Musical: Gentleman's Guide Play: Casa Valentina Revival/Musical: Hedwig Revival/Play: The Glass Menagerie Actress/Play: Cherry Jones or Audra McDonald (don't care which-a tie would make me very, very happy) Actor/Play: Bryan Cranston Actress/Musical: Kelli O'Hara Actor/Musical: Neil Patrick Harris Featured Actor/Play: Paul Chahidi Featured Actress/Play: Celia Keenan-Bolger Featured Actor/Musical: James M. Iglehart Featured Actress/Musical: Lena Hall Director/Musical: Michael Mayer Director/Play: John Tiffany
I haven't seen enough of the nominees to have a fair assessment. But I do have a soft spot for James Monroe Iglehart, my first Mitch Mahoney. And Ruthie's mom in Bat Boy. :)
"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt
Since this is who I WANT to win and not who I predict will win:
Mothers and Sons for Play; Samuel Barnett, Cherry Jones, Brian J. Smith, Celia Keenan-Bolger, John Tiffany, The Glass Menagerie for Revival; Es Devlin - Machinal for Scenic Design, Jenny Tiramini - Twelfth Night for Costume Design; Natasha Katz - The Glass Menagerie for Lighting Design; and Matt Tierney - Machinal for Sound Design
Gentleman's Guide for Musical, Book & Score; Jefferson Mays, Jessie Muller, Nick Cordero or Jarrod Spector; Anika Larsen or Adriane Lenox; Darko Tresnjak; Warren Carlyle for Choreography; Steve Sidwell for Orchestrations (for Beautiful); Santo Loquasto, Linda Cho's Gentleman's Guide costumes (with Isabel Toledo in a close second for After Midnight); HOwell Binkley for After Midnight; and Peter Hylenski for After Midnight
But what I'd like most of all is to see Mark Rylance lose in both categories. It's too bad he was even nominated for either of those performances. Unfortunately, he is now more likely to win at least one award, if not both.
The only category that I am really invested in now is Lead Actor in a Musical. I saw Les Mis on Sunday and during "Bring Him Home" I truly felt intoxicated...or like I was getting an injection of morphine intravenously. I have seen a lot of performances, but no one has ever given me that kind experience before. I am seeing Hedwig on 5/10. NPH is going to have to really amaze me for me to pull for him over Ramin.
"The price of love is loss, but still we pay; We love anyway."
Best Play - Casa Valentina (not that I thought it was that good, but it’s better written, I thought, than the others)
Best Musical - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (to me, no contest)
Best Revival of a Play - Twelfth Night
Best Revival of a Musical – I didn’t like any of them enough to call any one “best”
Best Book of a Musical - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play - Mark Rylance, Richard III
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play - Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical - Jefferson Mays, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical - Jessie Mueller, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play - Reed Birney, Casa Valentina (or Mark Rylance, Twelfth Night – both were great, but Rylance has thousands of prior performances of the role to use as inspiration; Birney created anew role)
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play - Celia Keenan-Bolger, The Glass Menagerie
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical – I don’t care enough about these performances
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical - Lauren Worsham, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Scenic Design of a Play - Beowulf Boritt, Act One
Best Scenic Design of a Musical - Alexander Dodge, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Costume Design of a Play - Rita Ryack, Casa Valentina
Best Costume Design of a Musical - William Ivey Long, Bullets Over Broadway
Best Direction of a Play - Tim Carroll, Twelfth Night
Best Direction of a Musical - Darko Tresnjak, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Best Choreography – none are good enough to be “best”
Best Orchestrations - Jonathan Tunick, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
The ones I'd pull for against odds (though some will indeed be odds-on favorites):
Play OUTSIDE MULLINGAR (easily the play that most delighted me this year and stands as the best combination of production and text head and shoulders above the rest to me.)
Actress in a Musical Jessie Mueller's time has come, as she carried BEAUTIFUL on her shoulders to 7 nominations. But if Sutton wins again, she's the only performer in that field who I'd think beat Jessie on the merits of her performance.
Featured Actress in a Play Celia Keenan-Bolger in MENAGERIE was both the most heartbreaking Laura I've ever seen and the most fully-realized emotional breadth and depth I've ever seen from her.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.