2017 Tony Award Predictions: Best Revival

The 71st annual Tony Awards are this Sunday, and my annual predictions keep rolling right along. It's now time to discuss the prestigious production awards, those which honor an entire show rather than an individual part of it. Of all the award categories, a win here has the most noticeable impact on a show's box office, as well as its future prospects when it comes to potential tours and regional productions. 

As always, I will use a combination of personal opinion, critical consensus, and industry buzz to determine the most likely winner. So on to the Best Revival categories!

Best Revival of a Play

The cast of Jitney on Broadway.

Nominees: Jitney; The Little Foxes; Present Laughter; Six Degrees of Separation

Manhattan Theatre Club, one of the biggest not-for-profit players on the New York theatre scene, has a hit or miss track record when it comes to their Broadway seasons. But this year has been nothing but hits, with all three of their Broadway productions (Heisenberg, Jitney, and The Little Foxes) earning both critical acclaim and fairly healthy box office. Which is why it seems inevitable that MTC will take home the Tony for Best Play Revival this year, with the only question being which production it will win for.

The Little Foxes has all the elements that add up to Tony gold. It is currently running, features a much praised cast (several of whom are up for individual awards), and plenty of buzz thanks to the fact that stars Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon play the two primary roles in repertory. But my gut tells me it will be MTC's other revival, the long-awaited Broadway bow of August Wilson's Jitney, that actually brings home the prize on Sunday night. Despite being the only nominee not currently running, Jitney was universally beloved by critics as serious art, and it's recent Drama Desk win only increases the production's profile and chances of winning. Six Degrees of Separation and Present Laughter will have to settle for just being nominated, as neither piece has inspired the kind of passion that makes people vote for you over other worthy options.

Will Win: Jitney

Best Revival of a Musical

Tony-nominee Kate Baldwin, Tony-nominee Bette Midler, Beanie Feldstein, and Taylor Trensch in Hello, Dolly!

Nominees: Falsettos; Hello, Dolly!; Miss Saigon

This award is currently Hello, Dolly's to lose, and not just because of the sensational performance of Bette Midler in the title role. From top to bottom, this is one of the best realized productions of the season, and arguably the best Dolly we're likely to see in our lifetime. Composer Jerry Herman reportedly turned down multiple offers to revive this Golden Age classic over the years, waiting for just the right cast and director to make the show sing. He has found it in Jerry Zaks' sumptuous staging, which honors the show's old school roots while simultaneously making it feel fresh and new again. The sets, costumes, lights, choreography, and performances all add up to pure theatrical magic that will win over even those who aren't especially enamored with Hello, Dolly! as a show (as structurally, it admittedly has some faults).

The only thing that could spoil Dolly's victory lap would be a late in the game surge for Lincoln Center's Falsettos. The toast of the town when it opened this fall, the Broadway return of William Finn's signature work at one point appeared to be the show to beat, but the long months between its early January closing and now make it difficult to envision an actual win. Working in the show's favor is its incredibly appealing quartet of leads, who have been dutifully making the press rounds throughout Tony season professing their love for the show and one another. Their charm and innate likability could help remind voters what they liked so much about the show to begin with, but overcoming Dolly is a major uphill battle. And compared to its two competitors, Miss Saigon just doesn't have the acclaim or buzz to pull off an upset.

Will and Should Win: Hello, Dolly!

Check back soon for my predictions in the all important Best Play and Musical races, and catch up on the rest of my 2017 Tony coverage below!

Nominations React

Best Book and Score

Best Direction and Choreography

Best Featured Actor

Best Featured Actress

Best Actor

Best Actress

Extremely Early 2017 Tony Predictions: Part I

January and February are traditionally slow months for Broadway, both in terms of show openings and ticket sales. They are also times of changeover, as older shows close up shop to make way for the incoming crop of spring production. A whopping 23 shows will open between now and April 27th, the cutoff for Tony Award eligibility, which means only the most well received fall productions even have a chance of cutting through the spring buzz to secure nomination slots in May. And as I do every year at this time, it's time to discuss which shows are in the best position to do just that!

This fall produced a lot of work critics deemed good but not great, which leaves plenty of room for things to change depending on the strength of the spring shows. With few critical or commercial hits among the fall shows, all these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, with many vulnerable to missing out on nominations should the spring prove especially fruitful artistically.

Best Musical

Ben Platt and the cast of Dear Evan Hansen.

