Story of the Week: Who Will Be Nominated for a 2025 Tony Award?

The cutoff for Tony Awards consideration is this Sunday, April 27. After that, the nominators will go into conclave to hammer out the nominations, which will be announced in a livestream Thursday morning.

Story of the Week will look at the big categories and offer predictions about which shows, performers, writers, and directors are likely to wake up to a nomination on May 1.

A caveat: The final ruling from the Tony Awards administration committee has not yet come down, so some of the performers listed here as “leading” may end up in “featured,” and vice versa.

Best Musical
The Tony rules state that any category with at least nine eligible candidates will have at least five nominees, but there could be more in the event of a tie. This season saw 14 new musicals on Broadway, so expect a minimum of five nominees. Maybe Happy Ending and Dead Outlaw are practically guaranteed a spot. Death Becomes Her and Buena Vista Social Club are also likely to be nominated, leaving one slot for a dark horse, perhaps Operation Mincemeat or Boop! I would be delighted to see the nominators remember the beautiful and doomed Swept Away, but that ship probably sailed with the closing notice.

Best Play
This is another category with 14 eligible candidates and five slots (unless the nominators come up with a tie). The highly acclaimed (and currently running) Oh, Mary!, Purpose, and John Proctor Is the Villain will lead the category. If this award is really for the best drama on Broadway, the remaining two slots should go to closed plays The Hills of California and English, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Good Night, and Good Luck is not a good play, but the nominators might not be able to resist the allure of George Clooney. I’m less confident about Stranger Things. Despite its big-budget appeal as a tourist attraction, it’s not the kind of serious drama awards nominators tend to salivate over. Then again, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child won this category in 2018, so stranger things have happened.

Best Revival of a Play
Expect four nominees, with the very expensive revivals of Glengarry Glen Ross and Othello first out of the gate. The now-closed Our Town and Romeo + Juliet are also likely to be nominated, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonathan Spector’s far-less-canonical but much more watchable Eureka Day sneaks in here.

Best Revival of a Musical
Floyd Collins, Gypsy, and Sunset Blvd. are safe bets for this category, leaving Pirates! The Penzance Musical and The Last Five Years to duke it out for the fourth slot (my money is on Pirates!).

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play
This is going to be the battle of the Hollywood A-listers vs. Cole Escola. The writer and lead actor of Oh, Mary! has been awash in Tony buzz since the show transferred to Broadway last summer and is well-positioned to win this award. The competition: Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal, and George Clooney. The fifth slot is the wildcard. Will the nominators remember Kit Connor (Romeo + Juliet), Jim Parsons (Our Town), Daniel Dae Kim (Yellow Face), or Robert Downey Jr. (McNeal)? Perhaps they will select Jon Michael Hill, who is giving an excellent performance in Purpose, and was apparently bumped above the title on opening night, stealthily making him eligible for this category.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Playing every single part in The Picture of Dorian Gray, this is Sarah Snook’s category to lose, but she’ll face competition from Sadie Sink (John Proctor Is the Villain) and Laura Donnelly (The Hills of California). The fourth slot will go to either Broadway favorite LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Purpose) or Sydney Lemmon for Job (provided the nominators even remember this show).

