Mary-Louise Parker, Jaquel Spivey, Myles Frost, and More React to Their Tony Nominations

The big day is here! We have the list of 2022 Tony nominees, and we're chatting with the members of the illustrious short list to hear their first reactions to the big news. You'll find some of their responses here, and more below.

For the complete list of Tony nominees, click here.

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Alfie Allen – Best Featured Actor in a Play nominee for Hangmen
I'm in shock a little bit, if I'm being honest, but I've got a big, massive smile on my face, and I'm gonna go have pancakes with my mate Gabriel. I'm so pleased for the play, in general. That was my main aim: to be part of a great company and a great production. I feel like that's happened, and I'm so happy for Anna and David, and Gaby getting her Theatre World Award for her debut performance award. I'm just ecstatic to be part of this play.

Mary-Louise Parker – Best Actress in a Play for How I Learned to Drive
I'm happy just to see David Morse getting the recognition he deserves, and Paula Vogel, who is this amazing force. I'm thrilled to see her being celebrated. Just the fact that we're even eligible; that we even got the play up. We tried for so many years to remount it. The last day of rehearsal before the pandemic, we had a day of rehearsal with David and I, and I thought, "If this is the last time we do this, if I never get to act again, I'm so lucky." It sounds corny, but I felt so blessed from that. And it's nice that it's actually happening, and that people are seeing Paula get this reception.

Lileana Blain-Cruz – Best Director of a Play for The Skin of Our Teeth
AAAAAAAH!!!!! I am overwhelmed with gratitude and joy at this nomination. Theater is the ultimate collaborative art form, and I am so thankful to the wonderful actors, designers, and Lincoln Center Theater for making it all happen!!

Conor McPherson – Best Book / Best Direction for Girl From the North Country
I'm so happy for our whole team – it's a dream come true! Really pleased for all of us – letting it sink in. We're so fortunate that we've managed to get such a talented cast no matter what country we're in. Then of course, there's Bob's music – which always seems to reach out and grab you by the heart. There's always something special going on in the show and it adds up to something that has resonated with people.

Jennifer Simard – Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Company
I have to tell you, during the design categories, I started to weep because I'm just so glad Broadway's back. It's really moving. Seventeen-year-old me is pinching myself. I have a cassette tape of me singing "I Dreamed a Dream" at 18-years-old, and the fact that now I'm nominated for a Tony Award in the same category as Patti LuPone is mindblowing to me. I can't believe it. And I'm honored to share it with my company, and Christopher Sieber, the Abbott to my Costello. Wouldn't be here without him.

Mare Winningham – Best Actress in a Musical for Girl From the North Country
My heart is full with love and congratulations to our whole company – our text chain is absolutely exploding. I just want to put on a Dylan record and look out the trees while my smile is hurting my face. I've never seen anything like this musical – I didn't realise I needed anything like it. But having been in it for three and half years, to see the magic and holiness it weaves with audiences – there's something special going on.

Jeannette Bayardelle – Best Featured Actress in a musical for Girl From the North Country
I am shocked – I've been crying all morning – just total shock! I'm so grateful to Conor who has allowed me to be creative in this role – bringing thoughts and ideas to the table and seeing me as I really am.

Jared Grimes – Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Funny Girl
"I remember in elementary school during the physical fitness challenge [in gym class], if you could do three pullups, you'd get a blue ribbon. I could never do three. I could always do two. I feel like I finally got that third ribbon."

Rob McClure – Best Actor in a Musical for Mrs. Doubtfire

It's a crazy list to be on and it's a huge honor. It's not just about the work, but it's about the climb back. Our show has been through so much that my hope is every single person who I adore, who has poured their heart and soul into this thing for the last three years feels part of themselves in this nomination.

Paula Vogel – Best Revival of a Play for How I Learned to Drive

I am so honored to be nominated alongside my peers in this category! And so thrilled to walk the red carpet with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse who take my breath away every performance. My thanks to the entire cast and Mark Brokaw.

Myles Frost – Best Actor in a Musical for MJ
I watched the nominations with my mom on Facetime and when we saw my name pop up, she started screaming and crying, and I started jumping. It was beautiful to see the joy in her eyes and really feel through the phone how proud of me she is. I'm glad I got to share that moment with her. Words cannot even express how honored and blessed I am. This is a dream come true, and I share it with my cast, who work just as hard, and push me to work as hard as I do.

