Daniel Dae Kim Tricia Baron
This year's nominations were filled with surprises and welcomed industry trends.
If the Tony Awards are the theatre Super Bowl, then the Tony Awards nominations day can be considered the play-offs (pun very much intended). This morning, theatre fans gathered at their screens to see which of our favorite teams or players will get to make it to Broadway biggest night.
While there was a number of overlooked artists, there were also some illuminating surprises and trends—all of which showcased one of the strongest (and highest-grossing) Broadway seasons in recent memory. Here's what we noticed about this year's Tony nominees.
Daniel Dae Kim and English Make History
This year included a large amount of first-time nominees (more on that later), but a notable one on the list was Daniel Dae Kim. Kim is now the first Asian actor to be nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance By a Leading Actor in a Play (B.D. Wong, the first Asian actor to win an acting Tony, was in the Featured category for M. Butterfly). But Kim wasn't alone in making Tonys history. Sanaz Toossi is the first Iranian-American playwright to be nominated for Best Play, for English; and that show's cast members Tala Ashe and Marjan Neshat are the first Middle Eastern actors to be nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play.