(JTA) â This Sunday is the biggest night of the year for theater lovers: Itâs the Tony Awards.
Unfortunately, our crystal ball is at the shop for repairs â so we canât say with certainty who the winners will be. But thereâs one thing thatâs for sure: The past year has been a standout one for Jewish actors, characters and writers who are plying their talents on the Great White Way.
From a play about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to a Broadway legend playing a Jewish cosmetics doyenne, here are seven shows with Jewish connections and themes that we expect to win big at the 2017 Tony Awards, which air Sunday evening on CBS.
1. âOsloâ
âOslo,â J.T. Rogersâ play about the 1993 Oslo Accords, is widely considered the frontrunner for Best Play. Itâs won nearly every theater award  â the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle, the Drama League, the New York Drama Criticsâ Circle and the Obie.
The play, in which Israelis and Palestinian negotiators  â including Uri Savir, played by Michael Aronov, who is nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Play â struggle to hammer out a peace deal, received rave reviews for turning a complicated history into a fast, entertaining three hours. Whatâs particularly impressive is how riveting âOsloâ is â even though itâs common knowledge how the peace talks ended.
âOsloâ has five more nominations: Best Direction of a Play (Bartlett Sher), Best Lighting Design (Donald Holder), Best Scenic Design (Michael Yeargan), as well as Best Leading Actor and Actress for Jefferson Mays and Jennifer Ehle, who play Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen, the Norwegian couple overseeing the negotiations.
2. âIndecentâ
Another Best Play nominee, Paula Vogelâs âIndecent,â may lack the momentum of âOsloâ â but also tells a very Jewish story. The play recounts the bumpy journey to Broadway of Shalom Aschâs controversial Yiddish play âGod of Vengeance.â Seemingly ahead of its time, the 1906 play featured a love story between two women â one a prostitute and the other the teenage daughter of a religious man â and while it found success in Europe, the cast was arrested in New York for obscenity when the production moved uptown.
The play is also nominated for Best Direction of a Play (Rebecca Taichman) and Best Lighting Design (Christopher Akerlind).
Despite the nods, the play has been struggling to sell tickets: Vogel recently tweeted, âPlease buy a ticket soon to âIndecent,â asking your support. This show is the best I got in me. Want to share while we can.â
Watch Paula Vogel talk about her Jewish identity:
3. âFalsettosâ
âFalsettosâ may have closed in January, but this musical about neurotic Jews came away with five nominations, including Best Revival of a Musical.
The musical revolves around a selfish but likable man, Marvin, who tries to navigate relationships with his ex-wife, his boyfriend, his psychiatrist and his son, Jason. The second act takes place two years after the first, and centers around both AIDS and a bar mitzvah, which, in the playâs moving conclusion, Jason holds in a hospital room.
Brandon Uranowitz â the only âFalsettosâ cast member who is Jewish â is up for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, alongside one of his costars, Andrew Rannells, who may be best known as Elijah from Lena Dunhamâs âGirls.â (The other nominees are Christian Borle for Best Lead Actor and Stephanie J. Block for Best Featured Actress.)
If weâre lucky, maybe theyâll open this yearâs award ceremony â hosted by Kevin Spacey â with a rendition of the musicalâs opening number, âFour Jews in a Room Bitching.â Thatâs a fitting description of Tony night at my house.
4. âHello, Dolly!â
Itâs so nice to have our favorite Jewish diva, Bette Midler, back on Broadway where she belongs â and almost everyone agrees.
As Dolly Gallagher Levi in âHello, Dolly,â Midler has received nearly unanimous raves and is receiving multiple standing ovations a night, both during and after the show, and now sheâs nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Musical. And while competition in this category is heavy on theater royalty â see: Christine Ebersole and Patti LuPone â itâs unlikely that anyone will beat the Divine Miss M, who plays a matchmaking meddler enlisted to find a wife for wealthy Horace Vandergelder (played David Hyde Pierce, also nominated), fully intending to marry him herself.
âHello, Dollyâ is nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical. With only two competitors in that field ââFalsettosâ and âMiss Saigonâ â this widely-loved production is expected to win.
If youâre hoping to catch Midler singing a tune from the show, youâll likely have to score a ticket â for which box-office prices top out at $748: Midler was deemed âunlikelyâ to sing at the Tonys this year.
5. âDear Evan Hansenâ
Speaking of shoo-ins, Ben Platt, another Jewish actor, is probably the closest thing there is to one. Iâm not a betting kind of woman, but I would put money on him taking home a Tony for Best Lead Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of anxiety-ridden outsider Evan Hansen, the title character in this dark musical about a boy who gets caught up in a lie after the death of a classmate.
Ben Platt grew up performing at a Jewish summer camp â watch him talk about his Jewish childhood on âLate Night with Seth Meyersâ here, where he also sings a rendition of âLuck Be a Ladyâ in Hebrew.
âDear Evan Hansenâ is nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Mike Faist), Best Featured Actress (Rachel Bay Jones), Best Original Score, in which Benj Pasek, also Jewish, is nominated alongside Justin Paul. If the songwriters look familiar itâs because they already won an Oscar this year for âLa La Land.â
6. âCome From Awayâ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAa3ncDQxYI
Though âDear Evan Hansenâ is favored to win Tonyâs final award of the evening â Best Musical â donât rule out âCome From Away,â a touching, based-on-a-true-story musical about a small Newfoundland town. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the population of Gander temporarily doubled when 38 airplanes were rerouted there.
The musical is about how people come together and help each other through the darkest times. The Jewish connection? Aside from the showâs writers, married couple Irene Sankoff and David Hein (their previous show was called âMy Motherâs Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Weddingâ), one of the characters of âCome From Awayâ is a rabbi and, in a very moving scene, he sings âOseh Shalomâ as characters pray in many languages.
Sankoff and Hein are also nominated Best Book for a Musical and Best Original Score. Other nominees include Best Featured Actress (Jenn Colella) and Best Direction (Christopher Ashley).
7. âWar Paintâ
Patti LuPone may not be Jewish, but sheâs played a rabbi on TV.
And now, sheâs nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in âWar Paint,â which chronicles the rivalry between cosmetics magnates Helena Rubinstein (played by LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (played by Christine Ebersole, also nominated in the same category). The musical, which is up for four Tony Awards, doesnât shy away from the anti-Semitism that Rubinstein, a Polish immigrant, faced â she was denied an apartment at 625 Park Avenue, for example, but got her revenge when she bought the entire building.
âWar Paintâ isnât nominated for Best Musical â but it was just announced there will be a performance from the cast during the awards ceremony.
To get a LuPone fix before then, check out this clip from her recent appearance on âCrazy Ex-Girlfriend.â
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