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A look at all the Broadway shows eligible for 2020 Tony Awards

This year's ceremony will return to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 12.

Suzy Evans
Suzy Evans

After the 74th annual Tony Awards took place at the Winter Garden Theatre in September 2021 and were broadcast virtually, the 75th anniversary ceremony is back in person at its usual date and time. The 2022 Tony Awards ceremony will take place Sunday, June 12 at Radio City Music Hall, its home for many of the past 10 years. CBS and Paramount+ will broadcast the ceremony from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. that day, and an additional hour of exclusive content will be available on Paramount+ from 7-8 p.m.

The awards will recognize a season that celebrated Broadway's return after the Covid-19 theatrical shutdown. The season's eligibility cutoff is set for April 28, 2020, and the awards will recognize shows that opened as far back as February 20, 2020, the day after the 2020 ceremony's cutoff date.

Any show that opened between February 20, 2020 and April 28, 2020, with some exceptions, will be eligible for this year's awards. This date range accommodates shows that opened just before the shutdown, shows that were in preview performances when the shutdown happened and finally opened in 2021, and all the new productions that have premiered during the 2021-2022 season.

Nominees will be announced on May 3, 2022. The Tony Awards administration committee met for the first time in December 2021 to rule on which shows are eligible, and the committee will meet a few more times before nominations are announced. As such, the eligible shows listed below are subject to change, and this article will be updated as new rulings are made. Here's a look at what we know so far about the contenders for this year's Tony Awards. 

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What Broadway shows are eligible for 2022 Tony Awards?

There are 35 shows eligible for 2022 Tony Awards, including new productions from the 2021-2022 season along with a few shows that were part of the truncated 2019-2020 Broadway season, but opened after the cutoff date for 2020 Tony Awards eligibility. There are 14 musicals and 21 plays, all of which opened between February 20, 2020 and April 28, 2022.

Here are all of the shows that are eligible for 2022 Tony Awards.

What shows are eligible for Best Musical at the 2022 Tony Awards?

Nine new musicals opened during the 2021-2022 Broadway season. Two of the productions featured a score of existing popular music, with songs by the likes of Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan. However, the remaining seven have fully original scores, so these will be eligible for the Best Score category as well. Here are the new musicals that are eligible for 2022 Tony Awards. 

Girl From the North Country

With a title taken from the Bob Dylan song of the same name, Girl From the North Country incorporates 19 of Dylan's songs into an original story of guests at a remote inn in Duluth, Minnesota, and the ways they change each other's lives. The musical opened in March 2020, just before the pandemic but after the 2020 Tonys cutoff date, so the show is eligible for the 2022 Tony Awards instead.

Six

This "one of a kind, no category" musical reimagines the six wives of Henry VIII as a modern pop group. Each sings a song about the ways Henry mistreated them, and they decide whoever had it worst will lead the band. Amid their gripes about Henry, though, audiences learn about the women's achievements separate from him. The show was scheduled to open on March 12, 2020 — the very day Broadway ended up shutting down. Six then opened in October 2021 instead.

Diana, The Musical

Diana, The Musical is a musical retelling of Princess Diana's life, beginning with her marriage to Prince Charles and following how, when she learned of his infidelity, she used her own platform to blaze an independent legacy as a philanthropist, fashion icon, and overall "people's princess." The musical had played a couple previews pre-pandemic and ran for a month and a half on Broadway in 2021; a taped performance remains available to stream on Netflix.

Mrs. Doubtfire

Mrs. Doubtfire is on a Broadway hiatus through April 14, poppets, but the show is still eligible for the 2022 Tony Awards. Rob McClure takes over Robin Williams's role in this musical adaptation of the 1993 film, in which a devoted but divorced father dresses as the titular nanny in order to get time with his kids. 

Flying Over Sunset

Lincoln Center Theater's production of Flying Over Sunset finally took its trip on Broadway after being postponed from 2020. The musical's central characters are Aldous Huxley, Clare Boothe Luce, and Cary Grant, all of whom did LSD in the 1950s and 60s. After dramatizing their real-life experiences with the drug, the show imagines what it might have been like if all three dropped acid together.

