2025 Tony Predictions

The Tony Awards are this Sunday, June 8 on CBS with a pre-show on Pluto. I have cast my Tony ballot and made my predictions. Maybe Happy Ending will probably be the big winner as the robot romance musical has dominating the Drama Desks, Outer Critics and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. Here are my predictions and preferences:

Best Musical:
Prediction: Maybe Happy Ending
Preference: Operation Mincemeat

I preferred the British satiric take on a WWII secret operation to the sentimental South Korean-set robt romance, but Happy Ending has dominated awards season and Tony voters will go along.

Best Play:

Prediction and Preference: Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but I think Purpose will defeat the nearest competitor Oh, Mary! which is a riot, but Best Play seldom goes to an out-and-out satiric comedy.

Best Musical Revival:

Prediction and Preference: Gypsy

The avant-garde Sunset Blvd. has divided audiences and critics, but all have agreed on this new, fresh take on Gypsy after countless retreads of Jerome Robbin's original staging and choreography.

Best Play Revival:

Predictions and Preference: Yellow Face

It's a toss-up between Eureka Day and Yellow Face. Both shows send political anti-Trump messages, but Yellow Face's recent broadcast on PBS may push it to the top of voters' minds and over the top.

Actor (Play):

Prediction: Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!

Preference: Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Escola is brilliantly funny as an alcoholic, narcissistic, nightmare version of Mary Todd Lincoln but I was stunned by McCartney's visceral, intense performance as Henry Creel, battling with demons from the Upside Down. (BTW, I went back a second time to Stranger Things and they added a preview of Season 5 of the TV series after the curtain call which drove the audience wild.)

Actress (Play):

Prediction and Preference: Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Give an actress a solo show and she wins a Tony. Previous solo winners include Jodie Comer, Julie Harris, Lily Tomlin, Deirdre O'Connell. (Another BTW, I STILL don't understand why Snook was placed in the Leading Performance category by the Drama Desks instead of their Solo Performance slot, which the Outer Critics did. The Tonys have no Solo performance category.)

Actor (Musical):

Prediction: Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending

Preference: Jonathan Groff, Just in Time

Criss will probably win as part of the Happy Ending tidal wave. But Groff really worked his ass off as Bobby Darren in Just in Time--singing, dancing, acting almost constantly onstage throughout the show.

Actress (Musical):

Prediction: Audra McDonald, Gypsy

Preference: Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Blvd.

I have to admit, McDonald does deserve a seventh Tony for his ferocious Mama Rose, but I voted for Scherzinger's equally tiger-like Norma Desmond.

Book Review: Brave New World Revisited

(Bought at the Strand for $10) I saw this on one of the tables at the Strand and grabbed it. Written 25 years after his dystopian novel Brave New World, Huxley considers how close we've come to his predictions of a drug-addled populace controlled by the government. Using essays rather than fiction, Huxley compares the techniques of Hitler in brainwashing his followers to those employed in his novel and Orwell's 1984. At the time of the writing, the Soviet Union was domineering their sphere of influence with torture and terror, closely following Big Brother's playbook. Huxley forecasted bread and circuses would do the trick more subtly and effectively. I fear he was right. So many of his dire forecasts sound like strategies of our "dear leader" Trumpy. The author details the effects of Hitler's rallies hypnotizing his loving throng and Trump is taking a page from Der Furher's book--perhaps literally. Trump's rallies resemble those of Nuremberg in their chanting simplistic slogans and stirring up resentments. Huxley makes the point that democratic norms only hold in place when economic stability hold sway. He points to overpopulation as a means of destabilizing society and leading to autocracy. When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, overpopulation was a BIG issue, but nobody talks about it anymore. Climate change is now the biggest threat to our continued freedom and it may be just as bad as overpopulation. Already extreme weather is disrupting life around the globe. Democratic states are being toppled by populist thugs in Europe and America. Hopefully, enough freedom-loving people will recognize their rights are being chipped away and will turn the tide before it's too late.

B'way Update: Dog Day Afternoon

John Cazale and Al Pacino in
Dog Day Afternoon.

Dog Day Afternoon, the 1975 film based on an actual bank robbery, will be coming to Broadway as a play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Aldy Guirgis (Between Riverside and Crazy), in spring of 2026. Two-time Olivier winner Rupert Goold (King Charles III, Ink) directs. Emmy winners Jon Berthnal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (both won for The Bear) will star as bank robbers Sonny and Sal, played by Al Pacino and John Cazale in the film. Many movies have been made into stage musicals, but this is one of the few times a movie has served as inspiration for a straight play. Good Night and Good Luck is the most recent example.

