Welcome back to Tony Talk, a column in which Gold Derby contributors Sam Eckmann and David Buchanan offer Tony Awards analysis. As we head into a particularly busy fall on Broadway, we discuss the second play of the season and debrief on some of the latest additions to the fall and spring slates.
David Buchanan: Sam, after a delightfully spooky start to the new Broadway season this summer with Paranormal Activity, we have officially kicked off the fall frenzy of shows with the launch of Manhattan Theatre Club’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. The comedy opened on Sept. 28, and received excellent notices for its sensitive balance of riotous humor and deeply-felt emotion.
That’s unsurprising, given it reunites playwright Jocelyn Bioh and director Whitney White, the Tony Award-nominated duo behind Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, which I know you loved. It’s also a terrific ensemble vehicle for beloved Broadway vets and rising superstars alike, including Tony winner Patina Miller and Tony nominees Denée Benton and Jasmine Amy Rogers. How did the production resonate with you, and how do you think it’ll resonate with Tony nominators next April?
Sam Eckmann: David, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding remains one of my favorite Broadway plays of the past few years, so I am thrilled to report that Bioh and White have once again created Broadway magic together. School Girls first premiered off-Broadway in 2017 before enjoying dozens of productions at regional theaters around the country. So even though the current production marks the first time School Girls has been presented on Broadway, it will undoubtedly invoke the Tony Awards’ “classics” rule and compete as a revival.
A slew of upcoming star-studded revivals could put a dent in the Tony plans for this limited run play from the fall, but I have full confidence that School Girls will break through in this competitive category. Bioh, who will appear on the Tony ballot as playwright, has a true knack for natural dialogue that makes the audience feel like they’re spying on real conversations. White, who I’m confident was runner-up to Joe Mantello in last season’s Director of a Play contest for her deft helming of Liberation, is likely to return to that category. She’s clearly at home navigating the subtleties and complexities of each character relationship within a large ensemble cast.
I suspect that the entire ensemble cast will be submitted in the Featured Actress category. With this in mind, the most likely acting nominee is Benton, who plays the most central role of Paulina. She’s the self-declared leader of the clique of high school students featured in the play. Her plan to win the Miss Ghana beauty pageant is upended by the arrival of Ericka (played by Rogers), a transfer student from the United States. Jealousy towards Ericka’s perceived beauty and wealth leads Paulina down a seriously mean path, hence the show’s title.
But Denton turns in an exquisite performance which centers the humanity and underlying pain in a character that could have come across as one-dimensionally nasty in less-sure hands. Paulina’s quietly devastating realization at the end of the play will surely stay with voters for months. Rogers, too, turns in a fantastic, emotionally-resonant performance that is bound to stand in stark contrast to her upcoming portrayal of Maria in The Sound of Music. Should she score nominations for both roles, she would become just the seventh actor to ever score two Tony nominations in the same year.
If School Girls turns into one of the top plays of the season, I could see the two veteran actors in the cast also securing votes. Heather Alicia Simms as Headmistress Francis and Patina Miller as Miss Ghana recruiter Eloise explore a longstanding rivalry that mirrors Paulina and Ericka. Simms is a commanding force on stage, while Miller is having a ball playing a flamboyant fashionista. During the performance I attended, Miller’s delicious scene-chewing during one of her exits prompted one cackling audience member to gleefully exclaim “Patina, please!” as the rest of the house rewarded the actress with exit applause. Miller may not have as much time on stage as Benton or Rogers, but she absolutely makes the most of every second she’s given.
Buchanan: I agree, School Girls‘ ensemble is truly an embarrassment of rich performances, and though some of the cast does briefly get to sing a cappella, it is such a treat to see Benton, Miller, and Rogers in their first non-musical on Broadway. I have to return to your first point about the production most likely being deemed a revival, because it’s a topic that has bearing on another play coming soon, namely, the first Broadway staging of Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris’ Downstate, directed by reigning Best Director champion Mantello.
This deeply dark, challenging drama takes place in a group home for sex offenders, and though previously staged off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, it has not been licensed or played extensively regionally. Often, the Tonys will consider a show with relatively few stagings as a new play, especially if it has the same creative team and cast as a previous London or off-Broadway run. But Downstate has existed for eight years already and has had major productions spanning Chicago, the West End, and Washington, D.C. Plus, with the exception of two ensemble members — the brilliant two-time Tony nominee K. Todd Freeman, who Mantello just directed in Death of a Salesman, and Francis Guinan — it has a starry new cast, including Emmy Award winner Liza Colón-Zayas and Tony nominee Thomas Sadoski.
Perhaps to stem this tide of factors bearing down on the upcoming Tony Administration Committee ruling, the production has very prominently announced itself in its key artwork as “a new play,” emblazoning the phrase right beneath the title treatment. If I were associated with Downstate, I would certainly prefer to run in that category, which has fewer (and arguably less buzzy) eligible productions than Best Play Revival.
The contenders in that category include School Girls, Other Desert Cities, The Imaginary Invalid, A Few Good Men, and Much Ado About Nothing this fall, plus Awake and Sing! and Gloria down the pike, not to mention this spring’s Small Mouth Sounds, also directed by Mantello, which will feature a dizzyingly glamorous cast led by Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd. How do you think the Tony committee might rule on Downstate? Strategically, in which category do you think it stands a better chance at a nomination and perhaps victory?
