A first in history, only one actor is nominated for a Tony this year
With the Broadway season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, the recently announced 74th Tony Awards nominations have seen some history-making turns, including having only one recipient of a Best Leading Actor in a Musical nomination—Aaron Tveit, the star of Moulin Rouge!
Tveit may be the sole recipient of the nomination and already presumed a winner but the Tony Awards rules state that if a category only has one nominee, the award will only be given if 60 percent affirmative votes from Tony voters are cast. However the wind blows for Tveit, his name is already etched in Tony Awards history.
Another Tony Awards first is all nominees for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Orchestrations are musicals that contained previously released songs that are not initially written for the musical—Moulin Rouge!, Jagged Little Pill and Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.
The 74th annual Tony Awards will recognize achievement in Broadway productions during the 2019-2020 season. With the 28 new productions, only 18 shows were eligible for this year's awards show because of the abbreviated season.
Tony winner James Monroe Ingelhart (Aladdin and Hamilton) announced live on Friday (Manila time) this year’s Tony Awards nominees.
Rock musical Jagged Little Pill, the stage adaption of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album of the same name that premiered on Broadway in December 2019, received 15 nominations including Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Elizabeth Stanley), Best featured Actor in a Musical (Derek Klena and Sean Allan Krill) and Best Musical.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical is trailing behind Jagged Little Pill with 14 nominations including Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Karen Olivo), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Aaron Tveit), Best Direction of a Musical (Alex Timbers) and Best Musical.
The controversial Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris earned 12 nominations, a record-breaking number for most nominations for a new play.
Award-winning English actor Tom Hiddleston (Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Thor) was also nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance in Betrayal.
Jake Gyllenhaal received his first Tony nomination for Best Leading Actor in A Play for his performance in Sea Wall/A Life.
The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing also announced that the 74th annual Tony Awards will go digital after its initial June 7 staging at the Radio City Music Hall was postponed due to the pandemic. Further details of the awards ceremony will be announced later, according to Broadway.com.
Broadway League also announced in early October that all Broadway shows, which employs nearly 97,000 workers, would remain shut down until May 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic.
Click here for the complete list of nominees.