2017 Tony Award Predictions: Best Featured Actress

We are fast approaching Broadway's biggest night, which means I will continue my annual tradition of predicting Tony winners! Using a combination of personal opinion, critical praise, and industry buzz, I will do my best to pick the people and productions who will be honored by the American Theatre Wing on June 11th. And if the person who *will* win doesn't match up with who I think *should* win, I will be sure to mention it in my analysis.

On to the Best Featured Actress races!

Best Featured Actress in a Play

Condola Rashad (right) and Laurie Metcalf in A Doll's House, Part 2.

Nominees: Johanna Day, Sweat; Jayne Houdyshell, A Doll's House, Part 2; Cynthia Nixon, The Little Foxes; Condola Rashad, A Doll's House, Part 2; Michelle Wilson, Sweat

Two different productions have produced multiple nominees in this category, which if you subscribe to the idea of vote splitting means that The Little Foxes' Cynthia Nixon should be the winner by default. And while that is a possibility, it seems unlikely to me, as Nixon has far buzz than her costar Laura Linney. They may not be competing in the same category, but thanks to the production's repertory conceit they are playing the same roles, and the consensus seems to be that Linney is better at both of them.

A Doll's House, Part 2 gives us the higher profile names, as both Jayne Houdyshell and Condola Rashad are well established in the New York theatre scene. Houdyshell just won this award last year, and while winning back to back Tonys is not unheard of (just ask Judith Light), I would be surprised to see the veteran actress take the trophy home again this year. Her costar seems a far more likely winner, having been nominated for three of her four Broadway outings without winning. Tony voters clearly like Rashad, and the fact that she's in the most nominated play of the season certainly doesn't hurt her chances. It is entirely possible Sweat's Johanna Day or Michelle Wilson pull off an upset, but this feels like Rashad's year to me.

Will Win: Condola Rashad, A Doll's House, Part 2
Should Win: Abstain

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Stephanie J Block in Falsettos.

Nominees: Kate Baldwin, Hello, Dolly!; Stephanie J. Block, Falsettos; Jenn Colella, Come From Away; Rachel Bay Jones, Dear Evan Hansen; Mary Beth Peil, Anastasia

What a category! This is probably the most competitive of the musical acting races, as the nominees here gave what may be scene for scene the best performances of the season. The only scenario I simply can't envision is Mary Beth Peil winning for Anastasia, a musical that didn't really set critics or Tony voters on fire. And while it's not impossible that a swell of love for Hello, Dolly! brings Kate Baldwin to the winner's podium, it is improbably, as the awkwardly written role doesn't do the delightful soprano any favors (no matter how lovely her rendition of "Ribbons Down My Back" might be).

This is really a three way race between Stephanie J. Block, Jenn Colella, and Rachel Bay Jones, an embarrassment of riches that we are lucky to have. Block was by far the best thing about Falsettos, a fascinating portrait of a regular woman struggling to hold on to her sanity after her entire life is upended when she learns her husband is gay. A beloved member of the Broadway community who has yet to win the coveted Tony Away, Falsettos is Block's best work to date, as evidenced by the thunderous applause which greeted her big solo every evening.

Rachel Bay Jones also plays a mother struggling to keep her head above water in Dear Evan Hansen, and her layered portrayal acknowledges Heidi Hansen's flaws while also celebrating her bravery and humanity. Jones' performance of the Act II ballad "So Big/So Small" is simply devastating thanks to her emotional honesty and vulnerability, and by the end of the song you want her to be your mother as well. It's a very difficult act to compete with, which is why I think she will ultimately win over Block and the winsome, inspiring Jenn Colella, who's powerhouse performance of "Me and the Sky" in Come From Away is one of the most thrilling musical moments of the season.

Will Win: Rachel Bay Jones, Dear Evan Hansen
Should Win: Stephanie J. Block, Falsettos (but make not mistake, Jones is phenomenal and more than earns this award)

Check back over the next week for the rest of my Tony predictions, including the Lead Actor/Actress races and the all important Best Musical category. Until then, share your own thoughts in the comments, and catch up with the rest of my 2017 Tony coverage below:

Nominations React
Best Book and Score
Best Direction and Choreography
Best Featured Actor

Searching for a Connection, One Post at a Time

Review: Dear Evan Hansen

Ben Platt (center) and the cast of Dear Evan Hansen.

The most satisfying aspect of the Broadway transfer of Dear Evan Hansen, the fantastic new musical which premiered Off-Broadway at Second Stage last spring, is seeing just how well the show has expanded to fill its new theatrical home. Very little has changed from its initial incarnation, but the cast and creative team have deepened and sharpened the show's emotional center to create the most satisfying musical of the current Broadway season. In a theatrical landscape bursting with movie adaptations and big-budget musical revivals, the wholly original Hansen is a breath of fresh air, showcasing a contemporary edge that supports rather than fights its universal appeal.

