2015 Tony Predictions: Best Featured Actress

As the 2015 Tony Awards creep ever closer, my annual predictions have now entered the Big 12 categories. The 8 acting and 4 production awards seem to be the most coveted of all Tonys, particularly from an advertising perspective. They also tend to provoke the most speculation and lead to the closest races of any given season, and this year's crop of nominees is no different. While doing my best to predict who will actually win, I will also be sure to point out if I think there is a more deserving performer in danger of being overlooked. Of course, anything can happen on Tony Sunday (the Featured categories are a hotbed for surprise nominees and winners), but as of right now, here are my best guesses as to who will go home victorious on June 7th.

Warning: Occasional snark and plenty of speculation to follow.

Best Featured Actress in a Play

Lydia Leonard (right) with fellow Tony nominee Ben Miles in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Wolf Hall.

Nominees: Annaleigh Ashford, You Can't Take It With You; Patricia Clarkson, The Elephant Man; Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts I & II; Sarah Stiles, Hand to God; Julie White, Airline Highway

Just like their male counterparts, this season's Featured Actress in a Play nominees find themselves in a wide open race. As with her costar K. Todd Freeman, I think Julie White will be severely handicapped by the fact that Airline Highway has almost no awards momentum (it failed to make the cut for Best Play); also, as a previous Tony winner White may be held back by voters who prefer to spread the love. Meanwhile, while Sarah Stiles has one knockout scene in Hand to God along with several supporting bits, I expect her to be overlooked in favor of an actress whose role is a little more fleshed out.

Annaleigh Ashford was hysterical in last fall's You Can't Take It With You, and the widely publicized story of how she performed on pointe despite breaking her toe during rehearsals will certainly earn her some brownie points. But Ashford's show opened and closed a long time ago, a major handicap I don't think her well-liked performance can quite overcome. She is still a dark horse candidate, but I think her chances would be greater if the show had lasted until March or April rather than early February.

Patricia Clarkson and Lydia Leonard are in the best position here, as although they are competing in the "Featured" category both are in practice the female leads of their respective shows (a situation that helped The Book of Mormon's Nikki M. James win her Tony Award back in 2011). Clarkson's show has been closed since mid-February, but thanks to the buzz surrounding Bradley Cooper's performance as the titular Elephant Man I expect most voters saw and remembered her performance. But Lydia Leonard is a Shakespearean actress in a critically acclaimed, two part period drama which provides her nearly twice the material as any of her competitors, which is a pretty hard combination to beat. I expect this is ultimately her race to lose.

Will and Should Win: Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts I & II


 

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Judy Kuhn (left) and fellow Featured Actress Tony nominee Sydney Lucas in the Broadway transfer of Fun Home.

Nominees: Victoria Clark, Gigi; Judy Kuhn, Fun Home; Sydney Lucas, Fun Home; Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I; Emily Skeggs, Fun Home

It's lovely Victoria Clark has received her fourth career Tony nomination this year (even if I personally would rather have seen On the Town's Alysha Umphress in this spot). That said, I don't think she has a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning, with the main question in this race being whether or not the three Fun Home actresses cancel one another out and allow Ruthie Ann Miles to complete the ultimate Cinderella story and win a Tony Award for her Broadway debut.

Pitting the Fun Home actresses against one another forces voters to pick a favorite, something that is incredibly difficult and will likely split votes. Judy Kuhn, Emily Skeggs, and young Sydney Lucas all do fantastic work in the chamber musical, each providing some excellent scene work capped off by the score's three best songs (Kuhn's "Days and Days," Skeggs' "Changing My Major," and Lucas' "Ring of Keys"). The incredibly talented Lucas has one of the largest and most important roles in the show, as her scenes with Michael Cerveris form the dramatic crux of the evening and the key to understanding both characters. But Kuhn is practically a theatrical institution, with three previous nominations but no wins to her name, and although her character doesn't say much the actress makes every syllable count. Furthermore, her interpretation of the aforementioned "Days and Days" is some of the most accomplished musical acting currently on Broadway.

In fact, Kuhn is probably the biggest threat to Miles, and I can honestly see the race going either way. Unfortunately the other theatrical awards don't provide much insight into how voters may be leaning, as Kuhn's award-winning work in Fun Home's Off-Broadway production last season made her ineligible this year, clearing the way for Miles to win an Outer Critics Circle Award earlier this month. I personally would favor Miles, as her "Something Wonderful" is every bit as marvelous as Kuhn's big number, with the added bonus that Miles has comparatively more to do and imbues every move her character makes with a multitude of meanings. But if the industry's already established love of Kuhn leads to them honoring the Broadway veteran with her first Tony Award, I couldn't reasonably complain.

Will Win: Judy Kuhn, Fun Home
Should Win: Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I


And that wraps up my predictions for the Featured performances, which are the categories that usually bring down my batting average on Tony night. Check back on Friday as I begin to tackle the Lead Actor and Actress categories. You can also catch up on all my previous Tony coverage below, and be sure to check back every Monday and Friday from now until the telecast for more updates!

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

Something Truly Wonderful

Review: The King and I

Ken Watanabe and Kelli O'Hara are exquisitely matched in Bartlett Sher's knockout revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I.

