Tony-nominated performances you can see right now
Check out these actors' acclaimed performances for yourself.
This year's Tony Awards nominations have been announced. Unlike the Oscars, where you can easily watch most of the nominated films, the Tony Awards are different. The nominees include multiple shows that have already closed and limited-run shows that not many people will get to see.
Luckily, this year, you can still see many of the Tony-nominated performances. Read on to learn about these master performers and why they are worth a trip to Broadway.
Get tickets to a Tony-nominated show on New York Theatre Guide.
Rachel Dratch and Julie White: POTUS
If there's one word to describe Selina Fillinger's play, it's unhinged. SNL alum Rachel Dratch and Tony winner Julie White play White House bureaucrats charged with cleaning up a president's mess. Their performances are anything but boring: Dratch plays a mousy secretary who steals the show when she trips on acid and starts climbing up the walls.
White has the honor of saying the first word in the play, and the wide variety of ways she delivers that vulgar C word (think "see you next Tuesday") in the following two hours is more than enough to earn her that Tony nomination. Dratch and White are both nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play. POTUS is playing a limited engagement through August 14.
Myles Frost: MJ: The Musical
It's not easy to don the sparkling glove of Michael Jackson, but Frost wears it so well that it's a perfect fit. He has Jackson's dance moves and vocal inflections down, so much so that the audience of MJ acts like they're at an actual Michael Jackson concert. Not only that, but Frost's performance is haunting, showing a Jackson who was beset by trauma and demons yet determined to make a mark through his art. In Frost's hands, the King of Pop lives again. Frost is nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (and he ended up taking home the prize).
Get MJ The Musical tickets now.
Sutton Foster, Hugh Jackman, Jayne Houdyshell: The Music Man
It's no surprise that the stars of The Music Man revival were nominated — they deserve it for the tap number at the end of the show alone! Hugh Jackman plays Harold Hill, a grifter who is inspired to change his stripes when he falls in love with Foster's Marian. Jackman turns on the charm as Harold, and it's easy to see why an entire town would willingly give him all their money.
As Marian, Sutton Foster brings her razor-sharp wit, giving this version of the character a probing intelligence without taking away any of her tenderness and romance. Foster and Jackman are nominated for Best Leading Actress in a Musical and Best Leading Actor in a Musical, respectively.
Jayne Houdyshell is also nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in The Music Man as the mayor's wife, Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn. Houdyshell's role is fairly small, but she steals the show with her big number. Dressed as the Statue of Liberty, she makes you feel positively patriotic.
Get The Music Man tickets now.
Jaquel Spivey, L Morgan Lee, John-Andrew Morrison: A Strange Loop
In A Strange Loop, Jaquel Spivey is onstage almost the entire time, playing Usher, a gay Black man who is relentlessly harangued by his self-hating thoughts (some of them played by L Morgan Lee and John-Andrew Morrison). A Strange Loop is Spivey's first professional gig, but you can't tell. He gives a sensitive performance, while belting to the rafters. Usher just wants to be loved for who he truly is, and in Spivey's hands, the audience can't help but fall in love.
In A Strange Loop, Usher's Thoughts take on different forms, which means the actors playing them have to be multifaceted as well. Lee and Morrison are both hilarious when the show opens as they jazz-hands to "Intermission Song." But Lee, as a caring female stranger, provides a stunning moment of clarity for Usher, while Morrison, as Usher's mother, has us leaning forward in "Periodically", a snapshot of maternal love and disappointment.
Spivey is nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, Lee is nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Morrison is nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Get A Strange Loop tickets now.
Patti LuPone, Jennifer Simard, Matt Doyle: Company
Patti LuPone has outdone herself. As Joanne in Company, she not only gets a standing ovation every night when she belts out "The Ladies Who Lunch", but the production shows LuPone is definitely a team player. She dances in the group numbers and moves furniture around, and she even appears in a memorable dream sequence in the musical that showcases her in a way fans have never seen before.
Meanwhile, Simard is dry and hilarious as Sarah, a married woman on a diet. Simard is able to show off her physical humor and wrings out every bit of laughter from the script. Doyle plays Jamie, a gay man with cold feet on his wedding day. In Doyle's hands, you have never heard a "Getting Married Today" quite like this. LuPone and Simard are nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and Doyle is nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. (LuPone and Doyle walked away with trophies at the awards.)
Jared Grimes: Funny Girl
Eddie Ryan can be a throwaway role in Funny Girl. After all, he's just Fanny Brice's supportive best friend. But in Jared Grimes's expert hands, Eddie is the highlight of the show. When he tap dances, you forget Funny Girl is a musical about Fanny Brice. And when he leaves the stage, you hope he will come back. Grimes is nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Billy Crystal and Shoshana Bean: Mr. Saturday Night
Billy Crystal may not have a big Broadway belting voice, which in a typical musical could spell trouble. But he's so winning in Mr. Saturday Night as Buddy Young, Jr., a washed-up comic trying to get back into the spotlight, that even his Rex Harrison-like speak-singing reads like a genius character choice. And his scenes with fellow Tony nominee Shoshana Bean are the highlight of the musical.
As Susan Young, Buddy's daughter, Bean gives the musical its heart, motivating Buddy to prioritize his family instead of himself for the first time. Crystal is nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical and Bean is nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
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