Owing to the generally undistinguished nature of the recent Broadway season (especially with regard to musicals), many of this year’s most prominent Tony categories were particularly free of strong competition. As a result, this is not a year of snubs but of shows and people being nominated that would not have been nominated in virtually any other year.
For example, last year, the musical “Bandstand” could not land a nomination for best musical due to the size of the competition. Had “Bandstand” opened this year, it would have had a decent shot of actually winning best musical.
Nevertheless, the Tony nominators made a special point of shutting out “Escape to Margaritaville,” the critically-panned Jimmy Buffett jukebox musical. Besides the concert spectacle “Rocktopia,” “Escape to Margaritaville” is the only show currently running on Broadway to receive no nominations.
Other shows from this season to be shut out include Michael Moore’s “The Terms of My Surrender,” the Hal Prince revue “Prince of Broadway,” the Uma Thurman star vehicle “The Parisian Woman,” “John Lithgow: Stories by Heart” and the revivals of “M. Butterfly,” “Time and the Conways” and “Marvin’s Room.”
The plays “Saint Joan,” “Meteor Shower” and “Children of a Lesser God” each received just a single Tony nomination for the performances of Condola Rashad, Amy Schumer and Lauren Ridloff, respectively. “Summer,” the new Donna Summer jukebox musical, received nominations for the performances of two of the three actresses who jointly portray Donna Summer (LaChanze and Ariana DeBose).
The most noticeable snubs are in the acting categories, including the leading ladies of “Frozen” (Caissie Levy and Patti Murin), Alison Pill (the only cast member of “Three Tall Women” to not be nominated) and Chris Evans (who was not nominated for his featured performance in “Lobby Hero”).
There is also a prominent divide over which actors from “Mean Girls” and “Angels in America” were and were not nominated, which was probably inevitable.
The Tonys air live from Radio City Music Hall on June 10.
