Below are my preferences – not predictions – for the 2025 Tony Awards, in keeping with a tradition I’ve been maintaining for more than a dozen years. I am a critic, not a seer or a bookie. We’ll learn the choices of the 840 Tony voters soon enough — this Sunday, June 8.

But I also continue another annual tradition, posting the results of a poll of theater-loving readers, asking for their preferences (again, not their predictions) in 12 of the 26 categories, which helps gauge the nominees’ popularity.

Update: I’ve added who did win.

(My comments are often taken from my reviews, which are also linked to the show titles)

Best Play

English
The Hills of California
John Proctor is the Villain
Oh, Mary
Purpose

Poll Pick: Oh, Mary
My Preference: Purpose

Purpose, which is inspired by the story of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his family,  is a crowd-pleaser with many laughs and explosive dramatic moments, performed by a cast so exceptional that five of its six cast members have been nominated for Tonys (and the sixth should have been.) But the play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins  (Tony winner for last season’s “Appropriate”) transcends its inspiration, and goes beyond entertainment; it also, you could say, has a purpose. The play,  which won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama, explores some hefty and urgent themes, woven lightly into the fabric of the work, such as the uncertainty of political struggle in changing times and the importance of pursuing a purpose in life. 

If I found “Purpose” more fully realized and resonant than “John Proctor Is the Villain” and “English” (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023), both are also pointed and entertaining plays in first-rate productions. Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California” was carefully constructed but a let-down after his (Tony-winning) “The Ferryman.”  I’m baffled by the ascendance of “Oh,Mary,” whose campy portrait of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln is, yes, often funny, and marks the Broadway debut of an undeniable talent (see below.) But claims that this hammy extended sketch is somehow profound or cutting-edge give deliberate bad taste a bad name. 

winner: Purpose

Best Musical

Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
Death Becomes Her
Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat

Poll Pick: Maybe Happy Ending
My Preference: Maybe Happy Ending

“Maybe Happy Ending,” a musical originally from South Korea about two robots who fall in love, starts out cute, combining the conventions of several familiar genres — science fiction, romantic comedy, road trip, chamber musical —  for what at first seems as light and evanescent as the fireflies that feature in the most wondrous of the many well-staged scenes.  But it somehow turns into something just as rare – an original show, charmingly acted and cleverly staged, with a touching take on love and mortality
Both “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her” do an excellent job of adapting what the pros call IP (Intellectual Property) I enjoyed them both.
Like “Oh, Mary,” ‘Dead Outlaw” and “Operation Mincemeat” make chaotic comedy out of true stories – in the case of the two musicals, both involving corpses. 

Is it too much of a stretch to see the choice on Sunday by the Tony voters in these first two categories, best play and best musical, as a clue to the current mood of an America confronted with an authoritarian takeover– escapist or engaged?

winner: Maybe Happy Ending

Best Revival of a Play

Eureka Day
Romeo + Juliet
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town
Yellow Face

Poll Pick: Eureka Day
My Preference: Yellow Face

The Broadway debut of David Henry Hwang’s twenty-year-old play, which comically renders three deflating or enraging real-life events involving both Hwang personally and the Asian American community as a whole, seems even more relevant as misunderstanding, hate, fear, suspicion, and outrage surrounding issues of identity seem to have taken center stage in this country. The production was as thoughtful as it was playful.

“Eureka Day” begins as a stock satire of the painstakingly earnest progressives at a small private elementary school in Berkeley, California, leading to what strikes me as the most hilarious scene on Broadway this year, before it settles into a serious, thought-provoking exploration of an alarmingly relevant issue: vaccines. But what might have seemed admirably balanced when it was first produced seven years  ago now seems dangerously so.

winner: Eureka Day

Best Revival of a Musical

Floyd Collins
Gypsy
Pirates! The Penance Musical
Sunset Blvd.