L Morgan Lee – Best Featured Actress in a Musical for A Strange Loop

My mind isn't processing that this is real. I can't stop crying. To specifically be a trans actress in the company of these incredible women that I respect and have enjoyed for many years…This nomination is so much bigger than me. I hope someone will see this moment and feel like they can go on. No matter what the world, or school, or people tell them they are "supposed" to be, how they are "supposed" to sound…that they will keep striving to love and embrace the fullest version of who they are. That they can safely find breath in choosing truth. That they will keep studying and working and dreaming the biggest dreams. I'm so full of gratitude this morning that I'm likely to burst! But first, an iced coffee and I'll probably watch The View.

Simon Hale – Best Orchestrations for Girl From the North Country

I'm so proud for our show for so many nominations – it's not a conventional musical and it's the sort of production that really doesn't fit with your expectations. On paper it looks like a strange scenario – you've got the music of Bob Dylan but the songs are used in a way you'd not expect. It's like Dylan wrote a score for a new play but had no creative input into the play itself. Sometimes I don't know how Conor has done it. Working with him right from the point of commission to London, to New York and onto Broadway – adding songs, putting things together – it was amazing. I've not met Bob Dylan but if I do one day I'm sure he'd appreciate everything we've done with his songs – working with our instincts in a truthful, liberal, honest space.

John-Andrew Morrison, Best Featured Actor in a Musical for A Strange Loop
I was trying to be cool, like I'm gonna sleep through it, and literally, at 8:50, some force was like "Get the eff out of this bed and turn it on!" My friend Tom called with tears and then I lost it. It's been jubilant and wonderful, and also – I'm still a little bit in shock. It feels like, for so long, that what I had to offer, the powers that be of the theater world didn't want. I left this business a couple times, but somehow, I kept coming back to it because I love it. To have a show where what I bring to the table is more than enough, it just feels like encouragement.

Warren Carlyle – Best Choreography for The Music Man

I'm so happy. It's been a really good morning. I have so many friends and colleagues on the list today. I was writing all of their names down. I've called Beowulf, Camille, Christopher Wheeldon, just to say congratulations. This year, more than any other year, it feels like community. We've all been through this crazy time, we're all coming back together. Now's the time to celebrate Broadway.

Kara Young – Best Featured Actress in a Play for Clyde's
Oh man, I'm feeling so many things. I can't describe it. It feels great to be acknowledged but more importantly for Letitia to be acknowledged. I literally woke up to a missed call from my agent and then I looked at my text messages, but I didn't look at them all the way. And then I was like, "Oh my God this is actually happening!" It's a big surprise. I feel like Lynn Nottage is life in a pen, and I'm just grateful that they chose me to tell this story. Kate [Whoriskey]'s direction and her commitment to Lynn [Nottage]'s universes — they create magic together and I feel very grateful to be a part of that, and to honor the formerly incarcerated.

Sharon D Clarke – Best Actress in a Musical for Caroline, or Change
I'm ecstatic. Like a giddy young school girl. It's absolutely wonderful. I'm still reeling from it, really. The fact that, as a British woman, going to New York with this much-loved and celebrated show, and then have Broadway say, "We see you," is absolutely wonderful thing. I am elated and humbled.

A.J. Shively – Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Paradise Square
I feel completely overwhelmed, but really proud of myself and really happy for my show. I worked really, really hard on this show and was pushed beyond what I thought I was capable of as a person. It's nice to get such nice feedback. I'm also so happy that Sidney is nominated. We've been doing this thing together for so long and I'm so happy that we can see this through to such a pinnacle in our lives.

Camille A. Brown – Best Director of a Play and Best Choreography for for colored girls
To have Ntozake's work come back after 40 years, to be the first Black woman after Katherine Dunham over 65 years ago to direct and choreograph on Broadway, to have seven Black women on a Broadway stage…To have all of that recognized is unbelievable and amazing and astounding. I'm really thankful to everyone that was part of it.

Michael Oberholtzer – Best Featured Actor in a Play for Take Me Out

Oh, man. This a great day. It's something that I never really thought about, but it's all I ever thought about. I'm so proud of what we accomplished as a company. They're just great guys. It's a great working environment. It's a team win, I really believe that.

Jaquel Spivey – Best Actor in a Musical for A Strange Loop

I don't feel much and I'm a little nervous when I do start feeling things again. I'm floating right now and it feels good to be up high and look down on all the good things. This means that all the dreams that I had weren't in vain; it means that all the hopes that I had for being an actor and artist actually led to something – not just the Tony nomination but being part of this show. To be nominated means that others see it and appreciate it and that I'm on the right track to creating the art that I want to make.

