Latest news with #TheHillsofCalifornia
News18
a day ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Tony Awards 2025 Full Winners List: Sarah Snook Is Best Actress, Stranger Things Dominates
Last Updated: Stranger Things The First Shadow won Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design, and Best Sound Design of a Play at the Tony Awards 2025. Broadway's biggest night lit up New York City on Sunday as the 78th Tony Awards were held. Cynthia Erivo led the celebrations as host. One of the evening's standout moments came when Succession star Sarah Snook bagged the award for Best Actress in a Play for her stunning solo act in The Picture of Dorian Gray. History was made too when Kara Young became the first Black artist to win back-to-back Tony Awards. Stranger Things won big as well. This year's nominees, spread across 26 competitive categories, were earlier revealed on May 1. Check out the full winner's list below: Best Play (English) The Hills of California John Proctor is the Villain Oh, Mary! Purpose- WINNER Best Musical Buena Vista Social Club Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Maybe Happy Ending-WINNER Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Best Revival of a Play Eureka Day- WINNER Romeo + Juliet Thornton Wilder's Our Town Yellow Face Best Revival of a Musical Floyd Collins Gypsy Pirates! The Penzance Musical Sunset Blvd.- WINNER Best Book of a Musical Buena Vista Social Club Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Maybe Happy Ending – WINNER Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Maybe Happy Ending – WINNER Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Real Women Have Curves: The Musical Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!- WINNER Jon Michael Hill, Purpose Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face Harry Lennix, Purpose Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow 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 – WINNER Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending-WINNER Andrew Durand, Dead OutlawTom Francis, Sunset Blvd. Jonathan Groff, Just in Time James Monroe Iglehart, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins 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.-WINNER Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her 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 – WINNER Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary! 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 – WINNER 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 – WINNER Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club – WINNER Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical Joy Woods, Gypsy Best Scenic Design of a Play (English) The Hills of California The Picture of Dorian Gray Stranger Things: The First Shadow – WINNER Good Night, and Good Luck Best Scenic Design of a Musical Swept Away Maybe Happy Ending – WINNER Buena Vista Social Club Death Becomes Her Just in Time Best Costume Design of a Play Brenda Abbandandolo, Good Night, and Good Luck Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray – WINNER Rob Howell, The Hills of California Holly Pierson, Oh, Mary! Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow 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 – WINNER Catherine Zuber, Just in Time Best Lighting Design of a Play The Hills of California Stranger Things: The First Shadow – WINNER Good Night, and Good Luck John Proctor is the Villain The Picture of Dorian Gray Best Lighting Design of a Musical Sunset Blvd. – WINNER Buena Vista Social Club Floyd Collins Maybe Happy Ending Death Becomes Her Best Sound Design of a Play Stranger Things: The First Shadow – WINNER John Proctor is the Villain Good Night, and Good Luck The Hills of California The Picture of Dorian Gray Best Sound Design of a Musical Buena Vista Social Club – WINNER Sunset Blvd. Just in Time Maybe Happy Ending Floyd Collins Best Direction of a Play Knud Adams, English Sam Mendes, The Hills of California Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary!-WINNER Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray Best Direction of a Musical Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending-WINNER David Cromer, Dead Outlaw Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Blvd. Best Choreography SMASH Gypsy Death Becomes Her BOOP! The Musical Buena Vista Social Club – WINNER Best Orchestrations Just in Time Maybe Happy Ending Floyd Collins Buena Vista Social Club – WINNER Sunset Blvd. First Published: June 09, 2025, 09:40 IST
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Tony Awards 2025: Sarah Snook is Best Actress, Stranger Things wins big; check out full list of winners
