Tony Awards Make Final Rulings of the Season on SHUFFLE ALONG & More! — Page 3

Did not see H ,Waitress or School. Did not have any interest in School or H .May get around to Waitress. Do not think any of the others have a shot



Saw American,Shuffle , On Your Feet. Enjoyed all 3 .Of those, only Shuffle looks to get a nod. To bad , the Best Musical category is always fixed @ 4. If it could be expanded to 5, one more deserving show could get a nod. It would not win of course but it could help a musical at the box office.

Re the likeliest of the Supporting Actors in SHUFFLE ALONG to get a nod, my vote is entirely with Brandon Victor Dixon. Despite all those better known names, he knocked my socks off in scene after scene. More dazzling than anything was to see him actually playing the piano in all those numbers where Eubie Blake is meant to play. Don't think we've EVER seen that occur onstage in a musical before.

(Ok, ok, putting aside a show like ONCE, or any John Doyle-style staging where the orchestra IS the cast.)

Updated On: 4/29/16 at 04:45 PM

^ ^ ^

Pretty sure Bob Stillman played the piano as George Gould Strong in Grey Gardens.

(And Mary Martin and Robert Preston played violin and saxophone in I Do! I Do!, if not particularly well.)

Updated On: 4/29/16 at 05:15 PM

I'm surprised by the people who think Victor Dixon should be featured and Stokes Mitchell and Porter should be lead.



Now that Stokes Mitchell's big number has been cut and the show plays more like a star vehicle for Audra, it's Victor Dixon who comes off as the closest to co-lead because of his love story plotline with Audra.

WHAT? I didn't know Stokes' big number was cut! (I gave up following the preview thread). What a damn shame. That was one of a handful of moments in act 2 that I truly loved. I can't remember what the number was called or even exactly what it was about, but I thought he killed it. His character was performing in half-blackface and having a mental breakdown. IMO, that number was Stokes' only real shot at winning any Tony votes.

Updated On: 4/29/16 at 07:25 PM

Now that this is safely in the new musical camp for Tony consideration, don't you wonder how a true revival...as accurate as possible...would've been received? I do.

I agree about Brandon Victor Dixon. He benefited from having the best guy's part in Shuffle Along, but he made the most of it. I don't know the politics of Tony Awards at all, and that category is rough, but he was great. I only saw two new musicals, Shuffle Along and Hamilton, and it would be pretty easy for me to fill the featured category just from those shows alone.