Sidney DuPont – Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Paradise Square
It's Christmas morning! It's just — pinch me. I feel like I'm not even awake quite yet. I watched the announcements. I almost didn't. I purposely stayed up until about 4 o'clock in the morning and was like, if you stay up late watching Anime you'll sleep through it and whatever it is, it'll be. And then of course 6:30 in the morning, very much like Christmas, I was just up and live in living color. Next thing, I was on YouTube on my laptop, and after seeing so much of our amazing team get nomination after nomination in the beginning I was just over the moon. And then to get to Featured Actor and to hear my name — I don't know if I even saw my name on the screen, I think I just heard it, and next thing you know my laptop was almost broken because I threw it across the room. And I called my mom and my dad and my family and I just cried. I'm just so ecstatic for the show as a whole because it has been a labor of love. I've been with the show for five years, and when I tell you it has been a long, long tumultuous journey — a beautiful journey — but like most shows getting to Broadway, it's paved with a lot of obstacles. This feels like something much more incredible and much bigger than we ever could have imagined.

Shoshana Bean – Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Mr. Saturday Night

I still don't know if I've processed it entirely. It's special, specifically for this show, for a number of reasons. To tell this story and honor who those who came before is just cool as a Jewish woman, and I don't always get to play Jewish women, especially in New York, so that's a treat. It makes me very proud of our culture and our people, and to be onstage with a legend of this genre. The role was really challenging for me, because I didn't have anything to hide behind, like green make-up or a southern accent. There's just a lot of navigating new territory for me, so to be acknowledged when it was such a tender, tarrying space to be in is really special.

Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss – Best Music and Lyrics for Six: The Musical
Gosh this is so wild. We created Six as a fun summer project for us and our friends in 2017, thinking that, come the autumn, we'd be moving on with our lives and like becoming lawyers or accountants or something, so for that show to be nominated for a literal Tony award is just beyond. It's a truly amazing, baffling, honor to be even considered in the same category as these other wonderful pieces. We are so humbled, grateful, and handsome. Lastly, we'd just love to give a major shout out to the American accent. In our own accents (the accent in which this music was originally written), the word "category" is absolutely not stressed like it is, repeatedly, in our show's final number but having the opportunity to bring the show to Broadway really has allowed that lyric to blossom from noticeably shoddy writing to a seemingly innocuous rhyme. So, thanks America.

Beowulf Boritt – Best Scenic Design of a Play for POTUS; Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Flying Over Sunset
After 18 months of dark, empty stages just getting to create the worlds of POTUS and Flying Over Sunset on Broadway was thrilling. Getting to do it with Susan Stroman and James Lapine was more than my younger self would ever have dared dream of. Getting a pair of Tony nominations for them leaves me speechless…

Lynn Nottage – Best Play for Clyde's; Best Book of a Musical for MJ
I did watch the nominations and so I found out in real time. First was Ron [Cephas Jones] and then Uzo [Aduba] and then Kara [Young] and I just did a happy dance because they're some of the most passionate, loving, talented people I've had the privilege to work with, so to see their work recognized made me happy. It's a real privilege to be nominated, particularly because I was part of this historic season, in which so many Black playwrights were on Broadway and whose work I loved and respected. It was kind of like making art under water, and doubly hard, which made the fight to make it even more precious in some strange way. It's the fact that we were not just making art because we wanted to but we felt like we needed to coming out of Covid. We needed to pull this industry back up from where it was, which was nowhere for two years. We needed to do what we do, which is tell stories and entertain people and move people and inspire people. And we did that swimming under water. Somehow it happened and it's a miracle. It's a miraculous season.

Camille A. Brown – Best Direction of a Play/Best Choreography for For Colored Girls…
I am extremely honored to receive these two nominations! I never thought I would ever get the opportunity to direct on Broadway so to be recognized in this way is beyond what I ever imagined. Special thanks to the producers, cast, creatives, crew, and everyone at the Booth Theatre who made our show come to life. Lifting up Ntozake Shange and grateful for her choreopoem.

Kenita R. Miller – Best Featured Actress in a Play for For Colored Girls…
I'm sitting here in the doctor's office pinching myself. This feels like a dream! It has definitely been a dream for a majority of my life! But, I would have never dreamt of it happening while being with child, working on a show that is extremely important to me, with a family/tribe of Sisters that mean the world to me. So grateful for Camille A. Brown for this experience and for her belief in me. I'm just grateful beyond grateful.

Sutton Foster – Best Leading Actress in a Musical for The Music Man
I'm incredibly proud of this show and The Music Man company. It's an honor to be amongst all of the companies that braved the pandemic to bring back theater. Being back on Broadway is an award in itself.

