‘S.N.L.’ Alums Get the Last Laugh
Two former “Saturday Night Live” cast members, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, are jostling for best performance by a featured actress in a musical. Dratch (already a nominee in 2022 for “POTUS”) makes great use of her improv skills as the narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show” — half of her job consists of wrangling overenthusiastic audience members shouting call-outs. As for Gasteyer, she actually made her Broadway debut as a replacement cast member in an earlier revival of “Rocky Horror,” in 2001; now she has earned her first Tony nomination for her portrayal of the town bigot, Mildred Layton, in “Schmigadoon!” If you want to dig deeper in “S.N.L.” lore, just look at the featured actress in a play category, whose nominees include Laurie Metcalf — a featured player on the TV show for a single episode, in 1981. ELISABETH VINCENTELLI
An Absolutely Fabulous Decision
You can’t make a superb champagne cocktail without Veuve Clicquot and a cube of sugar, and happily the Tony pooh-bahs realized the same, nominating both Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara as lead actresses in the revival of Noël Coward’s “Fallen Angels,” the season’s most delicious serving of pure fizz. It might have been one or the other in a crowded category where comedic acting is too often taken for granted. Better to let these two versatile performers, having a grand old time onstage as increasingly soused frenemies, take their hilarious rivalry to Tony night. Drink up! SCOTT HELLER
Bright Spot (Mostly) in Design
Of Soutra Gilmour’s Broadway set designs this season, one was an undeniable showpiece, the other a sly puzzle box: a revolving mountain of luggage evoking the Manhattan skyline, with small scenic treasures hidden away inside. That set, for the rom-com musical “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” received a Tony nomination. But Gilmour’s starkly magnificent design for “Waiting for Godot” — Jamie Lloyd’s revival, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter — went unrecognized. Beckett famously specifies a tree; it had no tree. Instead it was a vast, tunnellike, tapering void, which was thrilling to behold. Shocking to ignore. The category of lighting design for a play, though, brought a pleasant surprise, especially in a male-dominated season. Women landed five of the six nominations: Isabella Byrd for “Dog Day Afternoon,” Natasha Chivers for “Oedipus,” Stacey Derosier for “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” and Heather Gilbert for “Bug” and “The Fear of 13.” LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES
Bleak Shows Get Blanked
The Tony nominators were clearly not in the mood to reward the grim-dark and super-serious this season. Several gloomy state-of-the-discourse pieces were completely shut out of consideration, even in technical categories: the quick-to-close musical about Florida greed “The Queen of Versailles”; the domestic abuse tragedy “Call Me Izzy”; the biting, your-friends-hate-you comedy “Art.” There were also only a pair of design nominations for “The Fear of 13,” which gazes into the U.S. carceral system and finds, mostly, horror. Other low-scoring shows, with single nods, include the existentially depressing “Waiting for Godot,” the bleak “Little Bear Ridge Road” and the tale of a real-life tragedy, “Punch.” The total blanking of “Beaches,” a grief-focused musical, and “Proof,” a play about mental fragility, follow the wan critical reception of both productions — though, again, it may be that downbeat this season simply wasn’t the rhythm nominators wanted. SHAW