Small productions big leaders in Tony nominations

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 10:03 a.m., May 13, 2008
Updated 10:20 a.m., May 13, 2008

Photo by Richard Drew/Associated Press

Tony winning actor David Hyde Pierce and Tony Award winning actress Sara Ramirez are introduced before they announce the nominees for the American Theatre Wing's 2008 Tony Awards for Broadway shows, in New York today. The 62nd annual awards show is scheduled for Sunday, June 15, 2008 at Radio City Music Hall.

Perhaps the rules have finally changed.

The 2007-2008 Broadway season was the year that small, heartfelt musicals triumphed over expected blockbusters. The pattern held true with today's Tony Award nominations, in which In the Heights led the pack with 13 nominations.

The musical is the creation of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who makes his Broadway debut as composer and star at the age of 28. It features a panorama of Latin American musical styles as well as the most authentic rap heard in a Broadway musical, but its story is a tiny slice of life of a few summer days in the Manhattan neighborhood Washington Heights.

Miranda was nominated for best actor in a musical as well as best score of a musical; his show was one of four nominated for best musical. He began working on the project as a student at Wesleyan University.

Autobiography was working for musicals, as Passing Strange, the tale of pop artist Stew's early adulthood, was nominated for best musical and brought Stew four nominations: best book of a musical, best score (with Heidi Rodewald), best orchestrations (with Rodewald) and best lead actor. Stew serves as a narrator and commentator, while actor Daniel Breaker plays him. Breaker was nominated for best featured actor in a musical.

Cry-Baby, based on the 1990 John Waters movie, and Xanadu, an ultra-campy staging of the 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie, rounded out the best musical nominations.

The winners in 26 competitive categories will be announced June 15 in a three-hour CBS telecast from Radio City Music Hall.

Among plays, August: Osage County was the predictable star, having already won widespread acclaim as well as the Pulitzer Prize. The play was a Broadway import from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and was written by company member Tracy Letts. It received seven nominations.

The frequently comic but brutal drama depicts three generations in an Oklahoma family feasting on one another like carrion. In addition to best play, the female-dominated tale from a traditionally male company brought in nominations for actresses Deanna Dunagan, Amy Morton and Rondi Reed; the latter two are Steppenwolf members.

Its primary competition (if it has any) will come from Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll, which moves from 1968 Prague to 1990 Cambridge, England, in the story of love and a love of rock music.

Irish playwright Conor McPherson's The Seafarer and Patrick Barlow's The 39 Steps, based on the Hitchcock film, were also nominated.

As usual, half the intrigue comes from those who went without. Big-budget musicals were shut out by the little guys this season, as neither Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein nor Disney's The Little Mermaid were nominated.

Brooks and his co-producers drew resentment for his arrogance in setting a top ticket price of $450; they drew yawns when the show opened. The Little Mermaid, which had its out-of-town tryout last summer in Denver, was trounced by New York critics on a level approaching that of the show Tarzan.

Mermaid did pick up nominations for best original score and for lighting design. Young Frankenstein was nominated for set design and performances by Christopher Fitzgerald and Andrea Martin.

The smaller-is-better aesthetic carried over to the play category, where star-studded casts were left out. Most notably, an African-American revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, currently one of the biggest hits on Broadway, received no nominations for a cast that included James Earl Jones, Terrence Howard and Phylicia Rashad.