2022 Tony Awards: Predicting the Likely Winners, from A Strange Loop to Six

In September 2021, the Tony Awards, scheduled to celebrate Broadway’s rush of reopenings, honored some shows that voters had seen a full two years earlier. There won’t be many foggy memories this year, as 15 of the 34 eligible shows in the 2021-2022 season opened in April alone. This crush of new plays and musicals launched at the latest, safest possible moment, at the tail end of a theatrical season distinguished by sudden cancellations and the heroic efforts of understudies, swings, and standbys to keep the curtain up.

Among those April openings was Michael R. Jackson’s musical A Strange Loop, which feels like a step forward for the musical theater form and those whose stories get told on Broadway stages. Last year, despite a record-setting 12 nominations for a non-musical play, Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play didn’t win a single award. Like Slave Play, A Strange Loop is an irreverent, sexually frank work about Blackness and queerness that’s not afraid to meet the predominantly white liberal gaze of its audience and win the staring contest. The most vehement critics of both works seem to mask discomfort with the authors’ unapologetically-centered Blackness behind squeamishness about the crude language and the sexual content.

A Strange Loop, with its form-bending journey into the spirals of one man’s psyche, is poised to fare much better with its 11 nominations. For one, it’s already won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. But then again, Tony voters aren’t the progressive Pulitzer panel, and Slave Play’s total shut-out last year seemed similarly unthinkable ahead of the awards.

In commemorating a season that also featured the most plays by Black playwrights in Broadway history, voters have the opportunity to recognize extraordinary work by contemporary writers like Dominique Morisseau and underappreciated historical figures like Alice Childress. (Nominators already passed on Antoniette Nwandu’s potent, challenging Pass Over, which led the charge on Broadway’s reopening in August but isn’t up for any prizes on Sunday.) Some Tony voters, many of whom are regional producers and others with a stake in the outcomes, come to the ballot with their own agendas, but let’s hope Broadway’s most racially diverse season will be capped by a ceremony that fully celebrates that sea change.

Best Musical

Girl from the North Country
MJ
Mr. Saturday Night
Paradise Square
Six
A Strange Loop

Best musical doesn’t feel like the foregone conclusion that it should. The biggest potential spoiler is Six, the peppy, poppy rock concert about the wives of Henry VIII. Six’s high-octane energy was a decadent balm when theaters first reopened. I still give A Strange Loop the edge, not because of my faith in the Tony voter community that shunned similarly necessary, brittle material a year ago but because I don’t think the dissenters will rally around a single show. The voters who find Six unserious and A Strange Loop too “big, Black and queer-ass,” as its opening number proclaims, may show up for the subtler Girl from the North Country, while other, touring-focused voters might even turn to MJ. Whatever the split, that division should propel A Strange Loop to the victory it deserves.

Best Play

Clyde’s
Hangmen
Skeleton Crew
The Lehman Trilogy
The Minutes

As much as my heart says Skeleton Crew, Dominique Morisseau’s exquisite slow-burn of a breakroom thriller about the workers at a soon-to-shutter auto plant in Detroit, my head acknowledges that The Lehman Trilogy, an overhyped, overlong chronicle of the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers investors bank, is virtually unstoppable in this category.

Best Revival of a Musical

Caroline, or Change
Company
The Music Man

I’ll be in the minority of those critics rooting for The Music Man, a much-maligned production that I ultimately adored, over Marianne Elliott’s gender-swapped Company, its polar opposite in terms of traditional staging. Things (besides a whole lot of Hugh Jackman-fueled box office records) could break Music Man’s way if voters want to spread the wealth: Company will likely win for its direction and one or two acting awards and Caroline, or Change will also likely be recognized in the best actress category. But, especially given its success at the Drama Desk Awards, a strong night all around for Company seems in the cards.

Best Revival of a Play

American Buffalo
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf
How I Learned to Drive
Take Me Out
Trouble In Mind

In perhaps this year’s most competitive category, it’s easy to imagine any of the nominated productions snagging the prize; perhaps only American Buffalo seems like a real longshot. How I Learned to Drive, a beloved work arriving on Broadway for the first time 25 years after its premiere with most of the original cast intact, may have the strongest recent goodwill from critics and audiences. But Trouble in Mind wasn’t just a revival but a resurrection for Alice Childress, the best American playwright you’d probably never heard of, whose refusal to compromise her artistic integrity at the behest of white producers kept her work away from Broadway for nearly 70 years. A Tony wouldn’t only recognize a powerful production of a play but the decades-delayed arrival of an essential voice on theater’s biggest stage.