Loosely inspired by real life events at co-composer/lyricist Benj Pasek's high school, the show opens with the perpetually awkward and lonely Evan Hansen starting his senior year with a broken arm and serious social anxiety. Every day Evan writes himself a letter designed to be encouraging, and through a series of mishaps one of these notes ends up in the possession of troubled fellow student Connor Murphy right before Connor takes his own life. With Evan as the last seeming link to their now dead son, Connor's parents and his younger sister (who Evan has long had a crush on) reach out to Evan in an attempt to ease their grief by learning more about the boys' relationship. And when word of this supposed friendship gets out to the school at large, Evan becomes one of the most talked about - and oddly popular - kids at school.

Much has been made of the contemporary trappings of Evan Hansen; social media, emails, and a host of other methods of electronic communication feature prominently in the plot. But what makes the show truly moving is how the composing team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul along with bookwriter Steven Levenson so clearly delineate the ways in which these new technologies all exist to fulfill the very basic, primal need of human beings to feel like they belong. At its heart, Evan Hansen is a show about a group of individuals longing for human connection and the lengths they'll go through to get it. The show also offers a compelling, multifaceted look at how different individuals process grief, and the struggles of parenting teenagers in any decade (the show telling opens with a brief song for Evan and Connor's mothers entitled "Anybody Have a Map?").

Pasek and Paul's score effortlessly captures the infinite complexity of these issues, exploring them with intelligence and depth without offering any easy answers. Their soaring melodies and evocative harmonies cut to the very core of these characters, and yet are unabashedly gorgeous in their own right. The duo was Tony-nominated for their Broadway debut on A Christmas Story, but the treasure trove of songs they've written for Evan Hansen far surpasses their work on that charming holiday adaptation. Pasek and Paul assert their mastery of the musical theatre form again and again, be it on Evan's trasnportive "For Forever," the haunting "Requiem" for the Murphy family, or the buoyant and deliciously droll "Sincerely, Me." The pair also wisely knows when to let their songwriting abilities take a backseat to Levenson's excellent scene work, which expertly moves the plot along without making the sacrifices in depth that too many musical bookwriters make in the name of efficiency.

Everything is directed with unerring precision by Michael Greif, the man behind the artistically similar Next to Normal and If/Then. Greif's ability to balance the show's humor and pathos is remarkable, and he knows exactly how long to let a particular moment or scene breathe before seamlessly transitioning to the next story beat. If there is one critique to be had, it's that Greif hasn't quite brought his design team up to his level, particularly the lighting. Japhy Weideman's stylized lighting design helps to emphasize the cold and sometimes isolating nature of internet communication, but his overuse of harsh downlight often leaves actors' faces partially obscured and difficult to read, particularly from the mezzanine.

Yet even when not fully lit, the cast of Evan Hansen is simply sublime from top to bottom. The clear standout is young Ben Platt as the title character, delivering one of the most fascinating and wonderfully textured leading man performances of the season. While Platt's collection of physical tics and awkward mannerisms felt a tad forced Off-Broadway, here they are entirely believable and instantly establish Evan as a lovable loser who can't quite figure out this whole high school thing. Platt's soaring voice is a perfectly matched to a role clearly created around his specific set of talents, and his is the most exciting star turn on Broadway since Cynthia Erivo burst onto the scene in last season's The Color Purple (like Erivo, I expect Platt to do very well come awards season). Platt proves to be an exceedingly accomplished actor for someone so young, effortlessly carrying the evening and making you root for Evan even while cringing at some of the character's more questionable decisions.

Platt is matched scene for scene by the rest of his cast mates, who are universally excellent. Special praise must go to Jennifer Laura Thompson and Rachel Bay Jones as Cynthia Murphy and Heidi Hansen respectively. Both play mothers struggling against obstacles they are woefully unprepared for, and each actress shares their character's vulnerability and strength in equal measure. Your heart will break repeatedly for Thompson as she desperately clings to any scrap of a connection with her departed son Connor, displaying a grief which is heartrendingly real while also allowing us to see the character's lighter side. And Jones is sensational as Evan's mom Heidi, trying her best to raise her son on her own but clearly overwhelmed by her circumstances. Only the most hardened of hearts will remain unmoved by her rendition of "So Big/So Small" near the show's conclusion, a remarkable insightful encapsulation a mother's love and heartache while trying to figure out where their lives go next.

It is rare for a musical to burst onto the scene as fully formed as Dear Evan Hansen, especially one not based on any kind of source material. The contemporary trappings provide a new context for a universal story about longing and acceptance, the struggles we all face in navigating the challenges of day to day life. Superbly written and expertly performed, this is an enthralling musical for the ages, one which deserves to be seen by the widest audience possible.