MJ The Musical

In a rare move for a major show, MJ The Musical did not play any regional or Off-Broadway performances first, but had its world premiere right on Broadway. The bio-musical about Michael Jackson sees him rehearsing for his 1992 Dangerous World Tour, and as he sings the many chart-topping songs on the setlist, audiences get a glimpse into major moments in his life and career that correlate with them. 

Paradise Square

This new musical takes place in 19th-century Manhattan, in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Five Points. At the center of the neighborhood is the titular tavern, where free Black people and Irish immigrants dance, drink, and debate together. But the Draft Riots disrupt the harmony between the two groups seemingly all at once, and Paradise Square sees them clash over differing ideas of how America should be.

A Strange Loop

Michael R. Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize for A Strange Loop in 2020, and the show is making its Broadway debut this season. The main character, Usher, is a Black, queer writer writing a musical about a Black, queer writer writing a musical (and Jackson himself is a Black, queer writer behind the A Strange Loop musical). The show had its world premiere off Broadway in 2019 and had a pre-Broadway run in D.C.

Mr. Saturday Night

Billy Crystal reprises his role as Buddy Young Jr. in the musical comedy adaptation of the same-named 1992 movie. His character is a comedian whose career is long past its peak, and he estranged his family and friends in his descent from fame. But now, he's gotten one more chance at fame and to make things right with his loved ones, if he doesn't let his self-destructive impulses ruin it all again.

What shows are eligible for Best Play at the 2022 Tony Awards?

The Best Play category is likely to be one of the more competitive at the 2020 Tony Awards, as 12 plays, more than a third of the total shows eligible, are up for a nomination. One of these, Pass Over, has the distinction of being the first new show to reopen after the Broadway shutdown, becoming a symbol of the industry's return. Here are all the contenders for Best Play in 2022.

Pass Over

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's play borrowed elements from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and the Book of Exodus to tell a story of two Black men wondering if that day will be different than every other day they spend on the same street corner, talking and joking. And sure enough, that day, a stranger comes by, and their interaction showcases the American dream and all its flaws. The show ran from August to October 2021.

Chicken & Biscuits

This new Broadway comedy by Douglas Lyons centers on the family squabbles and secrets that erupt during a funeral for the Jenkins family's patriarch. Norm Lewis and Cleo King starred, and the show ran from September to November 2021. At 27, Zhailon Levingston became the youngest-ever Black director on Broadway when he helmed Chicken & Biscuits.

Is This A Room

Is This A Room is a word-perfect staging of the FBI's interrogation of Reality Winner, a former intelligence specialist accused of leaking classified information to the press. The show had had its 2019 Off-Broadway premiere at Vineyard Theatre and played in repertory on Broadway with Dana H., which also premiered at the Vineyard in the 2019-2020 season.

Thoughts of a Colored Man

Keenan Scott II's Thoughts of a Colored Man follows seven Black men throughout one day in Brooklyn. They share their hopes, dreams, and fears through spoken word, song, speech, and movement. Thoughts of a Colored Man played from October to December 2021 and was the the first show in Broadway history to be written, directed, lead produced, and performed entirely by Black men.

The Lehman Trilogy

The three-part play The Lehman Trilogy chronicles the 100-plus year history of the Lehman Brothers financial firm, framing the story as a family drama as various generations of Lehmans came to power and either strengthened or shunned their fathers' precedents. The show had previously run in London and off Broadway before premiering on Broadway, and The Lehman Trilogy received widespread critical acclaim each time.

Dana H.

Dana H. ran in repertory with Is This A Room on Broadway in fall 2021. Like Is This A Room, the show uses a verbatim transcript as its script; Dana H. uses interviews with playwright Lucas Hnath's mother about the time she was kidnapped by a patient at the psych ward she worked at, and the recorded interview was lip-synced on stage by actress Deirdre O'Connell.

Clyde's

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage penned Clyde's, a comedy that takes place at a truck stop sandwich shop staffed by formerly incarcerated workers. Uzo Aduba led the cast as Clyde, the harsh shop owner who talks her workers down, while they dream of creating the perfect sandwich and moving on to a better life.

