Since everyone has already listed the nominees I thought I'd list who Will Win/Should Win
Best Musical: Will Win: Hamilton/ Should Win: Hamilton. Yeah, it's good and nothing is even close to as good this year. Plus, the press and pop culture have taken its popularity to a new level for Broadway.
Best Play: Will Win: The Humans/ Should Win: The Humans. I think the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Nom clinched its win with Tony Voters, but this will be the nights closest race against King Charles lll. Tony Voters love a classy British import. But seriously, The Humans is the best play about who we are now in America that Broadway has seen in years.
Best Musical Revival: Will Win: The Color Purple/ Should Win: The Color Purple. The cast, creatives, and producers have turned this bloated, ill received 2005 film to stage adaptation into a stripped it down, universal experience and the audience can now see its heart and soul. It's the must see show of the year in my opinion.
Best Revival of a Play: Will win: A View from a Bridge/Should Win: A View from a Bridge. Broadway didn't need another revival of this Miller Classic...it's barely been a decade since the last production. But Ivo Van Hove has proven with his minimalist, metaphoric take on blue collar America is that a fresh take on a classic is always welcome
Best Actress in a Musical: Will Win: Cynthia Erivo/ Should Win: Cynthia Erivo. A Broadway debut like Broadway has never seen before. An honest, fierce, powerhouse of a performance that pierces your heart everytime she opens her mouth to speak or sing
Best Actor in a Musical: Will Win: Danny Burstein/ Should Win: Leslie Odom Jr. Danny is talented performer who has been passed up for the Tony in years where he absolutely deserved it. But his Tevye isn't bringing anything to the role we haven't seen before. Leslie's Aaron burr is sexy, suave, charming, vengeful, surprising and exciting. It should be his year.
Best Actress in a Play: Will Win: Lupita Nyong'o/ Should Win: Lupita Nyong'o. A performance that makes you think about what happens to her character after the curtain comes down. It's a year where not enough plays were produced on Broadway, especially new ones, but Eclipsed offers a new and harrowing depiction of women who are desperate to find a secure place in the world. The role is better written than performed, but Lupita does it great justice
Best Actor in a Play: Will Win: Mark Strong/ Should Win: Mark Strong. Such a STRONG performance, lol. So strong you fear him by the end of the show, you feel every ounce of his love and pain, his betrayal. Couldn't take my eyes off him.
Featured Actress in a Musical: Will Win: Rene Elise Goldsberry/Should win: Danielle J Brooks. Rene is a true triple threat, but the role just doesn't allow her to dig deep into a real person life. Danielle is living and breathing inside her character, so much you don't even realize she is singing. It part the role but most importantly the heart she brings to it.
Featured Actor in a Musical: Will Win: Daveed Diggs/Should Win: Daveed Diggs/Could Win: Christopher Fitzgerald. This is another tough race. Daveed is positively new and fresh in every way in Hamilton. the take on Thomas Jefferson is one of the funniest things about Hamilton. Christopher is a comic genius. He steals the show with one number in Waitress, but its a weakly written character and doesn't get to show any range.
Featured Actress in a Play: Will Win: Megan Hilty/ Should win: Saycon Sengbloh (Eclipsed). Megan is funny in Noises Off (the highlight in my opinion), she's a Broadway favorite too because of SMASH and definitely a musical theater talent that needs to come back to the stage in a new musical, But Saycon, is truly menacing in Eclipsed. she haunts you after the play is over. Her performance deserves the recognition. You've never seen a woman like this before.
Featured Actor in a Play: Will Win: Reed Birney: Should Win: Reed Birney. Suc a real lived in complicated performance. Sometimes funny, sometimes contradicting, sometimes unlikable. He's D) all of the above in The Humans.
Best Score: Will Win: Lin Manuel Miranda for Hamilton/ Should Win: Lin Manuel Miranda. Is it overrated...Yes. Is it good....Yes. The mix of colonial and modern hip vernacular is REVELATORY! Honorable mention belongs to Sarah Barallies for Waitress...it's much more effective in doing what it sets out to do....if it wants you to to cry, you do. if it wants you to laugh, you do.
Best Book of a Musical: Will Win: Lin Manuel Miranda/ Should Win: Lin Manuel Miranda. The structure of Hamilton is quite wonderful. It's the glue that holds the show together.
Best Choreography: Will Win: Andy Blankenbuehler-Hamilton/ Should win: Savion Glover for Shuffle Along.
Best Direction of a Musial: Will Win: Thomas Kale/ Should Win: John Doyle. I think Hamilton is in need of a directoral edit. At times it's too busy with all the dancing, other times the staging doesn't feel as exciting as it should. John Doyle makes all the right decisions with the Color Purple. You never stop to think, you are always hanging on every word...that is John's work at helping you to focus in on the the people of the story. He has such restraint in the theatericality...just enough, just representational enough. The music direction is heavenly.
Best Direction of a Play: Should Win: Ivo Van Hove/ Will Win: Ivo Van Hove. He's everywhere this year...and rightfully so.
Best Set Design of Musical: Will Win: David Rockwell for She Loves Me/ Should Win: Es Devlin-American Psycho. Es is really talking minimalism to the next level with his work in Psycho. It's eerie, its era specific, it could be on the cover of architectual digest...it changes tones quickly as well. very hard to do.
Best Set Design of a Play: Should Win: The Humans/ Will Win: The Humans
Best Costume Design of a Musial: Will Win: David Korins-Hamilton/ Should Win: David Korins Hamilton.
Best Costume Design of a Play: Will Win: Kin Charles the lll/ Should Win: King Charles the lll
Best Orchestrations: Will Win: Alex Lacamorie Hamilton Should win: Daryl Walters-Shuffle Along
Best lighting Design of a Musical: Will win: American Psycho/ Should win: American Psycho.
