Tony Awards: 5 Fun Facts and Fascinating Stats About the Nominations
4/29/2014 by Scott Feinberg
Jonathan Groff, Hugh Jackman and Lucy Liu speak onstage at the 2014 Tony Awards Nominations Ceremony at the Diamond Horseshoe at the Paramount Hotel on April 29, 2014 in New York City.
The nominations for the 68th annual Tony Awards were announced on Tuesday morning, and The Hollywood Reporter's awards analyst dug through the Tony record books to see how this year's nominees stack up against the nominees of yesteryear. The results are fascinating.
Idina Menzel, Neil Patrick Harris Score Tony Nominations
1. The musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder scored a field-leading 10 nominations. That is as many as any play has ever received, but five fewer than the musical record-holdersThe Producers (2001) and Billy Elliot (2009). The other highest nomination tallies this year, across the categories: Hedwig and the Angry Inch with eight; After Midnight, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, The Glass Menagerieand Twelfth Night with seven; and Bullets Over Broadway and The Cripple ofInnishmaan with six.
2. Best actress in a play nominee Audra McDonald (Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill) becomes just the fifth person of either gender to have scored nominations in all four acting categories in which they were eligible (following Boyd Gaines, Raul Esparza, Angela Lansburyand Jan Maxwell). If she wins, she will become the first woman to have won a Tony in all four female acting categories, and she will also move into sole possession of the record of most Tony acting wins (her sixth win would move her out of a tie with Lansbury and Julie Harris).
3. Plays and musicals often inspire movies that receive Oscar recognition, but this year three movies inspired plays and musicals that received Tony recognition: Aladdin, Bullets Over Broadway and Rocky.
4. At 86 years old, best actress in a play nominee Estelle Parsons (The Velocity of Autumn) is one of the oldest people to ever receive a nomination in any category, but not the oldest ever nominated in even just her own. That distinction belongs to last year's nominee and winner Cicely Tyson (A Trip to Bountiful), who was honored at the age of 88.
5. Today brings the first nominations for, among others, Woody Allen (Bullets Over Broadway), Reed Birney (Casa Valentina), Paul Chahidi (Casa Valentina), Nick Cordero (Bullets Over Broadway), Bryan Cranston (All the Way), Mary Bridget Davies (A Night with Janis Joplin), Sarah Greene (The Cripple of Inishmaan), James Iglehart (Aladdin), Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Karimloo (Les Miserables), Karl (Rocky), Anika Larsen (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Chris O'Dowd (Of Mice and Men), Okonedo (A Raisin in the Sun), Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder), Richardson (A Raisin in the Sun),Brian J. Smith (The Glass Menagerie), Jarrod Spector (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Mare Winningham (Casa Valentina) and Lauren Worsham (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder).
- This is an excerpt. Click HERE for Scott's full list.