Tony Awards 2025: The Nomination Races, the Front-Runners, and the Wild Cards
When the Tony Awards nominating committee locked the doors at midnight on 27 April, they faced a record-breaking Broadway season to sort through. Fourteen new musicals and the same number of new plays opened before the eligibility cutoff, guaranteeing at least five nominees in the top categories—and ratcheting the annual guessing game into overdrive.
Below, we break down where each race stands before the nominations go live on 1 May, drawing on critical buzz, box-office momentum, and the wry crystal-ball reading of Zachary Stewart, chief critic for our New York sister site.
Best Musical
With 14 eligible titles, the field is crowded enough that a tie could push the slate beyond five. Two shows feel “locked”:
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Maybe Happy Ending – The Korean import turned sci-fi romance boasts glowing reviews, a star-making turn from Darren Criss, and a deeply hummable electro-swing score.
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Dead Outlaw – David Yazbek’s off-kilter tale of outlaw-turned-celebrity Elmer McCurdy is the season’s quirkiest smash, powered by Andrew Durand’s literally motionless second-act star turn.
Likely to join them are the high-camp crowd-pleasers Death Becomes Her and Buena Vista Social Club. The final slot is pure intrigue: the wartime farce Operation Mincemeat and Betty Boop-inspired Boop! have traction, while the now-closed folk-rock odyssey Swept Away still enjoys a fervent fan base. An outside spoiler could be A Wonderful World, though its mixed reviews make it a long shot.
Best Play
As with the musicals, 14 new plays jostle for five places. Critical darling Oh, Mary!—Cole Escola’s camp fantasia about Mary Todd Lincoln—leads the pack and is still printing money at the Lyceum. Also considered safe: Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s family mystery Purpose and Jordan Tannahill’s Gen-Z classroom thriller John Proctor Is the Villain. If the committee honours literary heft, Pulitzer winner English and Jez Butterworth’s elegiac The Hills of California should round out the lineup. Yet star wattage could tip the scale—George Clooney’s newsroom drama Good Night, and Good Luck and Netflix juggernaut Stranger Things both lure tourists, and the Tonys have occasionally succumbed to marquee titles (see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s win in 2018).
Best Revival of a Play
Four revival slots seem destined for heavyweight budgets and famous titles. David Mamet’s cut-throat Glengarry Glen Ross (with Denzel Washington) and Jamie Lloyd’s techno-goth Othello are near-certainties, while Sam Gold’s stripped-down Our Town and Lila Neugebauer’s contemporary Romeo + Juliet have the critical edge. Could Jonathan Spector’s vaccine-debate satire Eureka Day crash the party? Stranger things, as they say, have happened.
Best Revival of a Musical
A trio of prestige productions—Adam Guettel’s cult favourite Floyd Collins, the blockbuster Gypsy starring Audra McDonald, and Jamie Lloyd’s noirish Sunset Boulevard with Nicole Scherzinger—look immovable. That leaves Pirates! The Penzance Musical and Jason Robert Brown’s intimate The Last Five Years to duel for the final nod.
The Acting Showdowns
Leading Actor in a Play
Comedian-turned-playwright Cole Escola could pull off a David-vs-Goliath victory against Hollywood titans Denzel Washington (Glengarry), Jake Gyllenhaal (McNeal), and George Clooney (Good Night). Watch for Jon Michael Hill (Purpose) as a stealth pick if the nominators value recency and critical raves.
Leading Actress in a Play
Sarah Snook plays every role in Kip Williams’s solo The Picture of Dorian Gray—a feat that may be unbeatable. Rising star Sadie Sink (John Proctor) and Olivier winner Laura Donnelly (The Hills of California) should feature, with Broadway stalwart LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Purpose) battling Sydney Lemmon’s cult turn in Job for the final ticket.
Leading Actor in a Musical
A five-way face-off looms: Jeremy Jordan (Floyd Collins), Jonathan Groff (Just in Time), Darren Criss (Maybe Happy Ending), David Hyde Pierce (Pirates!), and David Cumming (Operation Mincemeat). Dark-horse goodwill could lift James Monroe Iglehart Jr. (A Wonderful World) or corpse-in-coffin maestro Andrew Durand into the mix.
Leading Actress in a Musical
Expect a superstar roster: Audra McDonald, Helen J Shen, Nicole Scherzinger, and Jasmine Amy Rogers seem locked. The coveted fifth slot is chaos: Bernadette Peters or Lea Salonga (Old Friends), Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard (Death Becomes Her), Idina Menzel (Redwood), or sentimental favourite Katie Brayben (Tammy Faye) all make compelling cases.
Creative Awards to Watch
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Original Score could finally reward the long-gestating Smash stage adaptation, though Swept Away might sneak a sentimental nod.
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Book of a Musical features fresh voices—expect predictive front-runners Maybe Happy Ending, Dead Outlaw, and Real Women Have Curves to duel with the audacious farce of Operation Mincemeat.
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Choreography and Direction categories pit Broadway royalty (Susan Stroman, George C. Wolfe) against avant-garde stylists (Patricia Delgado & Justin Peck, Jamie Lloyd), promising one of the tightest scoreboard races of the night.
Why These Nominations Matter
Broadway’s post-pandemic rebound is undeniable: the 2024-25 season delivered record grosses and unprecedented diversity—from K-pop android romances to campy necro-musicals. Nominations translate into marketing gold, extending the life of still-running shows and breathing a final burst of publicity into those already closed. They also shape the narrative: which stories get canonised, which artists become household names, and which innovations (cue Othello’s LED cages) set the aesthetic agenda for years.
Come Thursday morning, some contenders will wake up Tony nominees; others will be relegated to “snub” think-pieces. But for now, as Zachary Stewart reminds us, the race remains deliciously wide open—proof that in theatre, as in life, anything can happen before the curtain comes down.
Photo Credit: DepositPhotos.com
