies, A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder winning over Aladdin & Beautiful, and Fun Home winning over An American in Paris. Probably because the commercial hits didn't need Tonys at all.
DeleteI don't think Henry will win here. You've mentioned before about how #MeToo could help My Fair Lady; here, I think #MeToo will hurt Carousel, at least in this race. Some Tony voters will probably feel that no domestic abuser, even fictional ones, are worthy of forgiveness and redemption, especially if a voter has been a victim of domestic abuse himself/herself.
ReplyDeleteI think if the #MeToo movement were having a large effect on voters, we'd already see evidence of it in Carousel having less nominations, instead of being the most nominated revival of the year. And Tony voters clearly like Henry, who's on his third nomination in less than 10 years.
DeletePlease keep in mind that the nominating committee is only made up of 50 or so people while the voting bloc is much larger. While Carousel is the most nominated revival of the season, I probably wouldn’t be surprised if it actually came fourth or fifth place in some of its nominations given the polarizing response to the production itself.
DeleteI'm well aware the nominations committee is a much smaller group (I think actually 30-40 total). But that's still a large enough group that if there was significant backlash against the production it would likely have manifested in fewer nominations (like 7/8 instead of 11).
DeleteAnd while the show has produced divided reaction, a lot of the people I know make a point to say that they generally like Carousel, they just don't like *this* Carousel, so the idea a significant chunk of Tony voters would avoid voting for Henry because his character isn't the best person seems far fetched to me.
But like I said, I probably wouldn't be surprised if Carousel actually came fourth or fifth place in some of its nominations.
DeleteIt think they will want to honor Carousel somewhere and I think this is where it will be. With Henry giving a strong performance and having been nominated twice before, I feel like it’s his to lose.
ReplyDeleteTony voters already have opportunities to reward Carousel in Featured Actress (for Lindsay Mendez) and Choreography. Though Orchestrations is possible given that the award will be voted on by a peer group starting this year, and Jonathan Tunick is an EGOT legend taking on the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein score.
DeleteAnother reason why I think Henry will lose is this: in general, people do not want to see abusive characters be redeemed. They want abusive characters to be punished, even after death.
ReplyDelete