The 78th annual Tony Awards was hosted by Cynthia Erivo on Sunday in New York City. Succession star Sarah Snook took home the Tony Award trophy for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for her work in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Kara Young became the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively. The nominations across 26 competitive categories were announced on May 1. (Also Read | Tony Awards cap a record-breaking post-pandemic Broadway season) English The Hills of California John Proctor is the Villain Oh, Mary! Buena Vista Social Club Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Maybe Happy Ending Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Eureka Day Romeo + Juliet Thornton Wilder's Our Town Yellow Face Floyd Collins Gypsy Pirates! The Penzance Musical Sunset Blvd. Buena Vista Social Club Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Dead Outlaw Death Becomes Her Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical Real Women Have Curves: The Musical 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 Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California Mia Farrow, The Roommate LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose Sadie Sink, John Proctor is the Villain 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 Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her Audra McDonald, Gypsy Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Blvd. Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her Glenn Davis, Purpose Gabriel Ebert, John Proctor is the Villain Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary! Tala Ashe, English Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day Marjan Neshat, English Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain Brooks Ashmanskas, SMASH Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw Danny Burstein, Gypsy Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical Joy Woods, Gypsy English The Hills of California The Picture of Dorian Gray Good Night, and Good Luck Swept Away Buena Vista Social Club Death Becomes Her Just in Time Brenda Abbandandolo, Good Night, and Good Luck Rob Howell, The Hills of California Holly Pierson, Oh, Mary! Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow Dede Ayite, Buena Vista Social Club Gregg Barnes, BOOP! The Musical Clint Ramos, Maybe Happy Ending Catherine Zuber, Just in Time The Hills of California Good Night, and Good Luck John Proctor is the Villain The Picture of Dorian Gray Buena Vista Social Club Floyd Collins Maybe Happy Ending Death Becomes Her John Proctor is the Villain Good Night, and Good Luck The Hills of California The Picture of Dorian Gray Sunset Blvd. Just in Time Maybe Happy Ending Floyd Collins 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 Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending David Cromer, Dead Outlaw Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Blvd. SMASH Gypsy Death Becomes Her BOOP! The Musical Just in Time Maybe Happy Ending Floyd Collins Sunset Blvd.
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
2025 Tony Awards: Steppenwolf Theatre's ‘Purpose' wins best play
NEW YORK — 'Purpose,' a drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins that was commissioned and first produced by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, has won the Tony Award for best play at the awards ceremony at Radio City Musical Hall. The play, with a stort loosely based on the family of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, was nominated alongside 'The Hills of California,' 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and 'Oh, Mary!' The win is a major victory for the famed Chicago company that last wowed New York theater with Tracy Letts' 'August: Osage County' in 2008. Actress Kara Young, who was added to the Chicago cast of 'Purpose' for the Broadway production, also won a Tony for best featured actress in a play. In accepting the award, Glenn Davis, Steppenwolf's co-artistic director and a cast member and Tony nominee himself, had the chance to remind New York and the television audience of Steppenwolf's accomplishments over the years. Playwright Jacobs-Jenkins thanked 'the city of Chicago for making this show what it was.' He also said Chicago had 'the best actors in America.' The 2025 Tony Awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League in a ceremony Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York, hosted by 'Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo and broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2025: Red Carpet Arrivals
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Is that about me?' Seth Rogen loves how ‘The Studio' keeps Hollywood guessing