Grief in the Time of Twitter

Review: Dear Evan Hansen

Ben Platt (center) and the cast of Dear Evan Hansen

One of the best musicals of the year is playing just Off-Broadway on West 43rd Street, where Dear Evan Hansen recently opened at the Second Stage Theatre. Featuring a top-notch score by Tony-nominated songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul along with a host of dynamic performances, Evan Hansen is the definition of a contemporary musical, tackling the concerns and issues arising from our increasingly digital society with wit and deep psychological insight.

The story follows the titular Evan Hansen, an awkward, lonely teen starting his senior year of high school with a broken wrist and very few friends. On the first day of school, a series of misunderstandings leads others to assume Evan is friends with another loner, Connor Murphy, a troubled youth who takes his own life just a few days later. With Connor's family turning to Evan for comfort, the misunderstanding steadily grows thanks to the power of social media and Evan's own questionable choices.

At the heart of Steven Levenson's book is a mature, probing look at grief and how tragedies bind us together in the age of social media and viral videos. The show is not about what led Connor to take his own life (an explanation is never provided or even hinted at), but rather about how those left behind process their grief. It also examines the communal aspects of the way we mourn, and asks how much of the professed sadness on social media stems from a desire to belong to some kind of community, even one bound together by tragedy. Levenson's layered writing manages to tackle these issues in a way that feels both specific and universal, all while keeping the show's action rooted in the fully realized characters at the heart of the story.

Augmenting the emotional exploration of the piece immensely is Pasek and Paul's fantastic pop-rock score, a marvel of modern musical theatre songwriting that packs in all the vocal tricks associated with contemporary music (sky high belting, complex riffs, and tight harmonies) without ever feeling flashy or showy. For all of the pair's giddy musical invention, they ensure that every note and syllable furthers the story and characters, with every song serving multiple functions. Evan's soaring "For Forever" paints a beautiful picture of a (fictional) summer day, setting into motion the story's central deception while simultaneously allowing him to express his innermost desires, all carried off using one of the catchiest melodic hooks of the past few seasons. This kind of complex writing makes every musical number a treat, and the lush orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire make the small 8-person band sound just as rich as a pit twice the size.

The cast is first rate, anchored by Ben Platt's searing portrayal of the lonely and lost Evan Hansen. Known primarily for comedic roles in films like Pitch Perfect and musicals like The Book of Mormon, Platt reveals unending wells of deeply felt emotion over the course of the evening. Unafraid of being vulnerable, by the time Platt sings his character's climatic "Words Fail" both he and the audience are reduced to a blubbering mess, the kind of shared catharsis that occurs only when an actor lays their entire soul bare onstage. Yet Platt is also laugh-out-loud funny, mining Levenson's book for all its humor and providing an excellent comedic balance to the show's gut-wrenching pathos. If Platt occasionally overdoes his character's physical tics, the rest of his performance is so compelling you're unlikely to care.

Rachel Bay Jones is fantastic as Evan's mother Heidi, showing us every facet of a single mother struggling "without a roadmap" to be the best parent she can be to her pride and joy. Jones' instantly accessible persona draws you in while her extremely expressive face conveys a wealth of conflicting emotions, all of which finally bubble to the surface during "Good For You." Just a few scenes later, the supremely gifted actress is both heartwarming and quietly devastating during "So Big/So Small," one of the most touching musical moments of the season.

Both Jennifer Laura Thompson and John Dossett are excellent as Connor's parents, offering very different but entirely captivating portrayals of grief. Laura Dreyfuss offers what initially appears to be a generic take on Connor's younger sister, but by the time she gets to her first big solo she reveals a convincingly complex take on someone who both loathes and desperately misses her big brother. And although Mike Faist doesn't get a lot of time onstage as the real Connor Murphy, the character returns multiple times in other people's memories, and Faist's ability to slightly alter his characterization to reflect how each character remembers him is astounding.

Director Michael Greif uses many of the same tricks he employed in past shows like Rent, If/Then, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, the show Dear Evan Hansen is most obviously inspired by. While this can occasionally make his staging feel derivative, there's no denying that those tricks work, and few directors are better at making a mostly bare stage interesting to look at than Greif. He has also guided his actors to career-defining performances, making for one of the tightest onstage ensembles since, well, Next to Normal.

For all its dark overtones, Dear Evan Hansen proves to be an ultimately uplifting and deeply satisfying piece of theatre, Already more accomplished than the majority of big Broadway offerings this season, the show continues the boundary-pushing experimentation of musicals like Fun Home and the megahit Hamilton, both of which originated Off-Broadway before making their much-acclaimed Main Stem bows. Since producers have yet to announce any transfer plans for this more than deserving show, everyone should rush to see this first rate musical drama while they still can.