The 78th Annual Tony Award Nominations for 2025 — Page 12

TotallyEffed said: "inception said: "What happened to all the talk about Groff doing a double?

I liked MHE alot, & thought Criss could takeit easily. Franciswas out when I saw Sunset."


Groff is working his ass off and is in great voice as usual but he’s essentially playing himself. Tom Francis calls out a lot.

My money is on Criss now."

I'll say this: had Groff not won last year, he'd easily be taking this.

''I'll say this: had Groff not won last year, he'd easily be taking this.''

Gwen Verdon once won Leading Actress in a Musical back-to-back in 1958 and 1959: ''New Girl in Town'' (tying with Thelma Ritter) and ''Redhead.''

However, no man has ever won Leading Actor in a Musical back-to-back. But if anyone could do it, it's Groff in ''Just in Time.'' His singing and dancing tour de force as Bobby Darin is such a 180 from playing the understated, introspective Franklin Shepard in ''Merrily We Roll Along.''

Updated On: 5/3/25 at 10:45 AM

djoko84 said: "CoffeeBreak said: "With more people seeing FLOYD (and those EXCELLENT reviews for Jordan, I wouldn't count him out.

MHE's book issimplistic rom-com. Hoping bookgoes to a more creative Dead Outlaw or Mincemeat which are dramatically smarter and more satisfying."

Actually, MHE's book is a fantastic adaptation. I don't know what else you're looking for it to have. How much is Dead Outlaw paying you?"

They aren't. Hilarious. How much is MHE paying you? MHE's book just is basic. Sorry. Truth.

Updated On: 5/3/25 at 10:48 AM

All this speculation about Leading Actor in a Musical just tells me one thing: It's a very competitive race with plenty of reasons to support every nominee, but it's too soon to tell who will come out ahead. Criss would benefit from a MHE tsunami, but I don't think that is going to happen, so he would have to win on his own. Jordan's show got mixed reviews, but his own reviews were almost 100% raves. Dead Outlaw continues to build momentum for Durand as well. Groff is a hard working entertainer, but he is not a natural dancer, and I think that role would benefit from someone who had that in his bag of tricks. I'm not a fan of Matthew ("Hey, I'm Matt Morrison, and you're welcome!") Morrison, but I can't help but think he could do a better job in that role. Anyway, it's too early to call, so I'll just grab some popcorn and watch.

Markie27 said: "TotallyEffed said: "CoffeeBreak said: "A wig, fake eyebrows and robotic movement are not him but the team."




You realize he's an actor and not a puppet, right?


"
I was taken aback by that comment as well. No matter how good the costume designer, movement director, Arden’s masterful direction, you still need a great actor to pull that off. Yes darling heis not an actual robot you can dress up and program.


But still, although I hope he wins, it would be tough to beat Jeremy Jordan. Haven’t seen his performance yet but based on the reviews he is the only actor who got love letters from critics. Tom Francis, though great on the role, was too bland and one note for me. Granted he doesn’t really have a good character arc to begin with.

And yes, nobody is beating Maybe Happy Ending for the top honors.

Best actress is still Nicole vs Audra.

Featured actor has Jak Malone etched already. Like Jeremy Jordan, he received a lot of love letters from critics. And nobody can ever beat the Dear Bill moment.


Featured actress may surprise but Buena Vista Social Club will win in this category I believe.Natalie Venetia Belcon was magnificent in that role.
"

Two thoughts:

Jonathan Groff also got mostly love letters from the critics. I base that on reading all the full reviews that were encapsulated in the Broadwayworld.com summary, a number of which were positively gushing.

Based on the frequent severely negative feedback on this board about Floyd Collins, including references to huge numbers of walkouts, I was surprised that the critics were as positive as they were. I was not expecting that. That said, is it possible that the voters will not be as keen on FC (and, therefore, Jordan) as the critics were?

I have not seen anything this season since SB, and will not be seeing anything until the week before the Tony's, so I really have no opinion of who should win. I thought that Tom Francis was excellent in SB, but I didn't leave the theatre thinking 'this is a Tony performance.'

bwayphreak234 said: "I am really hoping Sunset Boulevard takes sound design - truly the *BEST* sound design I have ever heard in a Broadway theatre. Crystal clear, lush, and glorious - it's like having surround sound in your ears."

I fully agree with how great that sound design was, and would be happily on board with a Sunset win, but need to call out BVSC for this category too. I left that show specifically thinking about how great the sound design was, which is almost never an element I give much thought to.

I can’t see Matthew Morrison doing as well with Just in Time as Groff, who I think in general is just more talented but also has the kind of innate likability to carry this kind of project. Morrison is talented but I don’t think he has that kind of charisma. He’s always felt like a guy had all the pieces of a star in place but lacked the it factor that truly makes one.

The praise for Mincemeat's book is one of the things this season that eludes me. I'll agree it contains a great deal of cleverness, but "rich" and "very well written"? It takes a story with sky-high stakes (fighting Nazis and the effort to win WWII), and portrays the people responsible for that fight as hapless buffoons who had one good idea that somehow worked out in spite of them and all of their boneheaded mistakes. The entire Spainish sequence where they're trying to get the coroner, who is portrayed as trying to do the logical and right thing in turning over the briefcase, to keep it in the most obvious ways when the situation called for at least some subtlety, seemed completely misjudged. (And I'm not sure if "wacky hijinks that risk letting Nazis win" is something that will play for everyone in the current moment.) One thing Hamilton had a strong command of was tone, which Mincemeat very much does not. It's all over the place, and the show often isn't as effective as it could be because of it.

Loved Mincemeat's book. It and Dead Outlaw are the two smartest, creative and efficient of the season.

I believe Dead Outlaw will not be home empty-handed so I'm just torn in what will win between Score or Book.

Kad said: "I wouldn't be totally shocked if Musical, Book, & Score go to three different shows- I would guess MHE, Mincemeat, and Outlaw, respectively. MHE is a good overall package, Book often rewards clever, funny shows and voters may want to give Mincemeat something meaningful, and Dead Outlaw's score is just great and Yazbek has really emerged as one of our finest musical theatre composers.

I believe the last time there was a three way split of those awards in a competitive year (aka- not the COVID ceremony) was 2005 with Spamalot, Spelling Bee, and Piazza- a similarly very strong year with no obvious frontrunner to sweep."

And in that year Direction went to Spamalot, this year may have 4 different winners in the ''major'' categories. Such a rich season, maybe the best since 2017.