While it seems a tad early to make this prediction, my gut tells me we have already seen the 2017 Tony winner for Best Musical. Both Dear Evan Hansen and Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 opened to excellent reviews and robust box office, putting them in excellent position to be remembered with nominations. The boundary pushing productions are also the kind of inventive work the Tony committee has increasingly favored in the past few years, making it even more difficult to imagine either show being shut out of the highest profile awards race.

If the spring shows prove to be unexpectedly weak (unlikely, but possible), then there's a possibility for Holiday Inn or A Bronx Tale to sneak into contention. A Bronx Tale is the more likely of the two to break out, as Holiday Inn seems to have been too slight for most critics and will be long closed by the time nominations are handed out. And while I found aspects to appreciate in both In Transit and Paramour, neither is really Best Musical material, making their nominations extremely unlikely.

Best Play

Mary-Louis Parker and Denis Arndt in Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway production of Heisenberg.

Currently, the only shows that quality for this category are The Encounter; Heisenberg; Oh, Hello on Broadway; and The Present. With a robust slate of new plays coming this spring, including Broadway transfers of the incredibly well received Sweat, Oslo, and Indecent, I expect only one fall play to make it into Tony consideration. I'm split on whether to call things for The Encounter or Heisenberg, but I lean toward the latter due to it being the most "play-like" (although the increasingly progressive Tony voters could well opt for the experimental but well received The Encounter instead). Should the spring shows disappoint there's even an outside chance the partly scripted, partly improvised Oh, Hello makes the cut, although as this is both a playwriting and production award the improvised segments could hurt the comedy's chances.

Best Musical Revival

Lincoln Center's much heralded revival of William Finn and James Lapine's Falsettos.

This fall only saw two musical revivals, the much anticipated Falsettos and the are-they-really-bringing-that-back Cats. Personally, I don't understand how the awkwardly constructed Falsettos is so beloved by the theatrical community, and I say that as a gay man. Based on my personal observations, one's enjoyment of this revival was directly tied to one's familiarity with the show beforehand; if you already knew Falsettos, the revival was practically perfect, whereas if you were unfamiliar with the show the flaws in the writing were more apparent (I fall into the second category). That said, I cannot imagine a scenario in which Falsettos doesn't get nominated for Best Revival, even if there are a lot of spring shows to fend off on the way to actually winning this category. The chances of Cats fending off Hello, Dolly; Sunset Boulevard; Miss Saigon; and Sunday in the Park with George for a nomination seem laughable.

Best Play Revival

The cast of the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's Jitney.

There are currently for productions eligible in this category: The Cherry Orchard, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Front Page, and Jitney. With a similar number of play revivals opening in the spring, I'm fairly confident in predicting a 50/50 spread between fall and spring nominees, which would allow for two of the above plays to make the cut. The Cherry Orchard was met with some of the harshest reviews of the season, while Les Liaisons sparked at best muted admiration, which leaves The Front Page and Jitney as the presumptive nominees. The very well reviewed Jitney is probably the most competitive, as most reviews for The Front Page agreed the play was starting to show its age despite tremendous work from an all-star cast (the routine complaints about a slow first act will also hold the show back).


And those are my current predictions; let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments! And check back soon for early assessments of the Leading Actor/Actress races.

Welcome to Falsettoland

Review: Falsettos

The cast of Falsettos, one of the most hotly anticipated musicals of the fall season.

Alternatively messy and engaging, the first Broadway revival of William Finn and James Lapine's Falsettos highlights the core strengths and weaknesses of the piece in sometimes unexpected ways. Originally premiering on Broadway in 1992, the show is composed of two one act musicals (which debuted Off-Broadway in 1981 and 1990 respectively) that chart the growth of gay protagonist Marvin's unorthodox family over the course of two years. While some of the narrative specifics are deeply tied to the late '70s/early '80s setting, this production thankfully proves the show's core themes of love, family, and identity are universal and still relevant despite the huge advances in gay rights and the advent of marriage equality. Unfortunately, this production also highlights how the William Finn who wrote March of the Falsettos, the basis for Act I, is a far inferior writer to the William Finn who wrote Falsettoland, the basis for Act II.

In Act I, we are introduced to Marvin, who has left his ex-wife Trina and their son Jason to live with his male lover, Whizzer. The breakup of Marvin's traditional family unit has left all three in various states of distress, leading each to seek the help of Mendel, a therapist with questionable professional ethics who ultimately becomes involved with Trina. The second act moves the action forward two years and sees everyone obsessing over the planning of Jason's upcoming bar mitzvah, while also introducing the specter of the AIDS crisis.