Ever since viewers — especially those working in Hollywood — fell in love with The Studio, the series' creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have gotten accustomed to people at cocktail parties leaning in confidentially and asking, hushed, 'How did you hear that story about me?' 'The people who it's actually based on don't think it's based on them, and the people who it's not based on want to think it's based on them!' Rogen told Gold Derby at Apple TV+'s FYC celebration at the Hollywood Athletic Club, erupting into his signature chuckle. 'It's a funny pattern.' More from GoldDerby 'The Hills of California' star Laura Donnelly on having to revamp her character in 10 days: 'I had a minor panic attack' 'Beatles '64' director David Tedeschi on working with Martin Scorsese to create something 'that has never been seen before' 'Lilo & Stitch' set for massive opening, making 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' settle for 2nd 'When someone thinks it's based on them, it's best to let them,' Goldberg added. 'So many people have been like, 'I know where you got that idea!'' laughed costar and writer-producer Ike Barinholtz. 'Because I don't want to offend anyone. I'm like, 'Yeah, that's a lot of different ideas...' But I'm very touched when people see a little bit of themselves or something they recognize. To me it makes it resonate more with them.' Eric Charbonneau/Apple TV+ via Getty Images It's just one of the increasingly familiar aftereffects rippling toward Rogen, Goldberg, and their cast and creative team ever since The Studio found an appreciative mass audience and became required viewing for anyone working in Hollywood — both for the guessing game of Who inspired that? and the shock of recognition when the seemingly outrageous, high-stress behind-the-scenes scenarios hit a little too close to home. Some of it can be a little PTSD-triggering — or as Goldberg suggested, without the 'post,' because many of them 'are living it right now, every day.' Discovering the show was leaving showbiz insiders more than a little shook has actually been validating for Rogen. "A real fear I had was, 'The people we are truly discussing and analyzing — will it resonate with them? Will they think it's bullshit? Will they think we missed it?' But no! I'm actually friends with a few executives, who after every episode — I get several texts from them, literally, where they were just like, 'I can't believe you went there. How dare you? How dare you go there?'' 'I was on a call not too long ago with a friend of mine who works in casting, and it was right after the casting episode came out,' said Barinholtz, recalling the episode that depicted the constant, culturally sensitive landmines the show's film execs kept nearly stepping on while casting the Kool-Aid movie. 'She was like, 'I feel a little weird talking to you right now,' just because of that. It was too meta.' Barinholtz's beleaguered film executive Sal Saperstein has emerged as something of a cult hero following the uproarious Golden Globes episode in which he's repeatedly, unexpectedly thanked from the awards show stage as a running gag — something that's coming to life as Barinholtz is getting strangers offering shout-outs of 'Thank you, Sal Saperstein!' in his everyday life. Even Questlove quoted the line on social media, to the actor's disbelief. "If and when Adam Scott wins Best Actor for Severance, I hope he thanks Sal Saperstein," he said. "I'm trying to will that to happen, but it has definitely exploded a little bit. And whether it's Instagram commentators or people at a function I'm at, people want to come up and thank Sal Saperstein, and I'm here for it.' During the rollicking panel discussion — moderated by Gold Derby editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum — Rogen, Goldberg, Barinholtz were joined by costars Catherine O'Hara, Chase Sui Wonders, Dewayne Perkins, and Keyla Monterroso Mejia. Goldberg revealed that the creators have actually received unsolicited 'studio notes' from seemingly helpful executives. Getty Images 'We got a note that the Matt character doesn't understand responsibility enough and tries to be liked too much,' said Goldberg. 'And we were like, 'Yeah — that's his character. That's the point of the show!'' He chalked up the blind spot in their thinking to over-identifying with Rogen's character, Matt Remick. 'I think these executives see themselves in him and think, 'I don't do that, so he can't do that!' ... They're trying to 'solve' the show.' 'Yeah, they're trying to fix it — to fix my guy,' laughed Rogen. 'The show's not funny anymore if you fix my guy.' ''He should be more likable,'' Rogen quoted the execs' criticism. 'So should you!' One executive who showed a sense of humor was Netflix co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. He made a cameo in the Golden Globes episode and, when asked to react from his table as if he had just been thanked on stage, displayed just how well-practiced he is in real life. As for the confrontational scene in the men's room at the urinals, Rogen says the Hollywood titan was just as unfazed. 