‘A Strange Loop’ earns a leading 11 Tony Award nominations
“A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s critically cheered theater metajourney earned a leading 11 Tony Award nominations Monday as Broadway joined the national discussion of race by embracing an envelope-pushing Black-written and Black-led musical.
Jackson’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize drama winner about a Black gay man writing a show about a Black gay man earned nods for best musical, best leading man in newcomer Jaquel Spivey and best featured actress for L Morgan Lee, who becomes the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony Award. The show also was nominated for scenic design, lighting, sound, orchestrations, Stephen Brackett’s direction and John-Andrew Morrison for featured actor.
“I hoped my collaborators would be acknowledged. That actually, in a weird way, was much more exciting to me,” Jackson told The Associated Press. “Even if we hadn’t gotten any nominations, I would have been disappointed, but I also would have known how powerful the show has been resonating with people.”
Playwright Lynn Nottage had two reasons to smile Monday morning: Her book for the Michael Jackson musical “MJ” was nominated for best book of a musical and her play, “Clyde’s,” got a nod for best play.
“This has been a historic season for a multitude of reasons. There’s been a diversity of Black voices on
Broadway in unprecedented numbers. Theater came back after being dark for almost two years and we made art while facing down COVID. And so this feels particularly good given all of the circumstances,” Nottage said.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson of “Modern Family” fame got a nomination for “Take Me Out,” as did Jesse Williams, the “Grey’s Anatomy” star making his Broadway debut. Williams thanked the audience for coming with him on a complex ride.
“This is my first time having this experience in the box, having experience on stage, and that fellowship, that dynamic, that partnership, that reliance we have with each other, that interplay with the audience is critical and something new to me. So it’s a thrilling ride,” Williams said.
Right behind “A Strange
Loop” is a tie with 10 nominations each for “MJ,” a bio musical of the King of Pop stuffed with his biggest hits, and “Paradise Square,” a musical about Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostling to survive in New York City around the time of the Civil War.
The rest of the best new musical category includes “Six,” the corrective feminist take on the six wives of England’s Henry VIII, “Girl From the North Country,” which uses the songs of Bob Dylan to weave a Depression-era story in the Midwest, and “Mr. Saturday Night,” a reworking of Billy Crystal’s film about a bitter, old insult comic chasing a last laugh.
Two of the best play nominees are about economics — “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about blue-collar job insecurity in a Detroit auto stamping plant in 2008,
and “The Lehman Trilogy,” Stefano Massini’s play spanning 150 years about what led to the collapse of financial giant Lehman Brothers.
There’s also “Clyde’s,” Nottage’s play about a group of ex-cons trying to restart their lives at a truckstop diner, and “The Minutes,” Tracey Letts’ depiction of a small-town city council meeting that exposes backstabbing, greed and the larger delusions in American history. “Hangmen,” Martin McDonagh’s look at an executionerturned-pub owner forced to grapple with his past when capital punishment is made illegal in the United Kingdom, also earned a best play nod.
The Tony Awards will be held at Radio City Music Hall on June 12. The ceremony will air live on CBS and Paramount+ at 8 p.m.