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Second Stage Season; Beetlejuice

Noah Bean and Lois Smith in 
Playwrights Horizons' production of
Marjorie Prime (2015).
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Second Stage has announced its 2025-26 season which will feature the Broadway debuts of two Pulitzer Prize finalists previously seen Off-Broadway. Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime will begin previews at the Second Stage's Hayes Theater on Nov. 20 with an opening set for Dec. 8. Originally presented by Playwrights Horizons in 2015, this intimate drama focuses on the elusiveness of memory and the encroachment of technology. Set in the near future, the play concerns the elderly Marjorie and a living computer who is a duplicate of her late husband. Anne Kaufman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window) directs. 

Emily Bergl and David Wilson Barnes in
Second Stage's production of Becky Shaw (2008).

Spring 2026 will see the Broadway debut of Gina Gionfriddo with her 2008 comedy Becky Shaw which played Second Stage's Off-Broadway Terry Kiser Theater. Directed by Trip Cullman, previews at the Hayes begin March 18 and the play opens April 8. The comedy starts when a blind date goes spectacularly wrong and sets off a chain of disastrous events. 

Second Stage's Off-Broadway season commences with Talene Monahan's Meet the Cardozians at the Signature Theater Center. Tony winner David Cromer directs this new play about two sets of Armenian-Americans, one in 1920 and the other a century later. Previews Oct. 29, opens Nov. 18.

Aya Ogawa wrote and directs Meat Suit or the shitshow of motherhood at the Signature Center, previews Feb. 11, 2026 and opens Feb. 25. The play is described as a raw, hilarious examination of motherhood.

Jayne Houdyshell in
The Receptionist
at MTC (2007)
Credit: Joan Marcus

Adam Bock's black comedy The Receptionist follows in April. Originally presented in 2007 at Manhattan Theatre Club, this Obie-winning play depicts what seems to be a perfectly ordinary office with colleagues gossiping, answering phones, and drinking coffee. But the shocking true nature of the business being conducted there is revealed when a mysterious visitor arrives.

In other news: Beetlejuice is headed back to scare Broadway. The national tour of the musical based on the 1988 supernatural film comedy will start haunting the Palace Theater Oct. 8 for a limited rune through Jan. 3, 2026. The tuner opened on Broadway in 2019 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards including Best Musical. It closed as a result of the 2020 COVID pandemic and reopened at the Marquis in 2022. 

Will Burton, Megan McGinnis, Madison Mosley,
and Justine Collette in the tour of Beetlejuice.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Celebrity Cruise to Bermuda

In front of the Celebrity Silhouette
in Bermuda.

Several months ago, a YouTube personality who hosts an old-time movie review channel announced a classic movie-themed cruise on Celebrity to Bermuda. Of course I signed up right away and convinced my brother who is not a huge classic movie fan, but is a huge cruise fan, to accompany me. But not enough people signed up to meet the required minimum and so the classic movie portion of the cruise was cancelled. The travel agent volunteered to refund my deposit, but my brother and I decided to go anyway since the cruise was still going to take place, just no old movies. Besides, I had my own mini-classic film festival in our cabinet by watching two Betty Gable flicks on the video-on-demand channel. 

Day 1

My brother Jonathan drove us to Port Liberty in Bayonne, NJ (He lives in Delaware and drove up.) We got on the Celebrity Silhouette and watched the Statue of Liberty drift by. There was a LGBTQ passengers' get-together and we met several other gay travelers (I remember on my first cruise they called such meetings Friends of Dorothy so as not to upset the straights.) There was an "adult" comic who told sexually-oriented jokes. Mildly funny. She dressed in an orange housedress and sneakers. Her big claim to fame was she did a robot dance in front of Simon Cowell at a restaurant and it wound up in the National Enquirer when he gave her a thumbs-down.

Carole Landis, Robert Cummings, Jack Haley,
Betty Grable and Don Ameche in
Moon Over Miami (1941)

Before bed, I watched Moon Over Miami with Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, Carole Landis, Charlotte Greenwood, and Jack Haley. The kind of movie where dirt-poor Betty, Carol and Charlotte pretend to be ultra-rich and go husband-hunting in Florida. Lots of silly musical numbers with titles like "Oh Me, Oh Miami." The highlights: Haley and Greenwood's comedy-relief number, "Is That Good?" and Betty breaking into an elaborate tap number at a party with two perfect strangers.

Day 2

Dinner at LePetit Chef at LaQuisine. The gimmick here is they show an animation on your plate related to each dish. A little cartoon chef explains the influences and ingredients. For dessert they had dancing strawberries. It was cute. We also played Trivia (cheap prizes) and attended a presentation on future cruises.