Skeleton Crew

Like Clyde's, Dominique Morisseau's Skeleton Crew is a portrait of working-class life. Her play starred Phylicia Rashad as one of the workers at Detroit's last remaining auto plant, which is about to shut down like the many before it. The workers, who are as close as a family, have their loyalties tested as their jobs get put on the line.

Birthday Candles

Debra Messing stars in Noah Haidle's Broadway-premiere play about one woman, Ernestine Ashworth, who ages 90 years in the play's 90 minutes. From her 17th birthday to her 107th, she bakes a single birthday cake and constantly sees the people in her life come and go, continually rethinking what makes life worth living.

The Little Prince

The Little Prince, an adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's children's novella, is not a traditional play. Rather, the stage show tells the story of the titular prince, and his interplanetary journey to learn about himself and human nature, with acrobatics, dance, video projections, and more.

The Minutes

Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts wrote and stars in his new play, The Minutes, which was originally scheduled to open on Broadway in spring 2020. The show takes place at a council meeting in the small town of Big Cherry, which is sacred about its town legends and guards its secrets very closely. However, when a newcomer shows up to the meeting and starts to ask questions, hidden truths come out.

How I Learned to Drive

How I Learned to Drive had its Off-Broadway premiere at Vineyard Theatre in 1997, starring Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse. Now, these stars reunite with the original director, Mark Brokaw, for the Broadway premiere of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play that was originally scheduled for 2020. The show centers on a woman whose uncle sexually abused her throughout her life, and as she recalls the memories, she learns how to take her life back.

Hangmen

Hangmen played 13 Broadway previews in 2020 before the shutdown, and the show had planned to close permanently. However, Martin McDonagh's dark comedy play returns to Broadway in 2022. The show takes place just after hanging has been outlawed in England, and all the regulars at a local pub — and one mysterious stranger with equall mysterious motives — show up to find out how the local executioner will react.

What shows are eligible for Best Revival of a Musical at the 2022 Tony Awards?

The February 19, 2020 cutoff date for the 2020 ceremony marks the day before the Ivo Van Hove-directed revival of West Side Story opened at the Broadway Theatre. However, because the show did not open post-shutdown, the musical will not be eligible for awards. West Side Story was one of two musical revivals that was in performances when Broadway shut down, including Marianne Elliott's revival of Company, which is eligible along with three other musicals.

Caroline, or Change

After winning an Olivier Award for playing Caroline in the West End, Sharon D Clarke reprised her role in the Caroline, or Change Broadway revival. The titular character is a maid for a wealthy Jewish family, whose son leaves pocket change in his laundry for her, knowing she's low on money. Soon, however, Caroline becomes obsessed with the money, and a kind gesture gives way to resentment and greed.

Company

Phone rings, door chimes, in came Company for its third Broadway revival in spring 2020, starting performances in earnest in 2021. Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone star in a version of Stephen Sondheim's musical that reimagines the bachelor Bobby as the bachelorette Bobbie, who's surrounded by married friends and feels pressure to settle down.

The Music Man

Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster lead the 2021 Broadway revival of The Music Man, Meredith Willson's classic musical that features songs like "Seventy-Six Trombones" and "(Ya Got) Trouble." Jackman plays the con man Professor Harold Hill, who tricks the residents of a small Iowa town into thinking he'll start a boys' band while actually planning to run off with the money they pay him for instruments and uniforms. Foster plays Marian Paroo, the librarian who gets wise to his scheme but falls for him before she can expose him.

Funny Girl

Funny Girl is having its first-ever Broadway revival in 2022, starring Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice. The musical is based on the life of the real Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, who entered a tumultuous relationship with Nicky Arnstein (played by Ramin Karimloo) as she rises to fame. Jane Lynch also stars in the revival as Fanny's mother, Mrs. Rosie Brice.

What shows are eligible for Best Revival of a Play at the 2022 Tony Awards?

While there are few musical revivals in the 2021-2022 season, there are double the amount of play revivals to fill this year's category. Eight play revivals opened during the season, including two — Lackawanna Blues and Trouble in Mind — that had not premiered on Broadway before, but were deemed revivals because they had high-profile Off-Broadway runs in the past. Here's a look at the 2022 Best Revival of a Play contenders. 

