Not only did Harvey Weinstein‘s “Finding Neverland” fail to be nominated for best musical, the show’s stars Matthew Morrison and Kelsey Grammer were also ignored by the Tonys.
Few pundits expected “Neverland” to be cited, but Morrison being left off the list was a shocker. He joins an illustrious group of TV and movie stars this season who have no chance of bringing a Tony home on June 7.
Those snubbed include Michael Cera (“This Is Our Youth”), Glenn Close (“A Delicate Balance”), Tyne Daly (“It Shoulda Been You”), Larry David (“Fish in the Dark”), Vanessa Hudgens (“Gigi”), Hugh Jackman (“The River”), Nathan Lane (“It’s Only a Play”), Ewan McGregor (“The Real Thing”), and the two Gyllenhaals, Maggie (“The Real Thing”) and Jake (“Constellations”).
In a big switch from past years, one only African-American actor, K. Todd Freeman (“Airline Highway”), was nominated. But two Asian actors, Ken Watanabe and Ruthie Ann Miles (“The King and I”), were.
Hudgens’s show, “Gigi,” did not receive a nomination for best musical revival, as was expected. (The Tonys nominated only three shows in this category, leaving out the very deserving “Side Show,” which has closed.) It will be interesting to see if the producers of the Tony telecast on CBS ignore the “Gigi”/Hudgens slight, and, in an attempt to attract the actress’s “High School Musical” fans, include a number from the Lerner and Loewe show. Inconceivable is the producers not giving Morrison a spot to please the “Glee” crowd. Then again, since Weinstein got a “Neverland” song included in last year’s Tony telecast, even before the show’s Broadway premiere date was announced, maybe enough is enough.
Not being nominated for an actor Tony is a real snub when you consider that only about 55 lead actors from 37 shows are eligible, and yet a whopping 20 lead actors are nominated. Compare that to this year’s Oscars, which had hundreds of actors eligible from over 300 films and only 10 lead actors were nominated.
Among the other major awards, there were few surprises. The big question is, which shows will win the money awards: best play and musical? Look for the Tony’s usual Anglophilia to tip Stephen Simons’s play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” although Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” deserves the prize. Also “Incident” is still running and “Disgraced” has closed, so arguably “Wolf Hall,” another British entry, has the best shot of toppling “Incident.”
The musical race is tight. It’s the class acts, “Fun Home” and “The Visit,” against the tourist shows, “An American in Paris” and “Something Rotten!” The latter two have the potential to be