Best Leading Actor in a Play

Simon Russell Beale, The Lehman Trilogy
Adam Godley, The Lehamn Trilogy
Adrian Lester, The Lehman Trilogy
David Morse, How I Learned to Drive
Sam Rockwell, American Buffalo
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Lackawanna Blues
David Threlfall, Hangmen

The presence of all three Lehman Trilogy actors may knock them all out of contention. David Morse’s eerily tender pedophile and Sam Rockwell’s reckless ne’er-do-well may be the most talked-about characters at present, but Santiago-Hudson’s shape-shifting performance, embodying and giving voice to the many figures of his own childhood, is one of the most astonishing feats of storytelling wizardry I’ve seen on stage. If voters remember Lackawanna Blues from the early fall, as they did at the Drama Desk Awards, Santiago-Hudson can win.

Best Leading Actress in a Play

Gabby Beans, The Skin of Our Teeth
LaChanze, Trouble in Mind
Ruth Negga, Macbeth
Deirdre O’Connell, Dana H.
Mary-Louise Parker, How I Learned to Drive

I’d like to see LaChanze’s lustrous, career-topping portrayal of Wiletta Mayer, a careful character actress finally speaking truth to power in Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind, rewarded here. Her fiercest competition will come from Mary-Louise Parker, last year’s winner in this category for The Sound Inside, who delivers a gut-wrenching reinvention of her original performance in How I Learned to Drive. (The virtuosity of Deirdre O’Connell, lip-synching for the entirety of Dana H. to a recording of playwright Lucas Hnath’s mother, was something special, but I doubt that a silent performance will ultimately pass muster here.) Parker’s 2021 victory should make it easier for voters to choose LaChanze.

Best Leading Actor in a Musical

Billy Crystal, Mr. Saturday Night
Myles Frost, MJ
Hugh Jackman, The Music Man
Rob McClure, Mrs. Doubtfire
Jacquel Spivey, A Strange Loop

Twenty-three-year-old Jaquel Spivey will win the Tony for his shattering debut performance as Usher, a queer, Black Broadway usher writing a musical about a queer, Black Broadway usher writing a musical about…are we done here?

Best Leading Actress in a Musical

Sharon D. Clarke, Caroline, or Change
Carmen Cusack, Flying Over Sunset
Sutton Foster, The Music Man
Joaquina Kalukango, Paradise Square
Mare Winningham, Girl from the North Country

The frontrunner here is Sharon D. Clarke, who gave a heartbreaking performance as the complex title character in Caroline, or Change. Her main obstacle is that the show ended its limited run in the fall. In the event that voters have short memories, and I do expect them ultimately to remember Clarke here, I’d pick Sutton Foster, whose brassy reanimation of Marian the librarian divided critics, over Joaquina Kalukango, belting overtime spectacularly to ignite the otherwise dull Paradise Square.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play

Alfie Allen, Hangmen
Chuck Cooper, Trouble in Mind
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Take Me Out
Ron Cephas Jones, Clyde’s
Michael Oberholtzer, Take Me Out
Jesse Williams, Take Me Out

Missing here is Brandon J. Dirden—the best part of both Skeleton Crew and Take Me Out—and of his three nominated Take Me Out castmates, only Jesse Tyler Ferguson, as an accountant who falls in love with baseball, stands a chance. In stronger positions are Chuck Cooper, generous and truth-telling in Trouble in Mind, and Ron Cephas Jones as a mystical sandwich-making guru in Clyde’s. I’m expecting a second Tony for the always-wonderful Cooper, 25 years and 10 Broadway shows after his first for The Life.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play

Uzo Aduba, Clyde’s
Rachel Dratch, POTUS
Kenita R. Miller, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf
Phylicia Rashad, Skeleton Crew
Julie White, POTUS
Kara Young, Clyde’s

What a loaded category, including pairs of performers from Clyde’s (a deliciously sinister Uzo Aduba and a sweetly funny Kara Young) and POTUS (Julie White as a caustic White House chief of staff and Rachel Dratch as something out of a chaotic fever dream). The most likely contenders here are Kenita R. Miller, who delivered for colored girls’s most haunting monologue gorgeously while over eight months pregnant, and Phylicia Rashad as Faye, the proud, cynical anchor of Skeleton Crew. I appreciated all the performances in this category, but Rashad will win for one of the richest, wisest stage turns this season.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical

