Bizarre Acting Category Placements

singer234 said: "Though she wasn’t nominated, I also thought it was odd Lea Michele was considered featured for Wendla in Spring Awakening. The part may have less stage time then Melchior, but has quite a few songs and solos, and plot wise is basically the female counterpart to him. Seems like an obvious leading man/lady (or boy/girl in this case) situation, but I guess they felt differently."

Lea Michele was considered leading for Spring Awakening. And while I agree with it, ironically that probably ended up costing her a nomination as leading was a much more competitive category that year than featured was.

https://www.playbill.com/article/tony-rulings-poppins-score-eligible-for-nomination-les-miz-and-chorus-line-directors-ineligible-com-137823

NameGreg said: "I was just thinking of two examples and figured a thread could bring forth some others.

I personally never understood why Susan Browning and Leland Palmer were nominated in lead for playing April in Company and Fastrada in Pippin respectively. Both roles are very clearly supporting, with the latters character practically being a nonentity in her shows second half.

Also another strange placement in Companys first Broadway production was Elaine Stritch in lead for playing Joanne. But thats at least understandable since she was easily the most famous actor in the cast and her role, while firmly supporting, is at least the second biggest showcase of the ensemble

Despite there being some excellent actresses in the category, they were very lean. They were nominated to fill in the category. Stupidly.

I would suggest several that are probably controversial; they would have deservedly won in featured, but managed to win in lead, despite some serious competition.

-- George Rose in My Fair Lady

-- Joanna Gleason in Into the Woods

-- Donna MacKechnie in A Chorus Line

One that sort of mystified me: Ron Leibman won lead actor for the Millenium Approaches portion of Angels in America; yet, Nathan Lane was only nominated in featured category, despite appearing in both parts.

OF course there are all those performers who won or were nominated for featured instead of lead, because their names were not above the title, e.g., Maureen Stapleton for The Rose Tattoo; Tammy Grimes for The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

singer234 said: "You’re right, my mistake! I had it totally switched in my head. If I recall she was upset she wasn’t considered featured because she thought her stage time was equivalent to John Gallagher Jr’s, or something to that effect. My b."

I definitely had to look it up because I couldn't remember, and I could definitely see both them considering her featured and her wanting to be considered featured. But I agree it makes more sense to have her leading.

NameGreg said "Another odd one that I thought of was both Howard McGillin and Will Chase being nominated as featured players for portraying John Jasper in Drood. What makes this much more noticeable is that Cleo Laine and Stephanie J. Block were nominated for those productions in lead for playing the Princess Puffer and Edwin Drood/Dick Datchery respectively, even though both Jasper is clearly a larger part than both."

In the case of Chase, I'm pretty sure Roundabout wanted him in featured because they knew he had no chance in leading that year (was pretty clearly established it would be between Billy Porter and Bertie Carvel) whereas featured was pretty wide open. Plus they had Jim Norton in leading, so presumably didn't want two contenders in the same category. But definitely another case where the role could go either way.

dramamama611 said: "I know the whole "over the title" thing with regards to placement, but I have a question about exceptions: I know the producers of individual shows can petition for different placement, but can/does the committee have the power to make that choice WITHOUT the formal request?"

This is a huge gray area and I'm pretty sure it's not formally spelled out anywhere. It technically says the producers have to petition any changes, however it also gives the committee the final say in determining eligibility. So I believe they technically can change leading to featured or vice versa without the petition, even though it doesn't specifically say that they can.

The one that always gets me is the fact that Joel Grey won featured for the Emcee in Cabaret but then was considered leading for Amos in the Chicago revival. I mean, the featured part for Cabaret makes a bit of sense since this was well before they started petitioning the committee to change eligibility. But Chicago in what is clearly a featured role in which the production was already pushing for James Naughton in leading? That makes zero sense on any end.

Broadway61004 said:
"The one that always gets me is the fact that Joel Grey won featured for the Emcee in Cabaret but then was considered leading for Amos in the Chicago revival. I mean, the featured part for Cabaret makes a bit of sense since this was well before they started petitioning the committee to change eligibility. But Chicago in what is clearly a featured role in which the production was already pushing for James Naughton in leading? That makes zero sense on any end."

According to Joel Grey, this was actually an error made by someone who worked for the Weisslers. They intended on petitioning for Grey to be "featured" despite being above the title, and the paperwork never went through. Therefore, despite being a lock on the featured actor in a musical Tony that year, Grey wasn't even nominated. I bet Chuck Cooper, who won for The Life, is grateful. Grey was really pissed.

Another fun fact: Elaine Stritch demanded to remain in the leading actress category for her over-the-title performance as Parthy (a pretty small part) in the revival of Show Boat. As a result, she wasn't even nominated despite the fact that only Glenn Close and Show Boat's actual leading lady Rebecca Luker were the only other actresses eligible.

