"Parade" marched off with the most Tony nominations

Web posted on: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 4:18:20 PM EDT

In this story: Fiercest fight: Play competition Musical revivals No host announced yet Full list of nominations RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- The Tony Awards show -- arguably Broadway's most powerful marketing tool, the awards ceremony being telecast live into millions of United States homes every summer -- may be hampered this year by a paucity of successful new original material.

The Broadway season has been widely denounced for a lack of quality musicals. And the telecast traditionally relies on numbers taken from current musicals in competition -- in recent years, there were numbers from such popular shows as "Rent," revivals of "Chicago" and "Cabaret," and Julie Taymor's puppet-fantasy staging of "The Lion King."

The organization of Broadway producers, themselves -- the League of American Theatres and Producers -- puts the Tonys show on the air as a sort of theater infomercial for current offerings. It's thought that many tourists decide how to spend their Broadway budget based on what they see on the show.

ALSO:

Get the full list of nominations

But in an ironic twist that may foreshadow Broadway's critical and commercial fate, "Parade," a musical about a Jewish factory owner lynched in the Deep South, led Broadway's Tony competition announcement on Monday with nine nominations. "Parade" closed after just 10 weeks on stage, losing more than $5 million.

The bankrupt and soon-to-be-sold Toronto-based Livent Inc. theater company, which produced "Parade" and another much-nominated musical, "Fosse," snapped up 17 Tony nominations overall.

Tennessee Williams' "Not About Nightingales"

The biggest battle this year for Tony Awards is among the season's large bounty of new plays -- many of them English or Irish -- and revivals of plays by Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller. Some critics say this has been Broadway's strongest season for plays in a decade.

Revivals of American classics -- Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" -- scored six and five nominations, respectively, including best revival of a play.

And the leads from both plays, film stars Brian Dennehy in "Salesman" and Kevin Spacey in "Iceman," are nominated for best actor, as are Brian O'Byrne in "The Lonesome West" and Corin Redgrave in "Not About Nightingales." Dennehy is considered a frontrunner in the category.

"Not About Nightingales" also leads the pack in play nominations, with six nods. The show, written by Tennessee Williams, who died in 1983, scored a best-play nod, as well. This early script, about a prison riot, was unknown and unstaged until Redgrave's sister Vanessa discovered it among the playwright's papers while researching her role in "Orpheus Descending."

"To think that Tennessee Williams is still capable of writing the best new play of the season is wonderful," Corin Redgrave said.

Also nominated for best play: Patrick Marber's "Closer"; Martin McDonagh's "The Lonesome West"; and Warren Leight's "Side Man."

Judi Dench, who picked up an Oscar for her work as Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love," was nominated for "Amy's View" -- as were Stockard Channing"; and Marian Seldes for "Ring Round the Moon." Notably absent from the nominations list: Nicole Kidman, whose nude scene in "The Blue Room" raised eyebrows at its London premiere. The show is playwright David Hare's adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's 1900 play "La Ronde."

Hare also was passed over for two other plays he had on Broadway this season -- "Amy's View" and "Via Dolorosa."

Martin Short in "Little Me"

Nominees for best musical actor are Martin Short for his portrayal of seven different characters in a revival of "Little Me"; "Parade" star Brent Carver; Adam Cooper in "Swan Lake"; and Tom Wopat, who stars in the revival of "Annie Get Your Gun."

"Every night I step out there on stage, and I'm just going, 'Thank you!'" said Wopat.

His leading lady, Bernadette Peters, is the favorite in the best musical actress category. Other nominees are Dee Hoty for "Footloose"; Carolee Carmello for "Parade"; and Sian Phillips for "Marlene."

Competing in the best-musical category with "Parade" and "Fosse" -- a celebration of the late Bob Fosse's choreography -- are "It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues," a history of the blues, and "The Civil War," Frank Wildhorn's pop interpretation of the American war between the Union and the Confederacy.

Tom Wopat in "Annie Get Your Gun"

The 53rd annual Tony Awards are scheduled to be presented June 6 in a nationally televised broadcast of three hours from Broadway's Gershwin Theater. The show sometimes runs long.

While talk-show host and former Broadway performer Rosie O'Donnell won't be hosting the telecast this year, Tony producers haven't yet announced another host. O'Donnell has been credited with drumming up interest in Broadway and the Tonys as host of the past two seasons' shows.

But O'Donnell will be among the presenters at the awards. Nominees Spacey, Dennehy and Dench are also likely to provide what one insider terms "yeoman's duty."

"You could end up with a bunch of presenters giving awards to themselves," one observer comments.

Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist and Reuters contributed to this report.