2008 Tony Award predictions

GETTING IN SWOON Paulo Szot romances Kelli O'Hara in South Pacific

Photograph: Joan Marcus

[Note: Percentages below indicate the nominee’s chance of winning.]

Best Play
August: Osage County 95%
Rock ’n’ Roll 2%
The Seafarer 2%
The 39 Steps 1%
The race: It won the Pulitzer, it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, and this bitterly brilliant collaboration between Tracy Letts and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company will win the Tony. The other contenders—British imports, all—don’t stand a chance. Hooray, America…and your squalid, nasty, dysfunctional families.

Best Musical
In the Heights 56%
Passing Strange 40%
Cry-Baby 2%
Xanadu 2%
The race: The old-fashioned feel-good community spirit of In the Heights—coupled with its commercial success—makes it the odds-on favorite to take the night’s biggest prize. But dark horse Passing Strange has some momentum from its slew of pre-Tony prizes (many of which In the Heights wasn’t eligible for) and it might just rock the vote.

Best Revival of a Play
Boeing-Boeing 43%
Macbeth 39%
The Homecoming 17%
Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1%
The race: A tight contest here, mainly between the sexy silliness of Boeing-Boeing and the grim multimedia flash of Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth. The former is still running, though, and thus has an edge. Either way, we’re still bummed that Top Girls was overlooked.

Best Revival of a Musical
South Pacific 76%
Gypsy 19%
Sunday in the Park with George 5%
Grease 0%
The race: Despite Patti LuPone’s nuclear turn in Gypsy, the Tony magic lies with South Pacific, which is practically the platonic ideal of a reverential revival of a beloved Golden Age musical. It’s great-looking nostalgia. Sunday in the Park is charming, but a bit gimmicky and it suffers from a puny orchestra.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing 43%
Patrick Stewart, Macbeth 41%
Laurence Fishburne, Thurgood 14%
Rufus Sewell, Rock ’n’ Roll 1%
Ben Daniels, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1%
The race: The prestige factor would ordinarily put Rylance’s bravura farcing at a disadvantage against Stewart’s Shakespearean menace. But Rylance’s status as equally accomplished with the Bard may tip the scales.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County 52%
Amy Morton, August: Osage County 38%
S. Epatha Merkerson, Come Back, Little Sheba 8%
Eve Best, The Homecoming 1%
Kate Fleetwood, Macbeth 1%
The race: Dunagan has the flashy mother-from-hell role with killer lines, but don’t rule out a surprise upset from her fellow ensemble member Amy Morton, who carries large sections of August with guts and passion.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
Paulo Szot, South Pacific 46%
Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights 42%
Daniel Evans, Sunday in the Park with George 8%
Stew, Passing Strange 3%
Tom Wopat, A Catered Affair 1%
The race: Again, this is a hard call. On the one hand, Szot makes voters swoon with his looks and that golden baritone. But Miranda is up there keepin’ it real with tons of charm…Oh, the agony!

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical
Patti LuPone, Gypsy 53%
Kelli O’Hara, South Pacific 42%
Faith Prince, A Catered Affair 2%
Jenna Russell, Sunday in the Park with George 2%
Kerry Butler, Xanadu 1%
The race: On merit, the capable O’Hara can’t compete with LuPone’s mind-altering tour de force. But the Tonys are more about buzz than honey, so she could score a deeply upsetting upset.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
Jim Norton, The Seafarer 53%
Raúl Esparza, The Homecoming 38%
Conleth Hill, The Seafarer 7%
David Pittu, Is He Dead? 1%
Bobby Cannavale, Mauritius 1%
The race: No one does sozzled like Norton. But he does face some competition from Esparza, who may win a pity vote for his disappointing loss for last season’s Company.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
Rondi Reed, August: Osage County 33%
Mary McCormack, Boeing-Boeing 31%
Martha Plimpton, Top Girls 30%
Laurie Metcalf, November 5%
Sinead Cusack, Rock ’n’ Roll 1%
The race: We’ve got a three-way split here, with a trio of extremely funny performers. If August sweeps, then Reed takes home some gold. But McCormack’s Teutonic turn in Boeing-Boeing is unforgettable.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical
Boyd Gaines, Gypsy 60%
Daniel Breaker, Passing Strange 21%
Danny Burstein, South Pacific 16%
Christopher Fitzgerald, Young Frankenstein 2%
Robin De Jesús, In the Heights 1%
The race: Having won three Tonys already, Gaines should gain another for his perfectly modulated supporting turn. Breaker might catch a break, however, if voters want to throw a little love at Passing Strange.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
Laura Benanti, Gypsy 90%
Loretta Ables Sayre, South Pacific 4%
Andrea Martin, Young Frankenstein 3%
Olga Merediz, In the Heights 2%
de’Adre Aziza, Passing Strange 1%
The race: Memorize the combination, fellas, ’cause this one’s a lock. Benanti’s touching turn as Gypsy Rose Lee strips this category of any suspense.

Best Original Score
In the Heights, Lin-ManuelMiranda 54%
Passing Strange, Stew and Heidi Rodewald 44%
Cry-Baby, David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger 1%
The Little Mermaid, Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater 1%
The race: Even if In the Heights takes Best Musical, the well-reviewed Passing Strange could nab Best Score as a consolation prize. But Miranda’s fresh sound motors his show’s success.

