Some Like It Hot leads the 2023 Tony nominations, with 13 nods

Jordan Cooper’s “Ain’t No Mo” and Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” collected the most nominations, six each, in the race for Best New Play. In a bona fide anomaly, the other three nominees in this category — Stephen Adly Gerges’ “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Martina Majok’s “Cost of Living,” and James Ijams’ “Fat Ham” — are all past winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2015 and 2018 and 2022 in a row.

The nominations were revealed at a ceremony in Manhattan by Lea Michele, star of “Funny Girl” and Miles Frost, last year’s Tony winner for “MJ,” and went to 27 of the 38 eligible plays and musicals that opened over a 12-month period, ending in April 27th. Eleven shows have received six or more nominations, a result that promises to make the 76th Tonys especially competitive. Even competitions for best reviving of a play and musical seem like a snub: In the musical category, two popular Stephen Sondheim performances, “Into the Woods” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” face off against “Camelot Lerner & Loew” and “Pared.” , Courtesy of Jason Robert Brown.

Both “Into the Woods” and “Parade” originated with an Off-Broadway concert revival, as part of the City Center Encores! program. And several of the stars of those productions were nominated: Sara Bareilles and Brian Darcy James won Best Actor in a Musical Nods for “Into the Woods,” and Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt earned similar slots for Parade, a musical retelling of the persecution and execution of a Jewish man, Leo Frank, in suburban Atlanta in 1915. Julia Lester, who played the critically acclaimed Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods, was selected in the category for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.

For best revival of a play, the contenders are August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Mark in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” and Susan Laurie Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog.”

The acting categories also offer some interesting contrasts: Jessica Chastain, nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Nora Helmer in “A Doll’s House,” takes on Jodie Comer, making her onstage debut as a London lawyer who goes through personal trauma in “Prima Facie.” by Susie Miller. Other actresses vying for the honor are Jessica Hecht, in David Auburn’s Summer 1976, and Audra MacDonald in Adrienne Kennedy’s Murders in Ohio.

About 40 Tony nominees, representing a cross-section of theatrical majors, watch every show and vote on the nominees in each category. Winners are chosen by a larger pool of Tony voters, numbering about 700. The Tony rules allow flexibility in the number of nominees in each category. This year it ranged from four nominees for Best Actress in a Play to seven for Best Lighting Design for a Play.

The race for best actor in a play is particularly noteworthy, as two “Topdog/Underdog” actors, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins, have been selected for the category. Stephen McKinley Henderson has been tapped for his powerful work in “Ben Riverside and Crazy”; Sean Hayes, who portrays Oscar Levant in “Good Night, Oscar,” and Wendell Pierce in the “Death of a Salesman” revival are also involved.

Some other notable nominations in the acting categories: Victoria Clarke, Justin Cooley and Bonnie Milligan, for Outstanding Performance in “Kimberly Akimbo”; Josh Groban and Analeigh Ashford for their portrayals of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the revival of “Sweeney Todd”; J. Harrison Ghee and Christian Borle, vying against each other for Best Actor in a Musical in “Some Like It Hot,” and Alex Newell and Kevin Cahoon, both nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for priceless roles in “Shucked.”

While the nomination crowd gives important bragging rights to some shows, musicals almost always top the charts because they qualify in more categories—such as orchestra, score, and books—than plays. So the titles most often named on Tuesday were productions with songs: “& Juliet,” a pop rendition of “Romeo and Juliet,” got nine nods, as did “New York, New York” and the self-titled “Shucked.” Tourist orientation. A cheeky musical comedy set in rural America. Behind with Eight of Their Own was Thomas Kyle’s “Sweeney Todd” and “Kimberly Akimbo,” the tender-hearted tale of a New Jersey teen afflicted with a disease that ages her four times faster than normal.

Tony Awards It will air June 11 in two parts: A 90-minute pre-show, including the first awards round, airs from 6:30-8 p.m. ET on Pluto TV. This leads to the full broadcast at 8 p.m. on CBS and Paramount Plus.