The nine shows discussed were Billy Elliot the Musical, Dividing the Estate, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Liza's at the Palace, Slava's Snowshow, Shrek the Musical, Pal Joey, Soul of Shaolin and The American Plan.
On the musical front: David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish are eligible to be considered jointly in the Leading Actor in a Musical category for their performances in Billy Elliot the Musical.
Stephen Bogardus, Jeffry Denman, Kerry O'Malley and Meredith Patterson will be considered eligible in the Leading Actor in a Musical and Leading Actress in Musical categories for their performances in Irving Berlin's White Christmas.
Brian d'Arcy James and Sutton Foster will be considered eligible in the Leading Actor in a Musical and Leading Actress in a Musical categories for their performances in Shrek the Musical.
Danny Troob and John Clancy are eligible in the category of Best Orchestrations for Shrek the Musical.
The new book by Richard Greenberg for Pal Joey will be eligible in the Book of a Musical category.
Martha Plimpton will be considered eligible in the Featured Actress in a Musical category for her performance in Pal Joey.
On the play front: Dividing the Estate and The American Plan are both eligible in the category of Best Play.
On other fronts: Liza's at the Palace, Slava's Snowshow and Soul of Shaolin will all be considered eligible in the Special Theatrical Event category.
All other decisions were consistent with the opening-night credits. That is, only actors whose names appear above the title are eligible for nomination in the Leading Actor/Actress categories. Producers must petition the Administration Committee in order to change actors' eligibility status.
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The decision to put Dividing the Estate in Best Play and not revival was expected (Foote wrote the play in the 80s but did extensive revisions on it for its Bway premiere; plus he's probably America's greatest living playwright never to have won a Tony).
But Richard Greenberg's The American Plan in Best Play was less expected; like Estate the play was written some time ago (1990) and the author did some revisions for its Broadway premiere, but not many. Its essentially word for word the same play. I expect in another season with more new plays this would have easily gone into Revival, but there's a distinct lack of new plays this season as compared with something like 15 play revivals scheduled to have opened by May.
Also, the Featured Actress in a Play category just got really competitive with the decision to place none of the women from Estate nor The American Plan in the Leading category. In particular I think most would have predicated at least Lily Rabe or Mercedes Ruehl would be placed in Lead.
Though kids almost never win Tonys, it's looking good for the triple-shot Billy nominees to win now.
Posts: 2803 | Location: New York, New York | Registered: August 08, 2003
I just hate it when they lump actors on one nomination/win...they've done that before and it's stupid!!! Unfair to judge 3 performances as a whole against 1 performance!!!
