The Interested Bystander: Final 2024-25 Tony Award Predictions

Maybe Happy Ending (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Now that all the pre-award announcements have been made, it’s time for my final predictions for the Tony Awards, which will air Sunday on CBS from Radio City Music Hall with Cynthia Erivo as the host.

Enjoy.

Reviews: Off-Broadway Provides an Enjoyable and Well-Cast Revival of the Rarely Produced “Bus Stop” as Well as an Experimental, Fascinating but Head-Scratching “Bowl EP,” While Wes Anderson Returns to Full-Length Films With the Endlessly Clever “The Phoenician Scheme”

Bus Stop (c) Carol Rosegg

Theater: Bus Stop 
At Classic Stage Company (closing this weekend)

The plays of Pulitzer Prize-winning William Inge are rarely produced these days, even though he was seen, when he was most popular, as talented and important as his contemporaries: Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. One reason is that his plays are most assuredly realistic and don’t tackle political or controversial issues of the day. But they are well-made plays, which was clear in the last Broadway revival of Picnic in 2013, which introduced Sebastian Stan to the world. And now you see it in the Classic Stage Company/NAATCO/Transport Group co-production of 1956’s Bus Stop, which is now only remembered for the Joshua Logan film starring Marilyn Monroe. The titular stop is a diner on a remote but heavily populated bus route in Missouri, run by Grace (a no-nonsense Cindy Cheung), with an assist by bright high school student Elma (Delphi Borich). On this particular night, there’s a big windy snowstorm, so the next bus is stranded there until it passes. On the bus is Cherie (the Marilyn Monroe part, played humorously by Midori Francis), a nightclub singer who has been abducted by a young cowboy named Bo (Michael Hsu Rosen, playing up the cluelessness rather than the brutishness), who asked Cherie to marry him, but never bothered to hear her answer (which is no). 

GALECA Theater Critics Honor "Cats: The Jellicle Ball" and "John Proctor is the Villain" for 2025 Dorian Theater Awards

 

John Proctor is the Villain (c) Julieta Cervantes

GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ kicked off Pride Month by giving John Proctor is the Villain and Cats: The Jellicle Ball top honors in the group’s third annual Dorian Theater Awards. Both productions won three awards each, making them the most awarded shows of the year. The Dorian Theater Awards, decided on by GALECA’s theater wing, honor the best of Broadway and Off-Broadway, mainstream to LGBTQ+, for the 2024-2025 season. 

Kimberly Bellflower’s new play John Proctor is the Villain earned three Dorian Theater Awards, more than any other Broadway production. The drama, in which contemporary high schoolers recontextualize Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, was awarded prizes for Outstanding Broadway Play, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Broadway Play for Fina Strazza, and Outstanding Broadway Ensemble. 

Cats: The Jellicle Ball dominated the Off-Broadway categories. This radical reinvention of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical set the story in the world of ballroom. It won three Dorian Theater Awards, including Outstanding Off-Broadway production, Outstanding LGBTQ Off-Broadway Production, and Outstanding Featured Performance in an Off-Broadway production for André De Shields. De Shields was also awarded GALECA’s LGBTQ Theater Trailblazer Award, a distinction which celebrates an individual’s lifelong commitment to creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity. 

The group’s other special prize, the LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season award, was bestowed to two people due to a tie in voting: Jonathan Groff and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Groff currently stars as Bobby Darin in the hit bio-musical Just in Time (for which he received a Dorian Award nomination). Jacobs-Jenkins is the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play Purpose. 

Reviews of Six Current Films in Cinema or on Streaming Including “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life”

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning (c) Paramount Pictures

Film: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning 
In Cinemas 

Of all the films I am reviewing here, Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning is the most successful because it sticks to the formula that has made the film series so much fun: Tom Cruise running and Tom Cruise shirtless, preferably at the same time. OK, the action set pieces are enjoyable too, although in this eighth (and possibly final) Ethan Hunt film, it’s getting hard to top the memorable ones from the past (like inside an opera house shootout or, outside hanging onto both a really tall building or an airplane taking off). The series started almost 30 years ago to the day, with the Brian DePalma 1996 film, and there’s even a surprise Easter egg from that film that’s important to this plot. Starting a couple of months after the events of Dead Reckoning, Ethan is in hiding after successfully finding the literal and metaphorical key that will take down the AI threat known as “The Entity,” but he still doesn’t know what the key does. With the help of his dwindling original team, including Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), along with new allies, Grace (Hayley Atwell), Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis) and Paris (Pom Klementieff), Ethan must ultimately find his way to the Russian submarine buried in ice which holds the key to the key. I have heard the criticism that the talky parts are too talky and the action parts are not inventive enough, and I attribute that feeling to the film’s bloated almost three-hour running time. But I still had a good time, especially when the scene-stealing Tramell Tillman (of Severance) and Angela Bassett show up. This is director Christopher McQuarrie’s fourth M.I. film, and maybe new blood would have spiced up the finale. Still, I appreciated McQuarrie’s steady knowhow of the strength and limitations of both the franchise and Tom Cruise. Cruise keeps us invested in these movies because he literally puts his life on the line just for our entertainment. And yes, even after 30 years, I am still entertained. 

The Interested Bystander: Early 2024-25 Tony Award Predictions

Operation Mincemeat (c) Julieta Cervantes

With less than 3 weeks until the Tony Awards, this is where I see the race for the winners are shaking out. But 3 weeks is a long time for strong campaigns, outrageous faux pas and a boatload of media blitz. I will have my final Tony Award winner predictions before June 8th, when the 78th Annual Tony Awards will air on CBS from Radio City Music Hall with Cynthia Erivo as the host.