Nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards, which were revealed on Tuesday morning following a jam-packed month of nonstop opening nights, reflect an unusually crowded Broadway season for an industry that is still trying to recover its pre-pandemic economic strength and that has been marked by a handful of hits (including “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Stereophonic”).
While no new musical has established itself (at least as of yet) as a breakout smash that is certain to enjoy a long and prosperous run, “Hell’s Kitchen,” which received 13 nominations, is probably in the best position to do so at this point. The Alicia Keys musical, which transferred to Broadway following an Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater, is inspired by the music artist’s teen years growing up in Manhattan and has a score that combines her previously-recorded hits with new work.
The new musical adaptation of “The Outsiders” also did quite well, earning 12 nominations.
In addition to “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Outsiders,” the nominees for Best Musical include “Illinoise” (a dance work based on Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 album “Illinoise”), “Water for Elephants” (adapted from the 2006 novel about a traveling circus) and “Suffs” (which dramatizes the history behind the women’s emancipation movement).
The dominant player among plays is “Stereophonic,” David Adjmi’s 3 1/2 hour drama (which debuted Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons) dramatizing the time and labor-intensive recording sessions of a chart-topping rock band in the 1970s, which, just like “Hell’s Kitchen,” received 13 nominations, including a nomination for its original rock score by Will Butler.
The critically-divisive Broadway revival of “Cabaret” (now going by the title “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” in light of its atmospheric nature) received nine nominations (including for Eddie Redmayne, Gayle Rankin, Steven Skybell, and Bebe Neuwirth), whereas the acclaimed and hot-selling revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” earned seven (including for Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez).
Other shows that performed well included Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ dark family comedy “Appropriate” at eight nominations, “Water for Elephants” at seven nominations, the revival of the race relations satire “Purlie Victorious” at six nominations, and “Suffs” at six nominations.
Shows that were shut out entirely of nominations included (but were not limited to) the Britney Spears jukebox musical “Once Upon a One More Time,” the Huey Lewis jukebox musical “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” the revival of “The Wiz,” the making-of-“Jaws” comedy “The Shark is Broken,” the original Barry Manilow musical “Harmony,” and “How to Dance in Ohio” (which broke ground in its inclusion of autistic actors in the cast).
Shows that received only a single nomination included the new musical adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” the Vladimir Putin drama “Patriots,” the two-man musical comedy “Gutenberg!,” the revival of the rock opera “The Who’s Tommy,” the starry Lincoln Center Theater revival of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and the revival of “Monty Python’s Spamalot.” “Back to the Future: The Musical” received just two nominations, including for actor Roger Bart.
If you look closely, the biggest winner of the nominations announcement may actually be the not-for-profit theater company Manhattan Theatre Club, given that all three of the plays that it presented on Broadway this season received nominations for Best Play, including “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,” “Mary Jane,” and “Prayer for the French Republic.”