For what it's worth, here's what Elaine Stritch had to say about the 1995 Tonys: “I don’t want to win a Tony for support[ing] at my age. I’m very vibrant and very active in this business — but I am, and, when I have billing on the same line with Cap’n Andy [John McMartin], I want to be nominated for leading lady. I don’t give a (bleep) how many lines I have or how many songs I have. I don’t want to be up for support. Not that I have anything against supporting players—the name itself is my idea of theatre—but, very much like 'Company,' everybody in Show Boat is an ensemble player. There is no star in Show Boat.”

Given how lean the Leading Actress in a Musical category was that season, I wonder why the Tonys didn't bump up Megan Mullally from ''How to Succeed.'' Rosemary IS the leading lady of that show. They also could've bumped up KT Sullivan, who played Lorelei Lee in the Goodspeed revival of ''Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' but they ultimately chose to only nominate Close and Luker.

Updated On: 1/22/21 at 03:42 PM

Thanks, HeyMrMusic. I probably would've singled out a lot of those same examples if I had gotten to this thread earlier. Those debatable choices seem to be due to three things: billing, weak seasons or category fraud.

I also agree with StardustsChild about Mary Beth Peil in ''The King and I.'' She should've been nominated in Leading, and could've competed with Leilani Jones, who was billed above the title in ''Grind.'' Instead, the Tonys dumped the Leading Actress and Actor categories in 1985, and bumped Peil and Jones to Featured (which Jones won). Anna is clearing a Leading role, and all the other actresses who have been Tony-nominated for playing her - Gertrude Lawrence, Donna Murphy and Kelli O'Hara - were up for Leading and won.

I've always felt bad for William Daniels, who deserved to win a Tony for Leading in ''1776.'' But would Daniels have beaten Jerry Orbach (''Promises, Promises'' ), who actually won? Curiously, the Drama Desk singled out about 20 performers that season for awards, but Daniels wasn't even among them!

In more recent history, I really disagreed with the Tonys' treatment of Kristine Nielsen in ''Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike.'' It was an ensemble comedy and Nielsen was below the title. She should've been up for Featured, but the Tonys chose to bump her up to Leading, which cost her, her Tony. (Nielsen lost to the legendary Cicely Tyson in ''Trip to Bountiful.'' ) I agreed with the Outer Critics, which nominated Nielsen for Featured, and she won.

Finally, one more head-scratcher: Ben Fankhauser, as Davey in ''Newsies.'' Jeremy Jordan, who played Jack, is the show's leading man. Fankhauser offered stellar support as Jack's best friend. But even though Davey has no solo songs, the Tonys ruled Fankhauser was eligible for Leading, which made no sense at all. Anyway, Jordan got nominated for Leading (and I think should've won), but Fankhauser was frozen out because he was put in the wrong category. What a shame. He deserved a Featured nomination for his wonderful work.

Updated On: 1/22/21 at 04:08 PM

In terms of the earlier question about whether the Tonys can make up their own minds about category placement regardless of what the show petitions, they can currently do that, although my understanding is that is a relatively recent development and was not true when Joel Grey was in Chicago. It's explicit in the Tony rules that the Administration Committee has the right to "place an eligible candidate in a category other than that indicated by the opening night program or requested by the producer".

I think this happened with Kristine Nielsen. I spoke to her at the stage door for Vanya and Sonia after the Tony nominations were announced, and it seemed clear that she had not been looking to be put in the Leading category. And there was little incentive for the producers of her show to move her into Leading. Cicely Tyson was clearly going to win for Leading Actress for The Trip to Bountiful, and the eventual winner of Featured Actress was Judith Light, who had just won the year before for Other Desert Cities and gave a good performance in The Assembled Parties but it wasn't one that was talked about the way Nielsen's was. If Nielsen had been nominated in Featured, she almost certainly would have won, and that would have been better for Vanya's producers as well as for Nielsen.

Wayman_Wong said: "Why?It's the same-sized role.

Huh?"



I can't tell if your confusion is rhetorical, but in any case I think it's worth noting for the sake of the larger discussion: I think all of these inconsistencies can be attributed to any combination of the following variables:

1. Competition from other shows (i.e, placing an actor in supporting so they don't have to compete with a juggernaut performance)

2. Competition from their own show (i.e, placing an actor in supporting so they don't have to compete with their own co-star)

3. Director influence: sometimes a particular role might feel more emphasized in one production more than another due to the way it's directed, even if the number of scenes/songs is the same.

4. Changing sensibilities about what constitutes a lead/featured role: I think nowadays we're more focused on the size of the role than the size of the name on the marquis, though there are still plenty of exceptions to that - especially when strategy comes into play like in my 1st two points. But then sometimes it's also just up to pure interpretation. Especially in an ensemble piece, where you could make a case for the shared spotlight putting more people in leading, or putting more people in featured. It's subjective, and because the pool of committee members is in constant flux, it just depends on their call.

Updated On: 1/23/21 at 12:11 AM