Fela! and La Cage lead list of Tony bids
Monique Carbon
Assocaited Press
Sahr Ngaujah stars as Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti in “Fela!”.
2010 TONY NOMS BY THE NUMBERS
Which shows received the most Tony nominations? Here’s the tally, from the biggest haul to one-nom-per-show:
¢ 11 nominations:Fela! and La Cage aux Folles
¢ 10:Fences
¢ 8: Memphis
¢ 7:Ragtime, Red
¢ 6: A View From the Bridge
¢ 5:The Royal Family
¢ 4:Enron, A Little Night Music, Promises, Promises
¢ 3:American Idiot, Finian’s Rainbow, In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play, Lend Me a Tenor, Million Dollar Quartet
¢ 2:The Addams Family, Come Fly Away, Everyday Rapture, Hamlet, Next Fall, Time Stands Still
¢ And with 1 nomination apiece: A Behanding in Spokane, Collected Stories, Looped, Present Laughter, Race, Superior Donuts
Fela!, the ground-breaking musical about Nigerian musician and political figure Fela Kuti, and La Cage aux Folles, the intimate revival of Jerry Herman’s 1980s hit, led the pack in Tuesday’s Tony Award nominations. Each received 11 nods in the annual race for the high-profile trophies honoring Broadway’s best.
The revival of August Wilson’s dramatic classic Fences received 10 nominations, including two for its stars, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. That ties The Coast of Utopia’s 2007 record for the most nominations ever received by a play.
Fela! will compete as best musical with: American Idiot, the talked-about stage version of rock band Green Day’s best-selling album; Memphis, Joe di Pietro and David Bryan’s show about a disc jockey crossing musical and social barriers in the 1950s; and Million Dollar Quartet, a re-creation of an all-star 1956 recording session at Memphis’ Sun Records, whose participants were Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley.
Shut out of the top musical category was The Addams Family, the expensive new show based on Charles Addams’ macabre characters. It opened to mostly negative reviews but is the season’s biggest hit, playing to sold-out houses.
Its stars, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, also failed to receive nominations, though composer/lyricist Andrew Lippa was nominated for his score, the season’s only new effort in traditional Broadway style.
Competing for best play are: In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play, Sarah Ruhl’s provocative exploration of a time in the 1880s when doctors routinely diagnosed hysteria in women and used early forms of electrical stimulation to treat them; Next Fall, Geoffrey Nauffts’ crowd-pleasing comedy drama about two men in love and two parents in denial; Red, John Logan’s portrait of abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko; and Time Stands Still, Donald Margulies’ drama about a photojournalist’s return home after sustaining injuries while covering the Iraq war.
A Steady Rain, Keith Huff’s drama that played a sold-out limited run earlier this season, did not get a best play nod. Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, the stars who made the play such a sensation, were also not nominated.
Another high-profile production, Lucy Prebble’s satiric comedy Enron, failed to get a best-play nomination, though it received four others, including a best score nod.
In another unusual point, Branford Marsalis’ background music for the revival of Fences also was nominated for best score. Because so many new musicals include no new music (such as American Idiot and Million Dollar Quartet), opportunities have opened in the score category for music created for nonmusical plays.
The nominees for best revival of a musical are: Finian’s Rainbow, Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg’s classic fantasy; La Cage aux Folles, Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s show about a longtime gay couple facing a domestic crisis; A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s operettalike classic based on Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night; and Ragtime, Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens and Terrence McNally’s ambitious epic based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel about three families whose lives become intertwined at the dawn of the 20th century.
Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones earned a nomination as best actress in a musical, playing worldly actress Desiree in A Little Night Music.
Beloved star Angela Lansbury, who has won five Tonys, received a nomination as best featured actress playing Zeta-Jones’ imperious mother; should she win, she would set a record six for Tony acting honors.
Nominated as best revival of a play are: Fences, about a former baseball star sorting out family conflicts in the 1950s; Lend Me a Tenor, Ken Ludwig’s breathless backstage farce; The Royal Family, George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s affectionate portrait of an eccentric acting dynasty loosely based on the Barrymores; and A View From the Bridge, Arthur Miller’s classic about a tough Brooklyn longshoreman whose incestuous feelings for the niece he’s raised lead to tragedy.
Jan Maxwell earned two nominations: one in her lead role as self-dramatizing star Julie Cavendish in The Royal Family, the other for her featured role in Lend Me a Tenor.
Revered veteran Rosemary Harris received her ninth Tony nomination playing The Royal Family matriarch Fanny Cavendish; in the play’s 1976 revival, Harris was nominated as best actress for her memorable portrayal of Julie.
The 64th annual Tony Awards will be broadcast live from New York’s Radio City Music Hall 7-10 p.m. June 13 on CBS/Channel 11.
everett.evans@chron.com
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