You are reinventing history. Dreamgirls opened in December and got great reviews, etc. Since the season was not great for musicals, it was a foregone conclusion that it would win the Tony. Then Nine came along in May, with no big advance, and also got great reviews. By the time of the Tony's, maybe a month after Nine opened, the race was viewed as neck and neck. The distribution of wins would also provide a pretty good argument re just how neck and neck it was. (I can only think of one other season that was quite so neck in neck: when A Little Night Music and Pippin were in competition).
I personally thought that both productions were incredible and had many moments of pure theatrical magic. I actually thought the distribution of awards was pretty on target, with one exception: Ben Harney winning Best Actor over Raul Julia was IMO ludicrous. Never a big Julia fan, I thought he was great as Guido, in a role that presents some problems that are very similar to that of Bobby in Company. Both roles are fairly passive observers through much of the show, so much so that people sometimes fail to recognize how excellent the performances are.
As for Frozen, you must really love that show. We will never know, but I would expect Frozen to come in a distant fourth in the voting, based on the reviews and the lack of nominations overall, not to mention the fact that it is pretty awful IMO. Interestingly, I have to admit that I went to Frozen with three women (my wife and two friends of 40+ years)...all three loved it, whereas I thought it was borderline awful, with a lousy score, with leads who were 15 - 20 years too old for the roles they were in, and those two production numbers early in Act 2 -- I can't remember the last time I saw two such awful numbers occurring within 10 minutes of each other).
Updated On: 6/8/18 at 10:57 AM