In the 2024 Tony nominees, a reminder Jews don’t always need to work Jewish
‘Cabaret’ and ‘Prayer for the French Republic’ were both nominated, but antisemitism and Jewish identity are not the major theme
Andrew R. Butler and Tony nominee Eli Gelb in Stereophonic, a play with a record-setting 13 nominations. Photo by Julieta Cervantes
By PJ Grisar April 30, 2024
In terms of Jewish content, few Broadway seasons top last year’s crop of shows. So Jewish were the 2023 Tonys that Tom Stoppard, that most reticent of Yids, had a Jewish show, while a revival of Parade, about the lynching of Leo Frank, bagged awards for Best Revival.
But as Passover draws to a close and concern for antisemitism rises to a high not seen in decades, the 2024 Tonys are proof that Jews — enough to fill a theater for a New York Times Magazine feature — are not always quite so provincial in our concerns.
Take one David Adjmi, whose Broadway debut Stereophonic leads the straight play pack with a record 13 nominations, including best new play, best director for Daniel Aukin and best featured actor for Eli Gelb.
When Adjmi and I spoke shortly before previews, he told me that he was eager to defy a theater culture that now prizes identity above all else.
“I sort of was very proud of this idea that in the time where everyone’s writing their ‘identities,’ and fixating on their tribal identities, that I just relieved myself of that completely,” said Adjmi, who is gay and Jewish and opted to write a family drama around a band that resembles Fleetwood Mac.
Adjmi has written about his Jewishness and queerness in the past, and so has Paula Vogel, whose Mother Play, up for four awards, couldn’t be further from her Indecent riff on Yiddish Theater.
Amy Herzog also channeled motherhood in Mary Jane (up for best new play and best director for Anne Kaufman), featuring a Hasidic woman as a secondary character. She left Yiddishkeit aside for her adaptation of An Enemy of the People (directed by coreligionist Sam Gold, nominated for best revival).
In the musical arena, the terrifying resuscitation of Cabaret is nominated for eight Tonys, including for Steven Skybell (playing Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz) and Bebe Neuwirth (playing against type as the non-Jewish Fraulein Schneider). As ever that show confronts the specter of antisemitism. So does Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, about a Parisian family’s debate over whether to make aliyah.
Prayer is nominated for new play, lead actress for Betsy Aidem and for Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting. But while its concerns were prescient, it’s not the only game in town for commentary in an election year.
Shaina Taub’s Suffs, about women who fought for the franchise, is nominated for best musical and direction of a musical for Leigh Silverman. Its cast of real-life characters are about as Jewish as a Daughters of the American Revolution convention, though the ensemble is notably diverse.
The Outsiders, that classic of high school greasers who hang out in a church, is up for 10 awards, including for score, orchestration and book for Justin Levine. Danya Taymor directed.
While musical Lempicka, a story of a Polish-Jewish noblewoman who helped launch the art deco aesthetic, deals with Nazism, it only got nods for performances for Eden Espinoza in the title role and Amber Iman as her lover.
Lila Neugebauer, who directed the very Jewish The Ally and the supremely goyishe Uncle Vanya this year, is up for her revival of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, along with Jewish actor Corey Stoll, up for playing a fellow named Beauregard Lafayette. Meanwhile, Adam Guettel, a scion of the Rodgers musical theater family, got a nod for his score for Days of Wine and Roses.
The Jews won’t be hemmed in. Liev Schreiber, last seen as Henry Kissinger, is nominated for playing a Catholic priest in the Doubt revival, while Shoshana Bean’s Tony-nominated turn in Hell’s Kitchen couldn’t be further from her run as Fanny Brice. Closer to heritage is Michael Stuhlbarg, nominated for playing Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in Patriots.
Hell’s Kitchen is the most-nominated new musical, with nods for director Michael Greif and Tom Kitt and Adam Blackstone, who orchestrated Alicia Keys’ music. Rick Elice, a Jewish scribe, ran away to join the circus writing the book for Water for Elephants.
Jonathan Tunick, Sondheim’s orchestrator of old, is nominated for his new work on Merrily We Roll Along, up for seven awards including best revival, director for Maria Friedman and featured actor for Daniel Radcliffe, playing the Jewish-coded Charley Kringas.
Jews, Jesse Green noted in his Times Magazine piece, have a claim to creating the American theater as we now know it. But if the 2024 nominees are any indication, they may not view themselves quite so narrowly. Some of their best work was, and continues to be, unaffiliated.
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