New York City Theater

Best Play Nominees:

The Coast of Utopia
Frost/Nixon
The Little Dog Laughed
Radio Golf

What will win: The Coast of Utopia
What deserves to win: Frost/Nixon or Coast
What I voted for: The Coast of Utopia

FROST/NIXON was the year's most compelling and dramatically successful play. Still, we can't help but give credit to Lincoln Center for giving a mammouth production to COAST, which seemed to defy all contemporary commercial logic, even for a non-profit theater, giving it a 40 person cast and spectacular production values.

Best Musical

Curtains
Grey Gardens
Mary Poppins
Spring Awakening

What will win: Spring Awakening
What deserves to win: Spring Awakening
What I voted for: Spring Awakening

Where is LEGALLY BLONDE? Oh yeah, politics... MARY POPPINS is probably the worst musical in the last 5 years to receive a nom for Best Musical. If it wins, I will literally scream "What the f*&k" in the Tonys press room. GREY GARDENS is a pretty great musical, but it's got no shot. And even if SPRING was not around, POPPINS would probably beat it. SPRING, at least, has commercial potential. And CURTAINS, frankly, is just filling space.

Best Book of a Musical

Curtains, Rupert Holmes & Peter Stone
Grey Gardens, Doug Wright
Legally Blonde The Musical, Heather Hach
Spring Awakening, Steven Sater

What will win:Grey Gardens
What deserves to win: Grey Gardens or Spring
What I voted for: Spring Awakening

CURTAINS, frankly, has a bad book. The sudden consensus around town is that GREY will take book over SPRING. But while this is an attempt to be proportional, I think it overlooks how many people might be voting for SPRING as block voters. Still, Wright is a Pulitzer winner and a familiar name.

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre

Curtains
Grey Gardens
Legally Blonde The Musical
Spring Awakening

What will win: Spring Awakening
What deserves to win: Both Spring Awakening and Grey Gardens
What I voted for: Spring Awakening

SPRING has this in the bag - deservedly so. How many times have you listened to it on your IPOD?

Best Revival of a Play

Inherit the Wind
Journey's End
Talk Radio
Translations

What will win: Journey's End
What deserves to win: A Moon for the Misbegotten, which was not nominated
What I voted for: Journey's End

JOURNEY'S END was a great production of an uncomfortably dated show. TALK RADIO was an adequate production of a mediocre play. TRANSLATIONS was a great production of a totally boring play. INHERIT THE WIND was a bad production of a historically intriguing play.

Best Revival of a Musical

The Apple Tree
A Chorus Line
Company
110 in the Shade

What will win: Company
What deserves to win: A Chorus Line
What I voted for: A Chorus Line

The award is for BEST REVIVAL, not BEST REINVENTION. I admire what Doyle did with COMPANY, for the most part. But I believe it took guts on the part of the CHORUS LINE producers to recreate its original staging -based on most contemporary revivals, that was not a conservative choice, but an alternative one. What if Jerry Mitchell had directed it? Would we be any happier? Probably not.

Best Special Theatrical Event

Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!
Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway

What will win: Jay Johnson
What deserves to win: Neither
What I voted for: Jay Johnson

The category should have been scrapped again. KIKI AND HERB, though consistently entertaining, presented a half-baked Broadway show. So, whatever, just give it to JAY JOHNSON and his puppet crew and be done with it. He can think of it as his Broadway souvenir.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play

Boyd Gaines, Journey's End
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Brían F. O'Byrne, The Coast of Utopia
Christopher Plummer, Inherit the Wind
Liev Schreiber, Talk Radio

Who will win: Frank Langella
Who deserves to win: All of them!
Who I voted for: Frank Langella

They were all great. Langella, of course, will win, the only thing FROST/NIXON will probably win, which received a surprisingly small # of nominations.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play

Eve Best, A Moon for the Misbegotten
Swoosie Kurtz, Heartbreak House
Angela Lansbury, Deuce
Vanessa Redgrave, The Year of Magical Thinking
Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed

Who will win: Eve Best
Who deserves to win: Julie White or Eve Best
Who I voted for: Julie White

We all love Angela, but Terrence McNally's play truly sucks and is an embarassment of contemporary playwriting.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical

Michael Cerveris, LoveMusik
Raúl Esparza, Company
Jonathan Groff, Spring Awakening
Gavin Lee, Mary Poppins
David Hyde Pierce, Curtains

Who will win: Raul Esparza
Who deserves to win: Raul Esparza
Who I voted for: Raul Esparza

You know, they're all worthy of the award. Gavin's "Step in Time" is the only decent moment in POPPINS. Groff exhibits great charm in SPRING, as does Pierce in CURTAINS. But Esparza had the hardest role and has done a pretty fantastic job mastering its ambiguities and challenges. And besides, he's done a lot of great work over the past four years and deserves some recognition.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical

Laura Bell Bundy, Legally Blonde The Musical
Christine Ebersole, Grey Gardens
Audra McDonald, 110 in the Shade
Debra Monk, Curtains
Donna Murphy, LoveMusik

Who will win: Christine Ebersole
Who deserves to win: Christine, Audra and Donna
Who I voted for: Christine Ebersole

Audra, Christine and Donna are all great. But this is Christine's year. Give her the award. Seriously.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play

Anthony Chisholm, Radio Golf
Billy Crudup, The Coast of Utopia
Ethan Hawke, The Coast of Utopia
John Earl Jelks, Radio Golf
Stark Sands, Journey's End

Who will win: Stark Sands
Who deserves to win: All of them are worthy
Who I voted for: Stark Sands

They were all fine within their shows. Will Crudup win? Possibly, but Sands could get it in the end since he's the only one there from JOURNEY, while the 2 from COAST and 2 from RADIO GOLF could cancel themselves out in terms of numbers of voters.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play

Jennifer Ehle, The Coast of Utopia
Xanthe Elbrick, Coram Boy
Dana Ivey, Butley
Jan Maxwell, Coram Boy
Martha Plimpton, The Coast of Utopia

Who will win: Martha Plimpton
Who deserves to win: None
Who I voted for: Xanthe Elbrick

This is truly the weakest category this year...