Plaza Suite

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick star in the first Broadway revival of Neil Simon's farce. They play three couples, each occupying the Plaza Hotel's Suite 719 at different times: a long-married couple on the outs, old friends rekindling an old flame, and parents trying to coax their anxious daughter out of the bathroom on her wedding day. The production was originally scheduled for a 2020 run.

Take Me Out

Baseball meets Broadway at Take Me Out, Richard Greenberg's play about a Major League Baseball player who comes out as gay and faces prejudice from his team and the public. Grey's Anatomy star Jesse Williams plays Lemming, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Patrick J. Adams also lead the cast. The 2003 premiere production of Take Me Out won the Tony Award for Best Play.

American Buffalo

David Mamet's play is having its third Broadway revival, this time with Laurence Fishburne, Darren Criss, and Sam Rockwell as its stars. The trio are small-time hustlers who concoct a greed-fueled scheme to get back a buffalo nickel that Donny (Fishburne), a junk shop owner, sold for far less than it was worth.

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf

Ntozake Shange's choreopoem — a theatrical work that tells stories through poetry, movement, song, and more — was groundbreaking upon its premiere in 1976. The show sees seven women of color share stories of survival and sisterhood in a world marked by racism and sexism. The show ran at The Public Theater in 1976 before transferring to Broadway's Booth Theatre. In 2019, a new for colored girls production opened at the Public and has now transferred to the Booth, too.

The Skin of Our Teeth

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play follows the Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey, who live through a biblical flood, an ice age, and a war and demonstrate human endurance and perseverance. Lincoln Center Theater presents the revival, and performances coincide with Wilder's would-be 125th birthday on April 17.

Macbeth

Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in the latest revival of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, directed by Sam Gold. Gold also directed the Glenda Jackson-led King Lear revival in 2019. Macbeth kicks off when the titular Scottish noble receives a prophecy that he will become king, and egged on by Lady Macbeth, he goes to murderous lengths to achieve and keep his power.

Lackawanna Blues

Ruben Santiago-Hudson's solo show made its Off-Broadway debut in 2001 and its Broadway debut in 2021. He played dozens of characters as he told the story of Nanny, the woman who practically raised him in her boarding house outside Buffalo, New York. Because of the 2001 Public production, the Tonys committee have classified the Broadway production as a revival, even though Lackawanna Blues hadn't been on Broadway before.

Trouble in Mind

Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind is a play about an experienced Black actress (played by LaChanze in the 2021 revival) who witnesses behind-the-scenes racism from a white director toward her fellow cast members at rehearsals for a Broadway show. The show premiered off Broadway in 1955, and its expected Broadway transfer was canceled; as such, the 2021 production has been deemed a revival following the Off-Broadway production.

What Broadway shows are not eligible for 2022 Tony Awards?

Some shows that reopened Broadway this year were encore engagements of shows that had closed just before the shutdown, so they will not be eligible as new revival productions. Here are the Broadway shows that will not be eligible for the 2022 Tony Awards.

  • West Side Story - The musical revival opened just after the cutoff date for the 2020 Tony Awards. The show did not reopen after the shutdown, and the Tony Awards committee has not deemed it eligible for awards.
  • Slave Play - Slave Play's Broadway premiere closed in January 2020, and the show had a limited encore run in fall 2022. However, it is not considered a new production for revival eligibility.
  • Waitress - Waitress's Broadway premiere closed in January 2020, and the show had a limited encore run in fall 2022. However, it is not considered a new production for revival eligibility.
  • Beetlejuice - Beetlejuice closed prematurely amid the pandemic and is starting an encore Broadway run in April 2022. However, it is not considered a new production for revival eligibility.
  • Springsteen on Broadway - Springsteen on Broadway was the first show to play a Broadway theatre since the pandemic, playing a limited engagement from June to September 2021. The show's first run in 2017 was ineligible for competitive Tony Awards, and this run is the same. The show did win an honorary Tony Award in 2018.
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child underwent major changes and went from a two-part show to a one-part show. However, it is considered the same production, so the new version will not be eligible for awards.

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