Eckmann: Based on the carefully chosen language in their advertisements, it’s clear that the producers of Downstate would prefer to compete as a new play. It’s hard to blame them. Besides Downstate, I count nine productions that will likely contend for the Revival of a Play category. There’s also several other unannounced high-profile play revivals circling theaters. At this stage of the game, there is far less competition for Best Play. Instead of fending off nearly a dozen strong contenders just to get nominated in the revival race, Downstate would immediately become one of the frontrunners in Best Play.
Still, the Tony Administration Committee makes the final call on all category placements, and recent precedent suggests they will view Downstate as a revival despite “new play” being emblazoned across its advertisements. When it comes to shows that take many years to reach Broadway, the decision to categorize it as a new play or a revival (via the “classics” rule) often comes down to the particulars of its prior staging in New York.
For instance, Between Riverside and Crazy debuted Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2014 and enjoyed subsequent regional theater productions before landing on the rialto in 2022. The Broadway production was eligible for Best Play because it featured the same director and creative team, and the majority of the same cast, as it did Off-Broadway. The run at the Atlantic was simply considered the first step in the show’s journey to Broadway.
Downstate does not follow this path. Pam MacKinnon helmed the Playwrights Horizons production, but Mantello and a brand new team of designers will interpret the show for Broadway. So even though it features two returning performers, it will fundamentally be a brand new production and therefore a revival. At least this is how the decision-making has shaken out for other plays in the same situation, such as recent Revival of a Play winners Appropriate and Eureka Day.
Since it’s too soon to know where the Tonys will ultimately land in that new vs. revival debate, I’d love to get your thoughts on a couple spring musicals. A Sergio Trujillo-helmed revival of Damn Yankees is headed to town starring Neil Patrick Harris, Austin Scott, and Julianne Hough. At least one actor from both prior Broadway mountings of Damn Yankees has taken home a Tony Award. Which member of this trio do you think is most likely to keep that winning streak alive?
And of course, we must also think about the impact that Dolly Parton’s recent passing might have on the Best Musical race. Her autobiographical Dolly: A True Original Musical opens in January, and I have to think that audiences will be hungry for this story. It’s true that no bio-musical has won the top award since Jersey Boys in 2006, but Dolly might have a leg up because Parton wrote a host of original tunes to accompany some of her well-known hits. If Parton wrote enough new material to snag a posthumous Best Original Score nomination, do you think the show could crash the Best Musical lineup?
Buchanan: Although Damn Yankees will return to Broadway with a substantially different cast than in the Arena Stage tryout, it will still feature the direction and choreography of Tony winner Trujillo, who worked earned rave reviews last year. It’s worth noting that Harris does not have a spotless Tony track record, missing nominations for Assassins and last season’s Art, for example. But he’s also a past Best Musical Actor winner for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the role of Applegate has never missed a nomination before, and Ray Walston earned a win for the original Broadway production. I imagine Harris’ “Those Were The Good Old Days” will secure him that nomination.
Julianne Hough not only has very impressive shoes to fill from the previous Broadway Lolas — Gwen Verdon, who won the Best Actress Tony, and Bebe Neuwirth, who was notoriously blanked — but also faces a very crowded field this season. If she’s considered lead, consistent with the production’s billing and Verdon’s placement, then she’ll be looking for a spot amongst category frontrunner and Olivier Award winner Rachel Zegler for Evita, Jasmine Amy Rogers for The Sound of Music, Liisi LaFontaine and Solea Pfeiffer for Wanted, Katie Rose Clarke in Dolly, the to-be-announced cast of Warriors, and more.
I confess I haven’t seen Austin Scott in any of his past Broadway outings in Hamilton, Girl from the North Country, or & Juliet or off-Broadway’s Goddess, so I am most eagerly anticipating his Joe Hardy, a role which nabbed Jarred Emick a Tony. Scott also feels like the kind of young industry star who steals the hearts of Tony voters.
The unexpected passing of Dolly Parton was absolutely a gut punch. I know so many people who didn’t closely follow her music that have come to love and admire her by hearing about her impressive career and philanthropy, so I have no doubt that interest in Dolly will be exponentially high. The Best Musical race currently consists of seven confirmed productions: Wanted, Galileo, Dolly, the just-announced Dirty Dancing, Purple Rain, Paddington, and Warriors. We’re currently a tad shy of the nine eligible shows needed to guarantee five spots in the race, but I know of at least two additional musicals angling to join the current season, so I’d wager we will reach that threshold.
Of the announced crop, I’d say Warriors, Paddington, and Wanted are out front for nominations, and I’d put Dolly in that fourth place for now. Whether the show could go all the way to a Best Musical win is a different question, considering Tony voters more frequently honor performance in jukebox and/or bio-musicals than the show itself. Perhaps that bodes very well for Clarke, one of the three actresses stepping into the powerhouse musician’s shoes. I think we’ll have a slightly better sense of the field when Wanted, our first new musical of the season, begins performances next week.
