‘Mean Girls,’ ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ ‘Angels In America’ Lead Tony Nominations
April 8, 2018: Tina Fey joins the cast of ‘Mean Girls’ at the musical’s opening night on Broadway. Image by Noam Galai/Getty Images
By Talya Zax May 1, 2018
After a particularly boring season on Broadway, there are few surprises among this season’s nominees for the Tony Awards. “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Mean Girls” predictably mopped up nominations, scoring 12 apiece in a season in which new musicals were scarce. Equally predictably, “Escape to Margaritaville,” the Jimmy Buffet musical, won no Tony love; somewhat more unexpected was that the big-budget Disney blowout “Frozen” came away with a scarce three nominations. The season’s critical favorite, “The Band’s Visit,” swept up a neat 11 nominations.
Things were only slightly more interesting on the non-musical side of things, primarily because Amy Schumer scored a nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her work in Steve Martin’s “Meteor Shower,” which went otherwise unnoticed. “Angels in America” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” both British imports, performed well in the nomination categories for plays; the former scored 11 nominations, making it the most-nominated play in Tony history, and the latter 10. When it comes to the big prizes, Best Play and Best Revival of a Play, the two will compete in different categories, as “Angels in America” has previously appeared on Broadway.
Critics agreed that the most interesting category in this year’s awards is that of Best Revival for a Play, for which Kenneth Lonergan’s “Lobby Hero,” Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women,” Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” and Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” are nominated in addition to “Angels in America.” “The category is extraordinarily strong,” wrote Michael Paulson of The New York Times. Sara Holdren, writing for Vulture, commented on “the glut of star-studded revivals that make up the backbone of Broadway.” Given the strength of the season’s revivals compared to the weakness of its new plays, Charles McNulty wrote in the L.A. Times, “the temptation to fudge the best play category is understandable.”
Who will win? Do we care? Tune in for answers — if you must — on June 10, when the Tony’s will air. In the meantime, find a full list of nominees here.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
-
Books How a Jewish boy from Canterbury became a Zulu chieftain
-
Culture Jews thought Trump wanted to fight antisemitism. Why did he cut all of their grants?
-
Culture At a seder by and for trans Jews, guests define liberation for themselves
-
Culture ICE wants to treat deportations like a business – history warns us against that
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 3
Fast Forward How Coke’s Passover recipe sparked an antisemitic conspiracy theory
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion This Nazi-era story shows why Trump won’t fix a terrifying deportation mistake
-
Opinion I operate a small Judaica business. Trump’s tariffs are going to squelch Jewish innovation.
-
Fast Forward Language apps are putting Hebrew school in teens’ back pockets. But do they work?
-
Books How a Jewish boy from Canterbury became a Zulu chieftain
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.