Act I proves to be a rather disjointed affair, more of an impressionistic character study than a coherent narrative. The young Finn has yet to refine his signature off-kilter sensibility, which comes across as manic here and lacks the thematic coherence which connects his later flights of fancy. Musically the writing isn't anywhere near as complex or interesting as Finn's later work, and as a result both the performers and director James Lapine (who also wrote the book) seem slightly adrift as they struggle to sell the material. The songs don't build the way you want them to, and Lapine attempts to compensate for this lack of emotional momentum by having the performers constantly rearrange the pieces of David Rockwell's jenga cube of a set. Layer onto this Spencer Liff's awkwardly flailing choreography - which often hinders the performer's ability to enunciate their lyrics - and the first half of Falsettos becomes an exhaustively busy journey with characters that aren't particularly likable or compelling.

Act II is a much richer and more rewarding experience, as it's clear that in the nine years between writing March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland Finn vastly matured as a songwriter and storyteller. Centering the act on Jason's impending bar mitzvah gives Finn and Lapine a stronger foundation to build their characters' quirky behavior around, and Finn becomes much more adept at tempering his characters' off-putting neuroses with humanizing qualities. Even with the introduction of two additional characters - Cordelia and Dr. Charlotte, the "lesbians next door" - everyone feels more nuanced and alive in the second half, and the show does a better job of balancing its wry cynicism with deeply felt emotion. With stronger writing to work with, Lapine and the cast are able to relax; the busy choreography is all but abandoned, and Lapine's staging is less self-consciously showy. The two halves are integrated enough that it would rob Act II of some of its impact to completely throw out Act I, but the jump in quality is pronounced.

The best unifying element of this revival is the strength of its cast, all of whom range from good to great. As Marvin, Christian Borle abandons the scenery chewing that has defined his last two Broadway outings to deliver a more nuanced, believable characterization. Unfortunately, the first half of the show really highlights Marvin's self-serving qualities, something you wish Borle was able to undercut with some tenderness to make him a more likable protagonist. The second act gives Borle a lot more opportunity to show different sides of Marvin, and ultimately your heart breaks with him during the show's final scene (which also features the most striking image of Lapine's staging).

Andrew Rannells is a competent foil as Whizzer, although you wish the show afforded him more of a chance to show off his comedic chops. Brandon Uranowitz brings much appreciated authenticity to his portrayal of Mendel, and young Anthony Rosenthal's innate charm makes the temperamental Jason feel like a real preteen rather than an adult author's caricature of one. Tracie Thoms and Betsy Wolfe are a welcomed presence as the next door neighbors, with Thoms notably in very fine voice throughout.

But the cast's biggest standout is Stephanie J. Block, back on Broadway for the first time since her Tony-nominated turn in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. As Trina, Block blossoms into the most compellingly drawn and engaging character in the show, to the point where she often feels like the lead in what is ostensibly Marvin's show. Block is certainly its emotional center, which makes her effortless delivery of "I'm Breaking Down," one of the most broadly comedic songs in the show, all the more impressive. Block offers a fascinating peak beneath Trina's determinedly perfect facade, showing us a woman not wholly prepared to deal with the curveballs life has given her and yet soldiering on anyway. It is a marvelously accomplished performance which is endlessly watchable and yet never overstated.

Overall, there is both good and bad to be found in Falsettos, and it's unfortunate that the less successful elements are concentrated in the first half. By the end of the night, Falsettos proves to be an engaging and even moving portrait of an imperfect yet loving family, with the talented cast doing much to smooth over the rough patches at the beginning of the show. When the show stops being concerned with novelty and showiness, it truly sings, illustrating how the trials and tribulations of love and family are the same no matter what your sexual orientation.

Most Anticipated Shows of Fall 2016

It's hard to believe, but it is already mid-September, which means that the 2016-2017 Broadway season is about to get started in earnest. This fall sees 15 plays and musicals debuting on the Great White Way, and while I am a firm believer that there is an audience for every Broadway show, certain productions obviously appeal more to my tastes than others. So here, in no particular order, are the 5 shows I am most excited to see this fall:

Falsettos

Christian Borle, Stephanie J. Block, and Andrew Rannells will be taking on the leads in the Broadway revival of William Finn's Falsettos.