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical

Brooks Ashmanskas, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me
Christian Borle, Legally Blonde The Musical
John Cullum, 110 in the Shade
John Gallagher, Jr., Spring Awakening
David Pittu, LoveMusik

Who will win: David Pittu
Who deserves to win: John Gallagher Jr.
Who I voted for: John Gallagher Jr.

How the hell did Brooks get a nomination for that piece of self-indulgent MARTIN SHORT musical thing? I hope Gallagher gets it.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical

Charlotte d'Amboise, A Chorus Line
Rebecca Luker, Mary Poppins
Orfeh, Legally Blonde The Musical
Mary Louise Wilson, Grey Gardens
Karen Ziemba, Curtains

Who will win: Mary Louise Wilson
Who deserves to win: Mary Louise Wilson
Who I voted for: Mary Louise Wilson

Another truly weak category. Wilson is the only nominated person who is deserving of the award. I'd personally give it to Lauren Pritchard of SPRING.

Best Scenic Design of a Play

Bob Crowley & Scott Pask, The Coast of Utopia
Jonathan Fensom, Journey's End
David Gallo, Radio Golf
Ti Green and Melly Still, Coram Boy

What will win: The Coast of Utopia
What deserves to win: The Coast of Utopia
What I voted for: The Coast of Utopia

Another year, another win for Bob Crowley, even in spite of putting TARZAN on Broadway. Now that's love!

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

Bob Crowley, Mary Poppins
Christine Jones, Spring Awakening
Anna Louizos, High Fidelity
Allen Moyer, Grey Gardens

What will win: Mary Poppins
What deserves to win: Grey Gardens or Spring
What I voted for: Spring Awakening

Beats me.... Do we really want to give any award to MARY POPPINS?

Best Costume Design of a Play

Ti Green and Melly Still, Coram Boy
Jane Greenwood, Heartbreak House
Santo Loquasto, Inherit the Wind
Catherine Zuber, The Coast of Utopia

What will win: The Coast of Utopia
What deserves to win: The Coast of Utopia
What I voted for: The Coast of Utopia

Catherine Zuber must have been pretty busy this year, creating wardrobes for 40 people in three different epic plays.

Best Costume Design of a Musical

Gregg Barnes, Legally Blonde The Musical
Bob Crowley, Mary Poppins
Susan Hilferty, Spring Awakening
William Ivey Long, Grey Gardens

What will win: Spring Awakening
What deserves to win: Grey Gardens
What I voted for: Grey Gardens

That "Revolutionary Costume" was pretty great... Give something else to Grey!

Best Lighting Design of a Play

Paule Constable, Coram Boy
Brian MacDevitt, Inherit the Wind
Brian MacDevitt, Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz, The Coast of Utopia
Jason Taylor, Journey's End

What will win: The Coast of Utopia
What deserves to win: Journey's End
What I voted for: Journey's End

The lighting of JOURNEY'S END, disturbingly dark with candlelight, was extraordinary.

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Kevin Adams, Spring Awakening
Christopher Akerlind, 110 in the Shade
Howard Harrison, Mary Poppins
Peter Kaczorowski, Grey Gardens

What will win: Spring Awakening
What deserves to win: Spring Awakening
What I voted for: Spring Awakening

No question. Moving on...

Best Direction of a Play

Michael Grandage, Frost/Nixon
David Grindley, Journey's End
Jack O'Brien, The Coast of Utopia
Melly Still, Coram Boy

Who will win: The Coast of Utopia
Who deserves to win: The Coast of Utopia
Who I voted for: The Coast of Utopia

Again, we're giving COAST the award out of recognition of its size.

Best Direction of a Musical

John Doyle, Company
Scott Ellis, Curtains
Michael Greif, Grey Gardens
Michael Mayer, Spring Awakening

Who will win: Michael Mayer
Who deserves to win: Michael Mayer
Who I voted for: Michael Mayer

No question. Moving on....

Best Choreography

Rob Ashford, Curtains
Matthew Bourne and Stephen Mear, Mary Poppins
Bill T. Jones, Spring Awakening
Jerry Mitchell, Legally Blonde The Musical

Who will win: Bill T. Jones
Who deserves to win: Bill T. Jones
Who I voted for: Bill T. Jones

No question. Moving on...

Best Orchestrations

Bruce Coughlin, Grey Gardens
Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening
Jonathan Tunick, LoveMusik
Jonathan Tunick, 110 in the Shade

Who will win: Duncan Sheik
Who deserves to win: Bruce Coughlin or Sheik
Who I voted for: Duncan Sheik

The winner of Orchestrations is usually also the winner of score. So, Sheik will probably walk away with not one, but two Tonys.