Poll Pick: Sunset Blvd.
My Preference: Gypsy

I’m not among the theater lovers who consider “Gypsy” the greatest musical ever written, but it’s certainly well-crafted, and director George C. Wolfe’s color-conscious casting – as well as what standout members of that cast do with their roles – give the musical some new layers.
I don’t think  “Sunset Boulevard” is the worst musical ever written, but it’s an overblown melodrama with a dated plot and a largely unmemorable score, which didn’t strike me as redeemed by the imposition of director Jamie Lloyd’s trademark style — ostentatiously minimalist, vividly colorless, heavy on live video.

Adam Guettel’s score for “Floyd Collins” is gorgeous, and it’s well-rendered by a first-rate cast, but there are several inherent challenges – how to justify attention to a now-obscure century-old true story, and how to stage a show focused on a man trapped for two hours in a cave, dying. The staging by director Tina Landau, who also wrote the book of the musical, doesn’t fully meet these challenges. 

“Pirates: The Penzance Musical” has some exciting performances, but the creative team’s claim that it has reimagined the 146-year-old Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta seems exaggerated. It feels more tweaked.

winner: Sunset Blvd.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
Jon Michael Hill, Purpose
Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face
Harry Lennix, Purpose
Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Poll Pick: Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
My Preference: Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!

As both playwright and performer, Escola is phenomenally talented, with facial contortions reminiscent of I Love Lucy, a hoop skirt evocative of Carol Burnett as Scarlett O’Hara wearing the curtains in her famous Went with the Wind sketch, and a final scene establishing Escola as a potential future cabaret legend. It’s a talent that cannot be denied, and should be acknowledged, even by people (like me) who didn’t adore everything about the show that showcases that talent.

This is one of those categories (and there is more than one) where every nominee deserves a Tony.

winner: Cole Escola

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California
Mia Farrow, The Roommate”
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose
Sadie Sink, John Proctor is the Villain
Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Poll Pick: Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray
My Preference: LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose

As Claudine Jasper, the matriarch of the famous Black family,  Jackson is especially dazzling in exhibiting the Jasper family’s gift of spontaneous oratory. The eloquence feels authentic, never caricatured, even when she is discussing matters that are far from exalted, such as her blunt effort to keep from the public eye the claims that her husband the Reverend has illegitimate children. Hers is not a traditional leading role, in terms of focus and number of lines, which puts her at a disadvantage in this category

Sarah Snook is certainly impressive for mastering the sheer logistics of portraying 26 roles, many of them pre-recorded.

winner: Sarah Snook

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending
Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw
Tom Francis, Sunset Blvd.
Jonathan Groff, Just in Time
James Monroe Iglehart, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical
Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins

Poll Pick: Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending
My Preference: Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending

It seems ludicrous to say, but Criss portrays a robot convincingly, in body and voice. But within the physical restrictions of his character, he is able to communicate clearly the yearning, and sadness, and love beneath his humorously fussbudget personality.

Groff, who won a Tony last year for his role in “Merrily We Roll Along” is not just terrific in this Bobby Darin biomusical; he salvages it, giving it a reason for existing. It’s a charismatic performance but it’s largely indistinguishable from a Sinatra-like cabaret singer doing a cabaret act.

winner: Darren Criss

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
Audra McDonald, Gypsy
Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical
Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Blvd.
Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her

Poll Pick: Audra McDonald, Gypsy
My Preference: Audra McDonald, Gypsy

This category this year has generated the most suspense, and debate of any. Both Nicole Scherzinger and Jamine Amy Rogers are making showstopping Broadway debuts. (Scherzinger is only one percent behind McDonald in the poll.) And yes, I know that McDonald has already won more competitive Tony awards than any other performer in history. But I’d give her another one, for her distinctive portrayal of Madam Rose, the mother of all stage mothers, with its less brass and more heart.

winner: Nicole Scherzinger

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

Glenn Davis, Purpose
Gabriel Ebert, John Proctor is the Villain
Francis Jue, Yellow Face
Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross
Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!