Matt Doyle, Company
Sidney DuPont, Paradise Square
Jared Grimes, Funny Girl
John-Andrew Morrison, A Strange Loop
A.J. Shively, Paradise Square

Public opinion and the precedents of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards position Matt Doyle, who converted the panicked, wedding-averse Amy to Jamie in Elliott’s gender-swapped Company, as the strong favorite. But if Tony voters turn out to be hard-core fans of A Strange Loop, a vote for John-Andrew Morrison, utterly heartbreaking as a Thought (within the mind of the protagonist Usher) that eventually takes the larger-than-life form of Usher’s complicated, bigoted mother, would be a no-brainer. I’m going out on a limb and saying that a big night for A Strange Loop will include the pleasant surprise of a win for Morrison.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical

Jeannette Bayardelle, Girl from the North Country
Shoshana Bean, Mr. Saturday Night
Jayne Houdyshell, The Music Man
L. Morgan Lee, A Strange Loop
Patti LuPone, Company
Jennifer Simard, Company

Much as I loved (and dare I say preferred) the commandingly luxurious voice of Jeannette Bayardelle in Girl From the North Country and the gregarious, groundbreaking warmth of L. Morgan Lee (the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony) in A Strange Loop, this one’s for Patti LuPone. (And one for Mahler.)

Best Direction of a Play

Lileana Blain-Cruz, The Skin of Our Teeth
Camille A. Brown, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf
Sam Mendes, The Lehman Trilogy
Neil Pepe, American Buffalo
Les Waters, Dana H.

My personal pick would be for Camille A. Brown, who’s up for both direction and choreography of the beautifully joyous and dance-heavy for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, but I think voters will be more likely to show their appreciation in the choreography category (where I’d love to see Brown upset Christopher Wheeldon’s work on MJ). I expect this one to come down to a two-way race between Mendes and Blain-Cruz. They both animated gargantuan, hulking works with creative fireworks. While I much preferred The Skin of Our Teeth, The Lehman Trilogy seems a heavy favorite across the board and Mendes’s finely-tuned staging aboard an ever-revolving set should get him across the finish line.

Best Direction of a Musical

Jamie Armitage and Lucy Moss, Six
Stephen Brackett, A Strange Loop
Marianne Elliott, Company
Conor McPherson, Girl from the North Country
Christopher Wheeldon, MJ

Marianne Elliott reimagined Sondheim’s early classic Company with a gender-swapped cast and an Alice in Wonderland-like labyrinthine staging. It’s daring work, but so is Stephen Brackett’s less attention-getting construction of Usher’s inner world: the extraordinary symbiosis among the company and the simple, subtle ways that Brackett allows the story to unfurl make him the most deserving of recognition here. It may still be Elliott by a hair, but I anticipate that many voters will also tie some of A Strange Loop’s impact to Brackett’s staging.

Best Book of a Musical

A Strange Loop, Michael R. Jackson
Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson
MJ, Lynn Nottage
Mr. Saturday Night, Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandell
Paradisee Square, Christina Anderson, Larry Kirwan, and Craig Lucas

Girl from the North Country is really a play with music so this could be a spot for voters to honor Conor McPherson’s lovely work. But some of the songless scenes in A Strange Loop— a shocking subway encounter and the pivotal confrontation between Usher and his parents, in particular—anchor Michael R. Jackson’s self-exploratory epic. A Strange Loop will take this trophy, but spare a thought for Six’s slight but lively book, bizarrely absent here in a category that features a couple of embarrassingly clunky scripts.

Best Original Score

A Strange Loop, Michael R. Jackson
Flying Over Sunset, Tom Kitt and Michael Korie
Mr. Saturday Night, Jason Robert Brown and Amanda Green
Paradise Square, Masi Asare, Nathan Tysen, and Jason Howland
Six, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

This one should be particularly interesting. Neither Six nor A Strange Loop are jukebox musicals but both scores are in conversation with jukeboxes: Six with the various pop divas that each Tudor queen emulates and A Strange Loop with its protagonist’s “inner white girl” music (Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Joni Mitchell). (Jackson also parodies the scores of Tyler Perry gospel plays.) My gut says Six will grab this one (plus sound, lighting, and costume design), a reward for witty Tudor puns and joyfully addictive hooks.