I will admit that a lot of my excitement for Falsettos stems from the fact everyone else is so excited. I'm not at all familiar with William Finn's breakthrough Broadway musical, so I don't share the enthusiasm of folks who grew up listening to the cast album. In fact, I'm actually not the biggest fan of Finn's work, having only truly enjoyed his oddball, semi-autobiographical Off-Broadway gem A New Brain. I also have major reservations about Christian Borle in the lead role of Marvin, as I have found his past two Broadway performances insanely irritating and full of selfishly bad acting habits.

That said, I *adore* both Stephanie J. Block and Andrew Rannells, who are playing Marvin's ex-wife and his current boyfriend respectively. And as a gay man living in New York City, I find myself more and more interested in what the gay experience was like for previous generations. The fact that Falsettos resonates so strongly with so many gay men also piques my curiosity, so I'm hoping this is a production that causes me to reevaluate my feelings about both William Finn and Christian Borle as artists.

Preview begin September 29th, Opening Night October 27th

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Recording star Josh Groban makes his Broadway debut in the highly anticipated transfer of the groundbreaking Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is, quite simply, one of the most innovative, exciting new musicals of the past decade. I absolutely adored the Off-Broadway production of David Malloy's genre-bending pop opera, having seen the show 3 times and naming it the single best piece of theatre I saw in 2013. I'm absolutely thrilled that it will reach a wider audience through its Broadway transfer, and sincerely hope the show is a runaway success which encourages more experimental musicals to make the leap to Broadway.

I cannot wait to see how director Rachel Chavkin has reconceptualized her immersive, in the round staging to work in a more traditional theatrical setting. I also cannot wait to see what newcomer Denee Benton does with the title role, which introduced the world to the incomparable talents of Phillipa Soo before she shot to stardom in a little musical called Hamilton. (Fun fact: Soo's work in Natasha directly led to her casting in the Broadway blockbuster, as Lin-Manuel Miranda offered her the role of Eliza Hamilton after being floored by her performance as Natasha). This is probably the show I am most excited about for the fall.

Previews begin October 18th, Opening Night November 14th

In Transit

In Transit looks to make history as the first a capella musical on the Great White Way.

I'm not quite sure what In Transit will actually look like, which is part of what has me excited to see it. An a capella musical about the lives of contemporary New Yorkers set during their daily subway commute, this show is being performed in the round at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre. I have a large amount of respect for director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, who has produced some of the most inventively staged musical numbers of the past two decades. I am also highly intrigued by the fact that Oscar-winning Frozen cowriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez will be making her Broadway debut with this piece along with 3 other first-time composer/lyricist/bookwriters. The show could end up being an unwieldy mess, but the show has ambition, something Broadway could always use more of.

Previews begin November 10th, Opening Night December 11th

Dear Evan Hansen

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's first rate Dear Evan Hansen will premiere at Broadway's Music Box Theatre this fall.

Along with Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, this is the show I'm most excited about for the fall season. A wholly original musical from the same songwriting team behind the surprisingly endearing A Christmas Story, Dear Evan Hansen was already a Broadway caliber production when I saw it at Second Stage earlier this year. The music is gorgeous, the book is solid, and the performances are top notch, including award worthy work from Ben Platt and Rachel Bay Jones as the titular Evan Hansen and his mother, respectively. In a world with more and more film adaptations and corporate-minded Broadway shows, Evan Hansen is a beacon of light that will not only restore your faith in the Broadway musical as an art form, but make you excited for what's next. I can't wait for more people to get the chance to experience it.

Previews begin November 14th, Opening Night December 4th

The Present

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett makes her long-awaited Broadway debut in The Present, a new adaptation of a little-seen Chekov play.

Two words: Cate Blanchett. As far as I'm concerned, the two-time Oscar-winner is one of the most gifted actresses around, instantly raising the prestige level of any project she's attached to. I can't wait to see her bring her magnetic presence and dynamic acting style to this new adaptation of the lesser known Chekov play Platonov, and the fact that this marks Blanchett's long-awaited Broadway debut makes the production all the more buzz-worthy. I do worry that the show itself will prove a bit esoteric for my tastes, but the prospect of seeing Blanchett work her magic live overrides any trepidation I might have.

Previews begin December 17th, Opening Night January 8th


Those are my most anticipated shows of the fall season; let me know yours in the comments!