Best Book of a Musical
In the Heights, Quiara Alegría Hudes 35%
Passing Strange, Stew 33%
Xanadu, Douglas Carter Beane, 31%
Cry-Baby, Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, 1%
The race: Slate voting will probably carry Hudes through, though In the Heights’s weak book makes this one of the night’s least predictable contests. Beane’s gleeful camp gives Xanadu its best chance for a win.

Best Direction of a Play
Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County 79%
Matthew Warchus, Boeing-Boeing 15%
Conor McPherson, The Seafarer 5%
Maria Aitken, The 39 Steps 1%
The race: There’s got to be some sort of award for corralling 13 actors for more than three hours without a dull moment. Oh, yeah, it’s called the Tony, and Shapiro wholeheartedly deserves it.

Best Direction of a Musical
Bartlett Sher, South Pacific 76%
Arthur Laurents, Gypsy 17%Thomas Kail, In the Heights 4%
Sam Buntrock, Sunday in the Park with George 3%
The race: Sher’s elegant direction brings South Pacific to lush life in a revival that leaves audiences glowing with pleasure.

Best Choreography
Rob Ashford, Cry-Baby 61%
Andy Blankenbuehler, In the Heights 29%
Dan Knechtges, Xanadu 8%
Christopher Gattelli, South Pacific 2%
The race: The one thing about Cry-Baby that everyone agrees on is the excellence of Ashford’s dances—especially a license-plate tap number that draws gasps of delight from audiences. It’s Broadway showmanship at its best, and likely to trump the also-remarkable work of Blankenbuehler and Knechtges.

Best Orchestrations
Stew and Heidi Rodewald, Passing Strange 49%
Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman, In the Heights 45%
Jonathan Tunick, A Catered Affair 5%
Jason Carr, Sunday in the Park with George 1%
The race: If voters pass over Passing Strange for Best Musical and Best Score, this might be a good occasion to honor the show’s composers in a smaller way. But the team from In the Heights does a first-rate job of translating contemporary sounds of rap and Latin pop into Broadway-friendly arrangements.

Best Scenic Design of a Play
Todd Rosenthal, August: Osage County 66%
Peter McKintosh, The 39 Steps 18%
Anthony Ward, Macbeth 13%
Scott Pask, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 3%
The race: Rosenthal’s dollhouse vision of a decaying Oklahoma homestead perfectly fits August: Osage County. The only serious competition is from McKintosh’s spare but insanely modular work on the quick-change 39 Steps.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Michael Yeargan, South Pacific 64%
David Farley and Timothy Bird & the Knifedge Creative Network, Sunday in the Park with George 20%
Anna Louizos, In the Heights 11%
Robin Wagner, Young Frankenstein 5%
The race: Despite darned clever computer-generated animation in Sunday in the Park, the real beauty is in Yeargan’s lush, painterly work on South Pacific. And note: The latter revival is gonna sweep the design categories. It’s gorgeous.

Best Costume Design of a Play
Katrina Lindsay, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 41%
Rob Howell, Boeing-Boeing 35%
Peter McKintosh, The 39 Steps 21%
Gregory Gale, Cyrano de Bergerac 3%
The race: Bodices get passionately ripped and bustles get lasciviously lifted in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and that’s pretty much the best thing about the production. Howell’s sexy, retro-chic designs for Boeing-Boeing could conceivably fly higher.

Best Costume Design of a Musical
Catherine Zuber, South Pacific 74%
Paul Tazewell, In the Heights 12%
David Farley, Sunday in the Park with George 7%
Martin Pakledinaz, Gypsy 7%
The race: No real contest here. Zuber’s scrupulous work on South Pacific is top-notch—from the neatly differentiated soldiers to the slightly dufferish couture of Emile de Becque and Nellie Forbush’s pert skirts.

Best Lighting Design of a Play
Kevin Adams, The 39 Steps 51%
Howard Harrison, Macbeth 25%
Ann G. Wrightson, August: Osage County 23%
Donald Holder, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1%
The race: If lighting creates space and drama out of nothing, then Adams’s yeoman work on the minimalist, cinematic 39 Steps wins the gold. (Harrison is equally deserving for lighting the multimedia Stalinist horrors of Macbeth.)

Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Donald Holder, South Pacific 66%
Howell Binkley, In the Heights 15%
Natasha Katz, The Little Mermaid 13%
Ken Billington, Sunday in the Park with George 6%
The race: South Pacific again sweeps for its grand, picturesque images, which transport us to a tropical world of yesteryear.

Best Sound Design of a Play
Mic Pool, The 39 Steps 43%
Adam Cork, Macbeth 31%
Ian Dickson, Rock ’n’ Roll 21%
Simon Baker, Boeing-Boeing 5%
The race: The clear front-runner for this brand-new award is The 39 Steps, in which sound does wonders to transform an ordinary Broadway theater into dozens of Hitchcockian locales.

Best Sound Design of a Musical
Scott Lehrer, South Pacific 53%
Acme Sound Partners, In the Heights 34%
Sebastian Frost, Sunday in the Park with George 7%
Dan Moses Schreier, Gypsy 6%
The race: One of the subtlest pleasures of the South Pacific revival is how natural it sounds: The huge orchestra never overwhelms the singers, yet the singers don’t seem creepily amplified and disembodied.

The 2008 Tony Awards will be broadcast on CBS Sun 15 at 8pm. See local listings for details and visit tonys.org.