There's no such thing as perfection, especially in a subjective artistic medium like the theatre. That said, Lincoln Center's ravishing, radiant, and visually stunning revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I is so close to an ideal evening at the theatre that for all intents and purposes it is exactly that. Perhaps even more than the non-profit's critically lauded South Pacific several seasons back, this revival removes all artifice, pretention, and preexisting baggage from a well worn show and reveals it anew as an emotionally complex, culturally relevant and deeply moving piece of musical writing from one of the greatest creative teams to ever live.

Following the pitch perfect overture (played by a 29 piece orchestra under the baton of Ted Sperling), we are whisked away to the beautifully exotic kingdom of Siam circa 1862. On the prow of an incoming ship we meet British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens (a luminous Kelli O'Hara), who has come to this faraway land with her son to educate the King of Siam's many children and wives in the ways of the West. The imposing and often temperamental King (a gleeful Ken Watanabe, in his Broadway debut) has more than a few clashes with the strong-willed Misses Anna as the show turns an intelligent and quizzical eye towards issues of imperialism, gender politics, and the qualifications of a good ruler. There are multiple subplots to round out the evening, but the central relationship of Anna and the King is the musical's primary concern, and it is one of the most richly textured and nuanced in the entire musical theatre cannon.

Despite the show's age, nothing about director Barlett Sher's superlative staging feels dusty or antiquated; indeed, many of Hammerstein's observations about gender politics and race relations remain relevant even today. Sher unearths the many layers in both the book scenes and the songs in such a way that everything feels necessary, and every line, lyric, and piece of incidental musical adds to our overall understanding of the characters and the plot. Unlike many productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's work, there is nothing precious or twee about this revival, which treats the work with the same seriousness as a great drama without shying away from the piece's inherent humor and charm. And moreso than almost any other director working today, Sher knows how to make excellent use of the cavernous Vivian Beaumont Theatre's thrust stage, creating a neverending series of beautiful stage pictures that seamlessly ensure a good view of the action no matter where you're sitting (Christopher Gattelli's choreography is equally entrancing).

Once again, Sher guides his frequent collaborator Kelli O'Hara to a performance of startling depth and emotional honesty. Rodgers and Hammerstein's score doesn't allow O'Hara to show the full range of her gorgeous soprano, but that doesn't prevent her from sounding absolutely stunning on the score's many standards. When she wraps her golden tones around "Getting to Know You," it's every bit as warm and inviting as you'd hope, and her rendition of "Hello, Young Lovers" is positively captivating. But it's not just O'Hara's nearly unequalled vocal technique that makes her a joy to watch; her thoughtful, textured delivery of the lyrics makes these much sung songs sound like entirely new, spur of the moment thoughts (a quality best showcased during her superlative "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" towards the end of the first act). O'Hara makes you believe every syllable of what she's saying, and she imbues every gesture with a multitude of meaning in yet another stellar addition to her ever growing resume.

Her performance is matched every step of the way by an incredibly affecting and genuinely exciting star turn from Ken Watanabe as the King. Watanabe doesn't completely throw out the template created by Tony-winner Yul Brynner, but by the end of the show he has created a take on the commanding monarch that is wholly his own and just as effective. His King exhibits a palpable joy when learning more about his charge and her culture, and both the actor and the character clearly relish their frequent, playful sparring with O'Hara's Anna. Yet the immensely likable Watanabe is also capable of producing an intense anger that strikes fear in his subjects' hearts, a juxtaposition that explains why most of the characters seem both terrified and fiercely protective of their King. Most importantly, Watanabe has excellent chemistry with O'Hara, which pays off in spades during their exhilarating "Shall We Dance?"

The supporting cast is just as capable as the leads, often while being given decidedly less to work with. Ruthie Ann Miles is superb as the King's primary wife Lady Thiang, showing exquisite depth and nuance as she regally slinks across the stage and turning "Something Wonderful" into a legitimate showstopper. As the impetuous Tuptim, a young girl given to the King as a gift despite longing for another, Ashley Park displays beautiful vocal control during her soaring ballads and also grounds the particularly harrowing confrontation between herself and the King during the show's climax. Jake Lucas brings surprising honesty to his performance as Anna's son Louis, and shares a particularly lovely duet with Jon Viktor Corpuz's Prince Chulalongkorn, the King's eldest son and heir.

For the physical production, Lincoln Center and the show's design team have pulled out all the stops, creating one of the most unabashedly gorgeous musicals of the past decade. Michael Yeargan's gasp-inducing set is a continual delight, its rich color palette and thoughtfully detailed scenic units combining to create a world that is at once mystifying and intoxicating. Catherine Zuber's costumes are a show unto themselves, resplendent jewel toned creations that celebrate the musical's Asian setting without feeling tacky or disrespectful. There is a beautiful movement to all of her pieces, but most especially the showstopping dress O'Hara dons during the famous "Shall We Dance" waltz; watching the iridescent purple gown twirl about the massive stage is one of the most stunning and memorable images of the season. And everything is beautifully lit by Donald Holder in bold colors and patterns that make the already expansive set appear even larger than it actually is.

The King and I is must see theatre, the kind of event show that only comes along once in a great while. Everything about this revival sparkles, from Sher's direction to the uniformly fantastic performances to the absolutely breathtaking production design. It is difficult to imagine a more accomplished production of this oft-produced show, and this version is sure to stay with you long after the final ultimo emanates from the Beaumont's orchestra pit. It is something wonderful indeed.