'He didn't blink at that — actually, he wanted it,' Rogen (maybe) quipped. Currently planning the second season of the show, Rogen and Goldberg told Gold Derby they're 'very much' looking to find ways to employ more distinctive cinematic techniques and technical toolkits, in the way the episode The Oner utilized the long, masterful one-shot takes made legendary in films like The Player and Goodfellas. 'There's all sorts of technical things we want to play with,' said Goldberg. 'We've also actually geared our thinking more towards real-time episodes,' Rogen added, 'because I think those are the ones that people seem to sort of engage with the most, and the more condensed timeline, the more people seem to enjoy it. That's something that we've also talked a lot about.' Apple TV+ But what matters most to the duo is that, underneath all the comedy and beyond all the weary and frustrating professional war stories, their unabashed love of the industry comes shining through. 'The show's written from our perspective, and that is how we approach every episode: as people who genuinely have faith overall that this industry is one that can provide great work and has people in it who are pursuing that,' said Rogen. 'We have amazing lives from this industry, and in general, we've gotten to do what we want. I look back to the things we've made and we're very proud of it. So we write from a place of appreciation and hope for the industry.' 'At times we've been beaten down by it and disappointed in it and aggravated by it, but at the end of the day, then we got to make a show about all that!' he added. 'So it's hard to be too down on it overall.' Goldberg hopes their enthusiasm is contagious. 'If I was in the audience at the end of the last episode,' he said, 'I would get up and chant 'Movies!'' Best of GoldDerby 'The Pitt' star Tracy Ifeachor thinks about Collins and Robby's backstory 'all the time': 'It just didn't work out because it's not the right time' How Eddie Redmayne crafted his 'deeply unflappable' assassin on 'The Day of the Jackal' TV composers roundtable: 'Adolescence,' 'Day of the Jackal,' 'Interview With the Vampire,' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' Click here to read the full article.
Chicago Tribune
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
2025 Tony Awards: Who will win, who should win in a year with few sure things
Will Nicole Scherzinger, sizzling in 'Sunset Blvd.,' beat out Audra McDonald, who made Rose a metaphor for the tragic human condition? Could Jonathan Groff, a knockout Bobby Darin, win back-to-back kudos? Might Sadie Sink of 'John Proctor Is the Villain' be sunk by the wild-eyed Laura Donnelly of 'The Hills of California' or the ever-savvy Mia Farrow of 'The Roommate,' even though all three women played equally terrifying characters? These and many other questions will be answered on Sunday at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, where host Cynthia Erivo will present the 78th annual Tony Awards (beginning at 7 p.m. June 8 and broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+). The ceremony will be the climax of the 2024-25 Broadway season and the reason that several struggling musicals ('Real Women Have Curves,' 'Boop! The Musical') are hanging in there, hoping for a life-saving boost. Tony Award voters are casting their ballots. Let's look at who should be ascending to the dais in the traditional ebullient panic, holding back tears and staring into the camera to tell all the envious theater kids at home how you, too, can have all this if you only fight off the naysayers and follow your dreams! Right. Down to it. This one will be, and rightly should be, a runaway victory for 'Maybe Happy Ending,' a delightfully unnerving musical that most everyone on Broadway underestimated because it was an original love story between two retired South Korean 'helperbots.' To my mind, Will Aronson and Hue Park's quirky, charming little tuner succeeds mostly because of one small but pivotal idea: the notion that a robot's battery life can be a proxy for human mortality. Oliver and Claire fall in love as their percentages drop. Thus, the show manages to simultaneously tap into the fear we all have of an imminent robotic takeover (oh, it's coming) while avoiding the problem of making a dystopian musical. By making the robots as vulnerable as us, they forged a charming romantic comedy performed by Helen J. Shen (robbed of an acting nomination) and Darren Criss (who dove deep into robotland). The competition? Nothing credible. 