Matt Doyle – Best Actor in a Featured Role for Company
I am so incredibly honored to be nominated for my first Tony Award, and especially for a role that means so much to me. This morning, I'm thinking back to when I was 19 and first moved to New York. To receive this recognition at this time in my life is so special. I've had quite a journey with Jamie over the past few years. I'm so grateful to the people who stood by my side through it all. I share this with our remarkable leader, Marianne Elliot, and the entire creative team, crew, and everyone at the Jacobs Theatre. I am here because of our unbelievable cast. I learn volumes from them every night and it is a gift to share the stage with them all. I have never been a part of a stronger "company." This moment is bittersweet as we all lost a legend this year. To step onto that stage every night and get to perform one of Stephen Sondheim's greatest scores is an absolute honor. Thank you, Steve. "I'm the next bride!"

Nathan Tysen – Best Original Score for Paradise Square
It has been a lovely morning! I watched [the nominations] with my wife. We sent our kids off to school and we sat at the kitchen table and held hands and then we scream-cried every time they said the name Paradise Square. I just think about when that curtain rises and 40 people are onstage — you just don't see that kind of show anymore. It was a challenge to work on something that big, but my takeaway is that it truly took a village to make this thing and to survive it and it was lovely to see the village get recognized. My wife and I moved to New Jersey about five years ago and we live in a multi-family home and my parents moved below us, so my mom was already running errands in the morning and was like, "I am buying champagne!" So we're gonna have some champagne tonight.

Joaquina Kalukango – Best Actress in a Musical for Paradise Square
I was watching it live with my family and friends so we were just screaming at 9am — in disbelief and so much joy. It feels incredible. I feel like we all had to deal with that crazy shutdown with Covid, and feeling the uncertainty in the air for this. So to be honored in this way after all of that is phenomenal. There has been so much hard work put into this piece. It's been developed for over 10 years and to know that everybody's work is being paid off is really incredible. We would be nothing without each other. I have to perform for the Actors Fund gala tonight, so I'm gonna be busy. But I will enjoy a nice Kit Kat after everything tonight.

Ruth Negga – Best Leading Actress in a Play for Macbeth
I am beyond thrilled and grateful for this acknowledgment… a dream come true for me to perform on the Broadway stage and in such incomparable company… I am deeply indebted to Daniel, who is the best scene partner another actor could have asked for. It is a privilege to share the stage with him. I am so moved by the relentless work of this entire cast and crew whom I adore beyond words. And of course to Sam Gold for his leadership and wisdom and integrity and trust. And to Barbara for being the kindest and biggest champion. Feel truly blessed to be surrounded by this gang! So thrilled for the recognition of Mikaal and Jane's hard work as well!

Carmen Cusack – Best Actress in a Musical for Flying Over Sunset

I'm pretty relaxed as our show is closed and I don't have to do much. I woke up with a phone call from my manager telling me about the nomination. It was a beautiful show and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Our first preview was the day Broadway closed for the pandemic, and ending the experience this way is a huge high.

Hugh Jackman – Best Actor in a Musical for The Music Man
To be a part of the return of Broadway is a great privilege. The vast amount of talent putting on eight shows a week is inspiring. I know the quote "we are a family" is often overused. But not here. Not in the theater. It takes thousands working together to make Broadway hum. I stand alongside the extraordinary cast, crew, and creative team of The Music Man in thanking the American Theatre Wing for our nominations. After two years of virtual darkness, Broadway is back, bright, and ready to celebrate at the Tonys.

Christopher Wheeldon – Best Director of a Musical and Best Choreography for MJ
All of us at team MJ congratulate our fellow nominees. I personally am deeply honored to have been included in this spectacular group of theater makers. It feels good to all of us to be back on Broadway.

Rachel Dratch – Best Featured Actress in a Play for POTUS
My initial response to this news was "Hammaflabbbagggahhhtthhththtpthththappaddooooaaahhh!" (Repeat for 5 hours.) But upon further reflection, I will say I'm already having the time of my life up on the stage every night with our ensemble of mega-talented lady superstars —so to receive news of a Tony nomination on top of that? To borrow a line from the play (said in extremely different circumstances)… "Are my feet on the ground?!"

Masi Asare – Best Original Score for Paradise Square
I actually overslept because I was up super late and I just got a million text messages and phone calls, so as soon as I woke up I talked to my co-lyricist Nathan Tysen and that was really fun. I was so happy for both of us. I think our show has been flying under the radar a little bit this season. I adore our company. I think they're phenomenally talented. Literally everybody is a triple threat. And I'm just excited that this volume of nominations hopefully will encourage more people to know about the show and come check us out. I'm proud of so much of it.

Julie White – Best Featured Actress in a Play for POTUS
Wow! To share a stage with these six incredible women feels like a glittering prize I win every night, except Monday. I'm honored to be nominated and share it with all of them, playwright Selina Fillinger, and the incomparable Susan Stroman.