The 78th Tony Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 8, honoring the best and brightest of the 2024-2025 Broadway season. It’s been a wild a
The 78th Tony Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 8, honoring the best and brightest of the 2024-2025 Broadway season. It’s been a wild and woolly year on the Great White Way, dominated by movie-star-laden, but otherwise lackluster, productions of classics senior and recent (Othello, Glengarry Glen Ross), as well as buzzy musical transfers (Sunset Blvd.) and revivals (Gypsy). Money has been made, stars have been born, and a few scrappy upstarts (Oh, Mary!, Maybe Happy Ending) have managed to break through the noise.
So, who will receive a shiny trophy for their theatrical troubles on Sunday? On this week’s Little Gold Men podcast, cohost Richard Lawson assembles a panel of Broadway experts—Vanity Fair’s Chris Murphy, Vulture theater critic Jackson McHenry, and entertainment writer Esther Zuckerman—to break down the major categories and make some semi-confident predictions.
Perhaps the biggest title bout of the evening will be found—as it often is—in the lead actress in a musical category, where six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald will stare down former Pussycat Doll turned lauded stage performer Nicole Scherzinger. McDonald’s long awaited turn in Gypsy has been ballyhooed by some, pooh-poohed by others. Scherzinger has received near unanimous praise for her cracked, decidedly contemporary version of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd., but her campaign could be marred by some offstage controversy involving a red hat. We’re giving the narrowest of edges to Scherzinger, but one should never count out Audra McDonald. If she wins, she will break her own record as the most Tony-awarded actor of all time.
Our panelists were all in agreement that the brilliant Cole Escola should win best lead actor in a play for their delightfully gonzo turn as a delightfully gonzo Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! But it’s possible that Escola—a Brooklyn alt-comedy legend finally enjoying mainstream success—could lose out to a gigantic name like George Clooney, whose Good Night, and Good Luck was respectfully received when it opened this spring. (The same cannot be said for Clooney’s dye job.) The Tonys have long found it tough to resist giving gigantic celebrities awards—though that tide has turned some of delayed, a fact perhaps best evidenced this year by the absence of Othello star Denzel Washington on the nominees list.
Another teenage upstart is challenging some high-profile names in the lead actor in a musical category. Tom Francis, the 20-something British hunk who commandingly leads Sunset Blvd., is squaring off against Emmy winner Darren Criss (who plays a lovelorn robot in Maybe Happy Ending) and Broadway royalty Jonathan Groff (who plays Bobby Darin in Just In Time). We suspect one of the flashier names will prevail over Francis—Groff could quite possibly repeat his win from last year—though we think Escola will beat Mr. Clooney. Oh, Mary! is one of the sensations of the season, embodying the kind of downtown-to-Midtown Cinderella narrative the Tony voters love.
You can hear the case for those predictions and more on this week’s episode, along with some commentary on the merit (or lack thereof) of the Stranger Things play, a debate about recent musical Dead Outlaw, and some passion picks for who should win in the featured actor categories. Happy Tonys season to those who celebrate! Which is to say, joyful Pride.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
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