'Buena Vista Social Club' is a very good time, musically speaking, but has a predictably formulaic book. The inventive 'Death Becomes Her' works just fine as a campy frolic but it relies much on its source movie. And 'Operation Mincemeat' is the most jolly of pastiches, rib-tickling fun all the way. Only 'Dead Outlaw' represents truly credible competition and deserves to siphon off some votes. But at the end of the day, it's a musical about a corpse. There were two excellent, Tony-worthy new plays in this Broadway season: Jez Butterworth's 'The Hills of California,' set in the British working-class resort of Blackpool, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 'Purpose,' both a high-style dissection of the dysfunctional family of the civil rights icon Jesse Jackson and a moving exploration of what it's like to be an introverted kid in a high-pressure family. 'Purpose,' which is still running and more relevant to most Tony voters, is likely to win. But Butterworth's play forged a complex dramaturgical structure and explored deeply empathetic characters. Its central point? To explore how and why childhood trauma impacts our adulthoods. Butterworth has been writing plays a lot longer than Jacobs-Jenkins and his experience shows; I wanted the perfectly crafted 'Hills' to never end. Writer Kimberly Belflower's very lively 'John Proctor Is the Villain' might sneak in there, but I think that audiences at this drama about high schoolers studying 'The Crucible' are responding more to a brilliant production than to the play itself, which is at the end of the day a melodrama that relies on someone else's intellectual property. No shame there, but not the equal of the competition and, with much respect, nor is the very smart and potent 'English,' a show about ESL students that also leads to an inexorable conclusion matching the playwright's point of view. This category will hinge on how many voters embrace Jamie Lloyd's cleverly branded deconstruction of 'Sunset Blvd.' over George C. Wolfe's more nuanced approach to 'Gypsy.' In many ways, the two leading candidates represent a kind of yin and yang of musical revival. 'Sunset Blvd.' is showy and radical and replaced the gilded excess of the original production with an excess of concept, deceptively minimalist but only on the surface. Wolfe's 'Gypsy' aimed to excise the show of Patti LuPone-like drama. McDonald, who brought her classically trained voice to Rose, saw her antiheroine more as an everywoman and the production responded accordingly, as if Wolfe were trying to say that 'Gypsy' was the American tragic musical that few previously understood. I see the arguments against 'Sunset Blvd.' but in the end, Lloyd's staging was just so audaciously thrilling that it overcame them for me. As a director, he's obsessed with film, but then this is a musical about a movie star, so if ever there was a show that could stand such a metaphoric obsession, then here it was. And although this may seem counterintuitive, I thought 'Gypsy' missed the chance to stage this title with far more Black actors, allowing it to serve as a metaphor for the condition of Black entertainers in early 20th century America. It almost went there, but not quite. 2025 Tony Award nominations: Steppenwolf's 'Purpose' and 'Death Becomes Her' both score bigThis was not a stellar season for play revivals. 'Romeo + Juliet,' a pretentious and wildly uneven misfire, did not even remotely deserve its Tony nomination and, bracing moments notwithstanding, 'Our Town' was uneven and derivative of David Cromer's prior revival. 'Eureka Day,' a piece about pretentious pre-school parents and teachers, was an effective satire but hardly surprising. That leaves David Henry Hwang's 'Yellow Face,' an autobiographical piece about Hwang himself and a 'Miss Saigon' casting scandal. 'Yellow Face' has knocked around the American regions for years. But this was a truly excellent piece of new direction from Leigh Silverman and for the first time, the play transcended its inside-baseball orientation and had much to say about America and race. Team Nicole Scherzinger or Team Audra McDonald? Both deconstructed iconic characters (Norma Desmond and Madam Rose) using every ounce of their mutually formidable craft. With all due respect to McDonald, I'm Team Nicole because her work was the more radical of the two performances in rescuing Norma from bathetic senility and giving her back her sexuality, and because McDonald's tragic approach to Rose inevitably de-emphasized her chutzpah and self-aware vivacity which is much of why 'Gypsy' is 'Gypsy.' Still, no shame in being on the other team. It would feel strange for either Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard to win for 'Death Becomes Her' at the expense of the other and I suspect Tony voters will feel the same way. But let's add some props for Jasmine Amy Rogers, truly a perfect Betty Boop who managed to turn a