Poll Pick: Conrad Ricamora
My Preference: Francis Jue

 Francis Jue has stood out in every role in which I’ve seen him, whether portraying the narrator/torturer of Cambodian Rock Band or the opera singer Jessye Norman in Twilight Los Angeles. In “Yellow Face,” he was the only holdover from the original 2007 Off-Broadway production, he took on a wide range of quick-change characters (as did most of the cast), but his principal role was HYH (the father of the David Henry Hwang) and Jue  offered a charming and amusing portrait of an American immigrant patriot and naïve optimist, that turned into something more poignant.

winner: Francis Jue

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play

Tala Ashe, English
Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
Marjan Neshat, English
Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain
Kara Young, Purpose

Poll Pick: Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
My Preference: Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day

Jessica Hecht. Her character Suzanne is something of a bully and yet we also sympathize with her. She is a strident anti-vaxxer, but tells Carina a personal story that allows us to understand why she marshals reasonable-sounding arguments and uses sly tactics to try to force a consensus that doesn’t actually exist.  She’s an eleven-time Broadway veteran who has been nominated for a Tony twice before

winner: Kara Young

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

Brooks Ashmanskas, SMASH
Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw
Danny Burstein, Gypsy
Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins

Poll Pick: Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat
My Preference: Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat

Jak Malone portrays several comedically-tinged characters in Operation Mincemeat,  including a ghoulishly overeager undertaker, but it’s as the buttoned-up middle aged secretary Hester Leggatt, singing “Dear Bill,” a restrained and devastating song of lost love, that Malone stands out – in more ways than one. It feels as if his performance belongs in a different (better) show.

In one way, I suppose it’s unfair to prefer an actor for a single number, since several of the other nominees do much heavy lifting in their respective shows. Brooks Ashmanskas is almost single-handedly responsible for turning Smash from a TV melodrama to a Broadway comedy.

winner: Jak Malone

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical

Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club
Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw
Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical
Joy Woods, Gypsy

Poll Pick: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club
My Preference: Tie between Natalie Venetia Belcon and Joy Woods

This is not a plausible preference; there have only been ten ties in Tony Award history. But Belcon’s dignified performance as the Cuban singer Omara Portuondo is riveting, while Woods does a terrific job transforming from mousy second daughter to witty queen of the Cotton Club in what is after all the title role of “Gypsy.”

winner: Natalie Venetia Belcon

Best Direction of a Play

Knud Adams, English
Sam Mendes, The Hills of California
Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary!
Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain
Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

My Preference: Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain

If there were a Tony Award for ensemble acting, John Proctor would be a strong contender. The high school girls’ extended moments of laughing and crying and dancing together, even shrieking together, are infectious.  Taymor deserves credit for how well they work together, and especially for a final scene, set to the music of Lorde’s “Green Light” that’s eerie and endless and ultimately moving.

winner: Same Pinkerton

Best Direction of a Musical

Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club
Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending
David Cromer, Dead Outlaw
Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her
Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Blvd.

My Preference: Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending

winner: Michael Arden

Best Book of a Musical

Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
Death Becomes Her
Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical

My Preference: Maybe Happy Ending

winner: Maybe Happy Ending

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre

Dead Outlaw
Music & Lyrics: David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna

Death Becomes Her
Music & Lyrics: Julia Mattison and Noel Carey

Maybe Happy Ending
Music: Will Aronson
Lyrics:  Will Aronson and Hue Park

Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
Music & Lyrics: David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts

Real Women Have Curves: The Musical
Music & Lyrics: Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez

My Preference: Maybe Happy Ending

winner: Maybe Happy Ending

Best Scenic Design of a Play

Marsha Ginsberg, English
Rob Howell, The Hills of California
Marg Horwell and David Bergman, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Miriam Buether and 59, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Scott Pask, Good Night, and Good Luck

My Preference: Marg Horwell and David Bergman, The Picture of Dorian Gray

David Bergman’s clever and cutting-edge video design makes this production. It wouldn’t be possible without him. (He’s nominated for scenic design because there is no Tony Award category for projection or video design.)

