Tony Award Eligibility Determinations Made For Casts Of ‘American Buffalo’, ‘Hangmen’, Others

Greg Evans
·3 min read

The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the last time before Monday’s nomination announcements, making some final eligibility determinations for shows including the stars of American Buffalo, Hangmen and How I Learned To Drive, among others.

Among the rulings: American Buffalo actor Darren Criss will be considered eligible as a featured player in a play, apparently leaving co-stars Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell to the lead category.

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For Hangmen, which features a large ensemble of actors with Alfie Allen in the central role of a possible killer, co-star David Threlfall, who plays one of the executioners of the title, will be eligible in the leading actor/play category. Both Allen and Threlfall received excellent reviews.

The committee also determined that How I Learned to Drive, which had previously been staged Off Broadway in 1997, will be eligible in the Best Revival of a Play category, despite not having played on Broadway prior to the current staging. A similar ruling was made in 2019 for the Broadway premiere of The Boys in the Band, which debuted Off Broadway in 1968.

For their performances as romantic interests of Debra Messing’s central character in Birthday Candles, both Enrico Colantoni and John Earl Jelks will be considered eligible in the featured actor/play category.

Several of the determinations involve actors in large-cast ensemble shows (Paradise Square, The Skin of Our Teeth) and for video and projections designers (the Tonys do not have a separate category for those, so the committee generally determines that those designers will fall into set or lighting slots).

Tony determinations made earlier this season can be found here, here and here.

In addition to those detailed above, other determinations announced today:

  • Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse will be considered eligible in the leading role categories/play for their respective performances in How I Learned to Drive;

  • Joaquina Kalukango will be considered eligible in the leading role/musical category for her performance in Paradise Square;

  • Jane Lynch and Jared Grimes will be considered eligible in the featured categories/musical for their respective performances in Funny Girl;

  • Scenic designer Rachel Hauck and video designer Lucy Mackinnon will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on How I Learned to Drive;

  • Scenic designer Myung Hee Cho and projections designer Aaron Rhyne will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf;

  • Choreographer Ellenore Scott and tap choreographer Ayodele Casel will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Choreography category for their work on Funny Girl;

  • Gabby Beans, James Vincent Meredith and Roslyn Ruff will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress/Actor in a Leading Role in a Play categories, for their respective performances in The Skin of Our Teeth;

  • Jaquel Spivey will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in A Strange Loop;

  • Scenic designer Scott Pask and video/projection designer Jeff Sugg will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Mr. Saturday Night.

Nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards will be announced on Monday, May 9, on the Tony Awards official YouTube page. The awards ceremony, hosted by Ariana DeBose, will broadcast live coast to coast on Sunday, June 12 on CBS.

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