vampish cartoon figure into a complex and vulnerable heroine. If you judge a performance by pizzazz, charm and growing star power, Jonathan Groff is your winner for his dazzling take on Bobby Darin in 'Just in Time.' If immersion inside a character is your choice, you are choosing between Darren Criss for 'Maybe Happy Ending' and Andrew Durand in 'Dead Outlaw.' I thought Durand was just astonishing as the titular outlaw, whose corpse takes on an all-American trajectory of its own. Aside from the technical demands of playing a dead dude, Durand also nailed a guy with zero access to his own feelings. In other words, what he didn't do was probably as important as what he did. I preferred that to Jeremy Jordan in 'Floyd Collins', but I may be in a minority. And Tom Francis, who sings his way through Midtown eight times a week in 'Sunset Blvd.,' will have deserved support. Mia Farrow has acted only rarely in the past decade but her empathetic performance as a vegan, pot-growing Iowan in 'The Roommate' was a reminder of her astonishing ability to fuse what actors think of as externals and internals — her work felt deeply authentic but savvy observers also noted the sophistication of her comic technique and dramatic timing. Alas for Farrow, this is an extraordinary category and by far the most competitive at this year's Tony Awards. Take Sarah Snook, whose work in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' had not a single syllable out of place on the night I saw the show, notwithstanding the huge technical demands of a video-filled production that co-starred numerous versions of her recorded self. She's one of the world's great performers. Then there was the less-famous Laura Donnelly, who played a mother and (later) her adult daughter in 'The Hills of California,' all in service of the writer's point that we all eventually have to live the way we were raised. So distinct were these two characters that some punters in my row clearly did not know they were watching the same actress they'd seen in a different role just a few minutes before. Donnelly was at once empathetic and Medea-like in her intensity. We were supposed to be scared of both of Donnelly's characters and I swear I could not tell you which terrified me the most. Sadie Sink also has a lot of fans and that was indeed a savvy turn in 'John Proctor.' But this competition is between Snook and Donnelly and it was a hard choice for me. Donnelly haunts me the most. George Clooney is on the list of nominees and I hardly need to recount his formidable talents, but he was fundamentally filmic in 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' rather than truly translating his subtle version of Edward R. Murrow to a stage the size of the Winter Garden Theatre. So, with an additional nod of admiration to the delightfully quirky Louis McCartney, who managed to survive all of the crashes and bangs of 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow,' I preferred Jon Michael Hill, playing a young man born into a famous and famously dysfunctional Black political family even though he just wanted to take photographs and stay as far away as possible from his father and his actions. Hill was the most rooted actor in a stellar Steppenwolf Theatre production of 'Purpose.' But I suspect Cole Escola, the star of 'Oh, Mary!,' a silly but strikingly effective satire of Mary Todd Lincoln and her bearded spouse, who will take the prize. No complaints here. Escola hardly was subtle with a guileless, all-in performance that has been packing the house. It's a one of a kind show and that's its greatest selling point. But Escola also offers a clever commentary on present-day America, fueled by fun, freedom and frustration. What the Tony nominations got right — and wrongDavid Cromer's work on 'Dead Outlaw' was typically detailed and worthy and Christopher Gattelli wrangled 'Death Becomes Her' with witty aplomb, but 'Maybe Happy Ending' was an eye popping career-high for Michael Arden, who created the most romantic of dreamscapes and yet also insisted that the audience look precisely and only where the director wanted its eyes to be. Speaking of career highs, Danya Taymor convinced her youthful cast in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' that the stakes in this high school English class were a matter of life and death. Taymor has to compete with Kip Williams, who employed multiple screens and videographers in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' for what was more conceptual authorship than direction, and with Sam Mendes, whose mastery of the exquisite ensemble cast of 'The Hills of California' was formidable. Mendes has won many kudos; most Tony voters will want to reward Taymor, a rising talent. Fair enough. Last, here are my picks for the remaining acting categories.