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
The likeliest contenders are Jeremy Jordan (Floyd Collins), Jonathan Groff (Just in Time), Darren Criss (Maybe Happy Ending), David Hyde Pierce (Pirates!), and David Cumming (Operation Mincemeat). But I would love to see James Monroe Iglehart Jr. get a nod for his riveting portrayal of Louis Armstrong in the flawed (and now closed) bio-musical A Wonderful World. Also, don’t discount Andrew Durand, who plays a corpse for the second half of Dead Outlaw and is completely convincing in the role.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
This category is almost certain to include Audra McDonald (Gypsy), Helen J Shen (Maybe Happy Ending), Nicole Scherzinger (Sunset Blvd.), and Jasmine Amy Rogers (Boop!). That leaves a lot of competition for the final slot: Should it go to Bernadette Peters or Lea Salonga from Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends?  What about Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard in Death Becomes Her? It would be a real shocker to nominate one but not the other. And then there’s Idina Menzel, who is giving a highly emotional (if pitchy) performance in Redwood. The nominators have their work cut out for them in this category. Personally, I would give a nom to Katie Bryben, who carried Tammy Faye uphill for the entirety of its short run. But with so many currently running shows, that seems like a longshot.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Anticipate nominations for Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin for Glengarry Glen Ross. The latter is completely miscast, but the drama of a potential “triple crown” (Culkin already has an Emmy for Succession and an Oscar for A Real Pain) will be irresistible for the awards obsessives on the nominating committee. Gabriel Ebert is likely to get a nod for his surprising turn in John Proctor Is the Villain. And, just a stab in the dark, I predict the final two slots will go to Glenn Davis (Purpose) and Hadi Tabbal (English). But don’t be surprised if the nominators remember Francis Jue for his hilarious and quietly heartbreaking performance in Yellow Face.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
It would be a travesty if Tala Ashe, who gave a gut-wrenching performance in English, were left off this list. Fina Strazza is channeling Mary Jo Shively from Designing Women in John Proctor, and I’d love to see her included here. Jessica Hecht gave an award-worthy performance in Eureka Day. Alana Arenas is hilarious and heartfelt in Purpose, her Broadway debut. And I know she makes this list every year, but expect the return of Kara Young for her painfully relatable performance in Purpose.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Always a tough category, but here’s my best guess: Jack Malone (Operation Mincemeat), Brooks Ashmanskas (Smash), Danny Burstein (Gypsy), Stephen DeRosa (Boop!), and Zachary Noah Piser (Redwood). Alternates: Thom Sesma (Dead Outlaw) and Christopher Siber (Death Becomes Her).

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Another hard one: Natalie Venetia Belcon (Buena Vista Social Club), Joy Woods (Gypsy), Michelle Williams (Death Becomes Her), Justina Machado (Real Women Have Curves), and Jinkx Monsoon, who appears above the title in Pirates!, but really has a better shot in this category. Let’s hope her people are lobbying hard for a favorable ruling!

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Maybe Happy Ending (Will Aronson and Hue Park), Dead Outlaw (David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna), and Death Becomes Her (Julia Mattison and Noel Carey) are almost certain to be included in this category, with the last two slots going to a currently running show, like Redwood, Operation Mincemeat, or Real Women Have Curves.

Best Book of a Musical
The likeliest candidates are Maybe Happy Ending (Will Aronson and Hue Park), Dead Outlaw (Itamar Moses), Death Becomes Her (Marco Pennette), Real Women Have Curves (Lisa Loomer and Nell Benjamin), and Operation Mincemeat (David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts). But don’t be surprised if one of these is subbed out for the vaguely ridiculous but undeniably entertaining backstager Smash (Bob Martin and Rick Elice).

Best Choreography
A murderers’ row of choreographers in this category. Expect nods for Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck (Buena Vista Social Club), Joshua Bergasse (Smash), Sergio Trujillo (Real Women Have Curves), Camille A. Brown (Gypsy), and Jerry Mitchell (Boop!).

Best Direction of a Musical
The competition in this category will be similarly fierce. Here are the likely nominees: Michael Arden (Maybe Happy Ending), David Cromer (Dead Outlaw), Susan Stroman (Smash), George C. Wolfe (Gypsy), and Jamie Lloyd (Sunset Blvd.). Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Jerry Mitchell makes the list for Boop!, one of the biggest surprises of the season. Who he replaces in this category, however, is a matter to be addressed in my snubs piece Thursday morning.

Best Direction of a Play
This category is likely to include David Cromer (Good Night, and Good Luck), Stephen Daldry (Stranger Things), Sam Pinkleton (Oh, Mary!), Phylicia Rashad (Purpose), and Kip Williams (The Picture of Dorian Gray). But it really should include Knud Adam, who delivered a beautiful production of English as his Broadway debut and is likely to make multiple appearances in this category in the years to come.