There is no Tony for illusions/special effects either, which would be won without question by Stranger Things’ Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher. In recognition of this fact, the Tony committee is giving them a Special (noncompetitive) Tony Award. Still, I can see Tony voters rewarding the scenic designers of Stranger Things, who certainly contribute to these awesome effects, most memorably with an out-of-nowhere battleship.

winner: Miriam Buether and 59, Stranger Things

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

Rachel Hauck, Swept Away
Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, Maybe Happy Ending
Arnulfo Maldonado, Buena Vista Social Club
Derek McLane, Death Becomes Her
Derek McLane, Just in Time

My Preference: Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, Maybe Happy Ending

winner: Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, Maybe Happy Ending

Best Costume Design of a Play

Brenda Abbandandolo, Good Night, and Good Luck
Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rob Howell, The Hills of California
Holly Pierson, Oh, Mary!
Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

My Preference: Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray

winner: Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Costume Design of a Musical

Dede Ayite, Buena Vista Social Club
Gregg Barnes, BOOP! The Musical
Clint Ramos, Maybe Happy Ending
Paul Tazewell, Death Becomes Her
Catherine Zuber, Just in Time

My preference: Paul Tazewell, Death Becomes Her

Tazewell is having a year (Oscar for designing the movie of “Wicked”) and deserves it: the fashion in “Death Becomes Her,” changes from kitsch to classy,  sometimes on the same body within seconds. Call it kinetic couture. It’s Tazewell’s costumes that seemed most fully to express the tone of the show: over-the-top but simultaneously making fun of how over-the-top it is — and having fun doing so.

winner: Paul Tazewell, Death Becomes Her

Best Lighting Design of a Play

Natasha Chivers, The Hills of California
Jon Clark, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Heather Gilbert and David Bengali, Good Night, and Good Luck
Natasha Katz and Hannah Wasileski, John Proctor is the Villain
Nick Schlieper, The Picture of Dorian Gray

My preference: Natasha Katz and Hannah Wasileski, John Proctor is the Villain

Most memorably in the final scene of the play.
Again, Clark contributes to the awesome special effects in Stranger Things, and I can see the Tony voters rewarding him for them.

winner: John Clark, Stranger Things

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Jack Knowles, Sunset Blvd.
Tyler Micoleau, Buena Vista Social Club
Scott Zielinski and Ruey Horng Sun, Floyd Collins
Ben Stanton, Maybe Happy Ending
Justin Townsend, Death Becomes Her

My Preference: Ben Stanton, Maybe Happy Ending

winner: Jack Knowles, Sunset Blvd.

Best Sound Design of a Play

Paul Arditti, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Palmer Hefferan, John Proctor is the Villain
Daniel Kluger, Good Night, and Good Luck
Nick Powell, The Hills of California
Clemence Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

My preference: Paul Arditti, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

winner: Paul Arditti, Stranger Things

Best Sound Design of a Musical

Jonathan Deans, Buena Vista Social Club
Adam Fisher, Sunset Blvd.
Peter Hylenski, Just in Time
Peter Hylenski, Maybe Happy Ending
Dan Moses Schreier, Floyd Collins

My Preference:Jonathan Deans, Buena Vista Social Club

winner: Jonathan Deans, Buena Vista Social Club

Best Choreography

Joshua Bergasse, SMASH
Camille A. Brown, Gypsy
Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her
Jerry Mitchell, BOOP! The Musical
Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, Buena Vista Social Club

My Preference: Jerry Mitchell, BOOP and Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, Buena Vista Social Club

Again, a tie is unlikely. But both deserve kudos. Mitchell offered some old-fashioned Broadway energy, although one number won me over in particular, at the top of Act 2, in which the characters switch from color to black and white (which is as much a triumph of the costume designer Gregg Barnes.) The husband and wife team behind the moves in Buena Vista Social Club redefine what “Broadway” choreography is, mixing ballet and Cuban social dance

Winner: Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, Buena Vista Social Club

Best Orchestrations

Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber, Just in Time
Will Aronson, Maybe Happy Ending
Bruce Coughlin, Floyd Collins
Marco Paguia, Buena Vista Social Club
David Cullen and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sunset Blvd.

My preference: Marco Paguia, Buena Vista Social Club

winner: Marco Paguia, Buena Vista Social Club