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[0:01] Alan Seales: Hey everyone, welcome back to a quick little bonus episode of The Theatre Podcast. I'm Alan Seales and I want to recap the Tony nominations that just came out this morning. Leading the nominations is Hell's Kitchen with 13, Stereophonic also with 13, which by the way is the most nominated play ever in Tony history, followed by The Outsiders. FYI, if you're not already following the podcast, make sure to stay tuned to the feed because we're doing an Outsiders takeover for the next few weeks here on the podcast. Cabaret got nine, Appropriate got eight, Merrily got seven, Water for Elephants got seven. I don't need to go through the rest. By the way, The Wiz got snubbed, I think, in my opinion.

It got zero nominations. The Who's Tommy got only one. And I think Ali, of course, deserved a nomination, which he did not get, unfortunately. And part of it, I think, is because in the original production, his role was classified as a supporting role. And now in this production, it's a lead role and there is just a ton of competition. So let's see. Let me scroll back to the top of my list here and see what we've got. So the big categories, of course, the first one, Best Musical, is between Hell's Kitchen, Illinois' The Outsiders, Suffs, and Water for Elephants. Surprisingly, or maybe not, I don't know. The Notebook was not included in this nomination list, but I still know a bunch of people who are excited to see it and who love it.

So Best Play is Jaja's African Hair Braiding, Mary Jane, Mother Play, Prayer for the French Republic, and Stereophonic, of course. Stereophonic, I still have not seen that one yet, and I just hear nothing but amazing things about it. Let's see. Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play is William Jackson Harper from Uncle Vanya. He was absolutely incredible, and his role is actually in the Best Leading Role category, obviously, which I think kind of knocked Steve Carell out, unfortunately. Let's see. Leslie Odom Jr. for Purlie Victorious, Liev Schreiber for Doubt, Jeremy Strong in Enemy of the People, Michael Stuhlbarg for Patriots. Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play, we have Betsy Aidem for Prayer for the French Republic, Jessica Lange, of course, for Mother Play, Rachel McAdams for Mary Jane, Sarah Paulson for Appropriate, and Amy Ryan for Doubt.

Let's see. Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, Brody Grant, Jonathan Groff, Dorian Harewood, Brian d'Arcy James, and Eddie Redmayne. And Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, Eden Espinosa, Maleah Joi Moon, Kelli O'Hara, Maryann Plunkett, and Gayle Rankin. So I've seen all of Lempicka, Hell's Kitchen, Days of Wine and Roses, The Notebook, except for Cabaret, which I'm going to see tonight. So I can't weigh in on these performances equally yet. I'll let you know. By the way, we got into the Best Actress, Best Actor, etc., etc. I think it's time to get rid of the gender-specific categories. I don't know why being one gender or another or identifying with a gender at all has to deal with how good your performance is.

And remember last year, Justin David Sullivan for Anne Juliet, they were forced to choose between actor or actress to get nominated, and they chose neither and therefore could not get nominated. So, you know, we're missing out on some good recognition a little bit. Let's see. Best Book of a Musical, Christopher Diaz for Hell's Kitchen, Becca Brunstetter for The Notebook, Adam Rapp and Justin Levine for The Outsiders, Shana Taub for Suffs, and Rick Elise for Water for Elephants. OK, Best Original Score is Adam Guettel for Days of Wine and Roses, Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The Outsiders again, Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance, who are the duo known as Jamestown Revival. Stereophonic, of course, with Will Butler and Shana Taub again for Suffs.

So Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. See, Stereophonic took three of those five nominations. Tom Pecinka, sorry if I said the name wrong, Eli Gelb and Will Brill, and then Jim Parsons for Mother Play and Corey Stoll for Appropriate. Let's see, Actress in a Featured Role, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Juliana Canfield, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Sarah Pidgeon and Kara Young for Purlie Victorious. Kara Young, just holy crap, man. That performance still sticks out in my mind. So Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. We have Roger Bart for Back to the Future. Of course, well-deserved. Joshua Boone for The Outsiders, Sky Lakota-Lynch for The Outsiders, Brandon Victor Dixon for Hell's Kitchen.

Oh man, just that voice, smooth like butter. Daniel Radcliffe for Merrily and Steven Skybell for Cabaret. Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, Shoshana Bean, Amber Iman, Nikki M. James, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Kecia Lewis, Lindsay Mendez and Bebe Neuwirth. Wow, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven people in that category. It's insane. Best Scenic Design, we've got Appropriate and Enemy of the People, both dots. They are competing against themselves in this category. Derek McLean for Purlie and then David Zinn competing against himself for Jaja's African Hair Braiding and Stereophonic. Let's see, I'm going to skim through a couple of the other ones. The full list actually can be found on the Tony Awards website.

I'll put the link in the show notes. But one of the nominations I'm happy to see in here is Natasha Katz for Greyhouse. I loved Greyhouse and Natasha, one of her signature styles, I think, is the absence of light used to light a show. And Natasha uses that so well of using actually a minimal amount of light to show you as the audience exactly where and where you should and should not be looking. She does a great job of that. So Natasha Katz, obviously, for Greyhouse and Natasha Katz again for Hell's Kitchen in the Best Lighting Design of a Musical category. When it comes to Best Sound Design of a play, in case you don't know, like sound design is, you know, how the speakers are set up, where you hear the sounds coming from, a lot of things you don't actually think about consciously when you're going to see something.

What is the mix? Can you hear the orchestra over the singing or vice versa? Or is it a nice blend? Can you hear the lyrics very well? Does it sound the same in the front of the house, in the back of the house, in the mezzanine? All of this is incredibly difficult to get right and even do exceedingly well. Best Sound Design of a Musical, I was personally impressed with both Cody Spencer and Gareth Owen for The Outsiders and Hell's Kitchen respectively. Let's see, Best Direction of a Musical cannot say enough wonderful things about Donya Taymor. My interview with her that was just released. Also today as I'm recording this episode, Donya is just this incredible upcoming director in the Broadway world, the Broadway world proper.

She's been doing theater for a long time and just her approach to getting the cast and the creative team to work together and produce this cohesive show is something, it's a process I haven't heard before. Best Choreography, Hell's Kitchen, very well deserved to Camille A. Brown. The Cooperman Brothers for The Outsiders again. Let's see, Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll for Water for Elephants. Justin Peck for Illinois and Annie B. Parson for Here Lies Love. I would have thought that The Wiz would have been included in here, but unfortunately not. Big shout out to Leslie Kritzer for carrying the unfortunately the sole nomination for Monty Python's Spamalot, but she was of course incredible in it.

Gatsby only got one, Back to the Future got a total of two. So yeah, I mean that's kind of the highlights here. So let me know what you think. Do you agree with the nominations? What got snubbed? What would you like to see? What haven't you seen? What is your vote? Shout off in the comments, let me know, and thanks for tuning in!