Off-B'way Update: Additional LCT Season News

Lincoln Center Theater has announced more productions for its 2025-26 season, the first under the leadership of new artistic director Lear deBonesset. In addition to the previously announced Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont, the Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse will feature Kyoto from London,  Gian-Carlo Mennotti's Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, and The Whoopi Monologues, a revival of Whoopi Goldberg's 1984 solo show with five actresses playing the roles Goldberg originally wrote for herself.

A scene from the London production of
Kyoto.
Credit: Manuel Hardin

Kyoto by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson (The Jungle) is based on the 1997 Kyoto climate change conference with Stephen Kunken repeating his London performance as oil lobbyist Don Pearlman. Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) co-direct. Previews begin Oct. 8 in advance of a Nov. 3 opening.

Amahl and the Night Visitors, commissioned by NBC in 1951 and first presented on TV in 1951 as the debut production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, will play a holiday engagement Dec. 16-Jan. 4, 2026 (Dec. 18 opening) with Tony winner Kenny Leon directing. Opera star Joyce Di Donato will star in this co-production with the Metropolitan Opera. The plot centers on the visit of the Magi to a poor boy's home on their way to Bethlehem.

The Whoopi Monologues will star Kerry Washington and Tony and Drama Desk winner Kara Young and three additional actresses TBA. Whitney White (Liberation, The Last Five Years) will direct. Previews begin July 6 and the show opens July 16.

(Top) A scene from the 1956
NBC broadcast of Amahl and the 
Night Visitors; (above)
Whoopi Goldberg in Whoopi,
the 2004 revised version of
her one-woman show
Credit: Joan Marcus

Maybe Happy Ending for Drama Desks

Titus Burgess and Debra Messing
hosted the Drama Desk Awards.

Maybe Happy Ending, the robot romance musical, was the big winner at the 69th annual Drama Desk Awards, winning six prizes including Outstanding Musical, Book, Lyrics, Score, Director and Set Design for a Musical. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose won for Outstanding Play. The awards which include on, Off, and Off-Off-Broadway in each of its multiple categories were hosted by Debra Messing and Titus Burgess at NYU Skirball on June 1.  Stranger Things: The First Shadow and The Picture of Dorian Gray tied for most DDs for a play with three each. None of the Stranger Things designers were present to collect their awards (probably because they are based in London and would not be traveling to NY until the Tonys next week.)

Presenters included Lily Rabe, Jeremy Jordan, Jonathan Groff, Gracie Lawrence, Jennifer Simard, Jinx Monsoon, Michael Urie, Ryan Spahn, Tom Francis, Sarah Hyland, Julia Knitel, Jeb Brown, Andrew Durand, Adam Pascal, Will Swenson, Nicole Scherzinger, Alex Newell, Darren Criss, Branden Victor Dixon, Victoria Clark, and Bebe Neuwirth. Nominee Lesli Margherita of Gypsy opened the show with a parody of "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat" from Guys and Dolls with four chorus boys called "Sit Down We're Startin' the Show." Steve Rosen and David Rossmer wrote the show and Lorin Latarro directed. Additional entertainment was provided by musical numbers from Joshua Henry, Norm Lewis, and Thom Sesna of Dead Outlaw, last year's winner for Outstanding Musical. A satiric video mocked immersive theater with humorous images such as a performance of Damn Yankees during a baseball game and Hadestown in the rest room at Ellen's Stralight Diner.  

Celia Keenan-Bolger delivered a touching speech when accepting the Harold Prince Award for the late Gavin Creel. She related how she and Creel attended a party at Prince's apartment when they were roommates just starting out. By the end of the soiree, Creel had introduced Keenan-Bolger to everyone and his infectious spirit captivated the room full of their theater idols. She said the awards ceremony was like a party Gavin was giving where everyone in the theater community was supporting and celebrating each other.

The ceremony ran a little over three hours and was followed by a reception on Skirball's tenth floor. (Repeating a gag from last year, the hosts threw Halloween candy to the audience half-way through the show to keep their energy up.) While riding up in the elevator, Norm Lewis serenaded us with "I've Got Rhythm." I chatted with winner Gerard Alessandrini who recalled winning his first Drama Desk Award for the first Forbidden Broadway revue (A special award.) Chita Rivera hosted at Rainbow and Stars. He was sitting at a table with Charles Ludlum and Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert, then co-starring in Aren't We All were sitting at the next table.  

A complete list of DD winners follows: