Tony for Best Actor/Actress in a Musical

Have you guys noticed that, once again, the Tony winner for the Best Actress in a Musical comes from a revival (Hello, Dolly!) whereas the Tony winner for Best Actor in a Musical comes from a new musical (Dear Evan Hansen)? It happened last year with Cynthia Erivo (revival of The Color Purple) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) AND the year before with Kelli O'Hara (revival of The King and I) and Michael Cerveris (Fun Home).

I went on to find similar cases and found out that, at this decade, the ONLY winner for "Best Actress" who has won for an original work was Jessie Mueller. All the other ones won for revivals. As for the men, the only ones who have won for revivals were Douglas Hodge and Neil Patrick Harris.

What do you guys think these numbers say? Considering that Jessie's character wasn't even an original character, do you think there has been a lack of good lead roles for women on Broadway? Do you think more productions have been put together for actresses to shine, rather than the characters (like Bette Midler in Hello Dolly)? Or is it just a coincidence?

Updated On: 7/4/17 at 09:21 PM

It doesn't help that 2010 was a horrible year for original musicals.

CallMeAl2 said: "Seven years is much to small a sample to say anything. Go back 20 or 30 years and tell me what you see."

 

True, but I think 7 years is a good sampling of time to point out RECENT trends. The OP may correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like this thread was not intended to discuss the entire history of the Tonys, but rather what this recent pattern says about Broadway as it is today. 

 

Best Actress Winners 

2008-2017

Revivals - 8

New Musicals - 2

 

1998-2007

Revivals - 3

New Musicals - 7

 

1988-1997

Revivals - 3

New Musicals - 7

I obtained my information from Wikipedia and I did this very quickly.   I could be mistaken on a Revival vs New Musical, had to remember what year I was 'in".   Some musicals were represented twice (i.e. Color Purple, etc)

 

I does appear that the last decade is much different than the previous.    If I had more time, it would be interesting to look at Revivals vs New Musicals on the total nominations.   

Addipia94 said: "^ Okay, just did this:

90s:

Revival nominations - 12

New musical nominations - 26

00s:

Revival nominations - 18

New musical nominations - 32

10s:

Revival nominations - 14

New musical nominations - 25

 

Interesting from this, it looks like new musical performances are looked at more favorably to garner a nomination, as apposed to actually winning the tony."

These numbers mean nothing to anyone if you don't also talk about how many revivals there were versus new musicals, and how many actual potential nominees there were versus how many of those women were actually nominated. Your numbers exist in a vacuum with absolutely no context.

Addipia94 said: "givesmevoice said: "These numbers mean nothing to anyone if you don't also talk about how many revivals there were versus new musicals, and how many actual potential nominees there were versus how many of those women were actually nominated. Your numbers exist in a vacuum with absolutely no context."

I wasn't looking to analyze anything in that detail. Simply looking at nomination totals...calm down."

But it still doesn't mean anything at all. Was that 12 nominations out of 100 total possibilities, or 12 nominations out of 25 possibilities? You said that you thought it meant new musicals were actually more favorable for getting a nomination, but I can't see that unless I know how many new musicals there were, how many of those had performers eligible for Best Actress and THEN how many of those women were nominated. 

Maybe it's just my personal experience but I think most of the "big names" that have been brought in to sell tickets to revivals have been women in the recent years. So there have been many experienced and popular Broadway actresses in revivals, leading to Tony Awards for these women.