For his performance in “Becky Shaw,” Alden Ehrenreich was acclaimed by five of the major theater awards that have been announced over the past two weeks —  selected as Best Individual Performance by the New York Drama Critics Circle, and nominated for a Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle award.

He is the only performer this season honored by all five of these longtime theater awards. But seven other performers were nominated for four of the five (all but the Drama Critics Circle, which chose only Ehrenreich) Three of the eight performers, including Ehrenreich, are making their Broadway debuts.

Could this be a telling consensus? There are different nominators for each of these awards, and their aims, categories and eligibility criteria differ. The Tonys, for example, only consider Broadway. The Drama League won’t nominate any performer who has previously won their Distinguished Performance Award. The Outer Critics Circle doesn’t consider Broadway transfers that had Off-Broadway runs in the previous season.  (I haven’t included the Lucille Lortel Awards because they are exclusively for Off-Broadway.) See my New York Theater Awards Calendar and Guide 2026 to understand the differences among the awards.

Nicholas Christopher, Chess
Christopher plays Anatoly Sergievsky, the Soviet chess master embroiled in a Cold War battle against Freddie Trumper, the reigning American champion played by Aaron Tveit. Christopher closes Act I with a star-making  “Anthem”  – a full-throated, deeply emotional paean to Russia, which is confusing, since he’s just defected.

Alden Ehrenreich, Becky Shaw
Ehrenreich, making his Broadway debut, portrays Max, a professional money manager who is enlisted by his best friend and client to go on a date with the title character. Way before the date, the character seems established as a full-out cynic and a boor.
  “I don’t like this weepy-weepy wah-wah thing you do; I don’t respect it,” Max snaps at his friend.
“Max, I’m grieving.” Her father recently died.
But by the end, Max reveals himself as secretly vulnerable. We are surprised to detect Ehrenreich’s lips quivering with emotion.  

Luke Evans, The Rocky Horror Show
Evans, making his Broadway debut, credibly carries the show as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania, rocking a sexy black corset

Joshua Henry, Ragtime
As Coalhouse Walker Jr., a ragtime pianist, Joshua Henry begins by providing the music that the people of Harlem danced and reveled to, so that they could “forgot their troubles.” He winds up taking up arms to battle all the troubles of Black America after experiencing a humiliating incident of racism.
One can question whether “Ragtime” will be considered one of the great American musicals and still feel grateful to have been able to witness Joshua Henry, the Baritenor of Broadway, deliver a shattering “Make them hear you.”

Lesley Manville, Oedipus
In Robert Icke’s modern retelling of Sophocles’ tragedy, Manville made her Broadway debut portraying Jocasta, as  a political wife who is in turns worldly, ferocious, and devastated.

Laurie Metcalf, Death of a Salesman
As wife Linda, Metcalf also gets a few laughs in lines where her predecessors have not, and is more demonstrative than the still and stunned way the character has been played in the past. 

Ruben Sanvtiago-Hudson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
Ruben Santiago-Hudson takes on, and triumphs in, the most challenging character in August Wilson’s play about boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911. Bynum Walker is a “conjure man” with long monologues about mystical occurrences. He helps people find their song, as he puts it, or as another character explains it, does “all that old mumbo jumbo nonsense…all that heebie-jeebie stuff.” Santiago-Hudson has a long history with the late playwright, as actor and director. (eg August Wilson’s American Century Cycle Project begins at WNYC!, and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned Review: August Wilson’s Portrait Of The Playwright As A Young Man)

Brandon Uranowitz, Ragtime
As Tateh, a poor Jewish immigrant from Latvia who “dreamed of a new life for his little girl,” Uranowitz begins a street cart peddler selling pictures made from paper cut-outs. He reinvents himself, marries outside his faith, becomes  part of a new American industry that continually reinvents America, defining it for Americans and for the rest of the world.

Four of the eight — Nicholas Christopher, Luke Evans, Joshua Henry, Brandon Uranowitz — have been nominated in the same Tony category, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Ehrenreich and Santiago-Hudson are both nominated in Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play. Lesley Manville has been nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play, while Laurie Metcalf has been nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play.