It was the bravest of occasions, it was the priciest of occasions. The Tony Award nominations, introduced Thursday morning in New York, replicate the break up display screen actuality of a Broadway season divided by mavericks and mega-stars.

The mavericks fared significantly higher.

Glenn Fleshler and George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck” on the Winter Backyard Theatre.

(Emilio Madrid)

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello,” George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck” and newly minted Oscar-winner Kieran Culkin in “Glengarry Glen Ross” allowed producers to create sticker shock on Broadway. Magnets for media and cash, these productions created momentous New York buzz — together with the rising sense that Broadway is now a luxurious items merchandise, inexpensive solely to the tremendous prosperous and the tremendous savvy about ticket reductions.

However of this group solely Clooney acquired a nomination for his wonderful lead efficiency as Edward R. Murrow within the stage adaptation of the 2005 movie. Culkin, the weak hyperlink within the in any other case sturdy “Glengarry” revival, was handed over for a featured actor nomination. Bob Odenkirk, who shines as shabby Shelley Levene, scored the manufacturing’s solely nod.

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” at Broadway’s “Ethel Barrymore Theatre.”

(Julieta Cervantes)

Clearly, the Tony nominating committee was paying shut consideration. All of the advance hype on the earth couldn’t extract a single nomination for the rudderless “Othello,” however Gyllenhaal’s sleekly sinister Iago and Andrew Burnap’s Cassio serving as a mannequin for the way Shakespearean verse ought to be spoken.

Essentially the most memorable choices didn’t care a whit about product-testing methods. What advertising genius, as an illustration, may have predicted that “Maybe Happy Ending,” a jazz-infused rom-com about robots and mortality that originated in South Korea, and “Dead Outlaw,” a unusual jam-session of a present a couple of butterfingers bandit who was outshone by his extra well-known corpse, could be probably the most acclaimed musicals of this season?

“Maybe Happy Ending” led with 10 nominations in a tie with fellow greatest musical nominees, “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her.” “Dead Outlaw,” which opened Sunday simply earlier than the season deadline to glowing evaluations, earned a powerful seven nominations.

From a purely industrial perspective, “Maybe Happy Ending” and “Dead Outlaw” signify enormous gambles. Each lack the preexisting IP and Hollywood star energy which are the assumed necessities of Broadway juggernauts. However audacity mixed with creative ingenuity continues to be the most effective guess for holding one’s head excessive in an American theater devoid of security.

Cole Escola and James Scully in “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway on the Lyceum Theater.

(Emilio Madrid)

Epitomizing this lesson is Cole Escola’s “Oh, Mary!” This wild trip of a play, which I noticed final 12 months off-Broadway on the Lucille Lortel Theatre, follows the machinations of an unsteady Mary Todd Lincoln (initially performed by Escola, who has returned to the function) as she drunkenly chases her cabaret goals.

Half off-color drag act, half Carol Burnett-style sketch comedy, the present has survived on its bountiful comedic wits to turn out to be one of many hottest Broadway tickets of the 12 months. “Oh, Mary” can be a contender in the most effective play race, having proved that it’s sturdy sufficient to not rely solely on Escola’s delirious drollery. (Betty Gilpin and Tituss Burgess each served excursions of obligation.)

Hearteningly, the most effective play class has turned out to be one of many 12 months’s best. Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” starring Sadie Sink from Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” acquired seven nominations, the identical quantity as Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California.”

“John Proctor” initiates a dialog with Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” about the best way the struggling of girls on this American basic is given painfully quick shrift. The title might sound polemical, however the work, beautifully directed by Tony-winner Danya Taymor (“The Outsiders”), has a buoyant curiosity concerning the lives of younger ladies and exists by itself impartial phrases. (Sink, Taymor and Gabriel Ebert within the Proctor-ish trainer function, all nominated, are an integral a part of the company-wide excellence.)

I’m nonetheless haunted by “The Hills of California,” Butterworth’s richly imagined drama concerning the death-bed vigil a gaggle of sisters is holding for his or her mom, who sought to show them into a replica of the Andrews Sisters. The beautiful music-filled manufacturing, which had a restricted run within the fall, was too good to be forgotten. Sam Mendes’ magisterial path and Laura Donnelly’s heartbreaking efficiency had been a part of the trove of well-deserved nominations.

Broadway continues to acknowledge the brilliance of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, one of many excellent skills of this new technology of American playwrights. Final 12 months, “Appropriate” acquired the Tony for greatest play revival. This 12 months, “Purpose,” his home drama about an illustrious civil rights icon’s dysfunctional household and checkered legacy, acquired six nominations, together with greatest play. And it was uplifting to see Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “English,” which I encountered final 12 months on the Previous Globe, rounding out a greatest play checklist that shores up religion in the way forward for clever playwriting on Broadway.

It was a credit score to the collective knowledge of the Tony nominating committee that Leslye Headland’s “Cult of Love,” one of many hokiest household dramas I’ve seen in ages, was excluded, regardless of just a few sturdy supporting performances. And that “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” acquired a slew of design nominations and a nod for Louis McCartney’s sad-creepy lead efficiency however nothing for the deranged script.

Escola is more likely to come out on high within the lead actor race, which I used to be happy to see discovered room for Daniel Dae Kim’s high-quality work in David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face.” However I need to stress that “Good Night, and Good Luck” is not any vainness train and {that a} film star’s high billing on Broadway just isn’t essentially an indication of a damaged system.

The manufacturing, scrupulously directed by David Cromer, is deeply transferring in its public-spirited imaginative and prescient. Cromer, a Tony winner for “The Band’s Visit,” would little question have been nominated for his work had been he not nominated for his ingenious staging of “Dead Outlaw.” He, together with Michael Arden, who received a Tony for his path of “Parade” in 2023 and was nominated for his path of “Maybe Happy Ending,” could also be Broadway’s sharpest auteurs with the discreetest profiles.

Sarah Snook is the presumed front-runner within the lead actress in a play race for her solo tour de drive within the multimedia extravaganza model of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” However how marvelous to see Mia Farrow in competition for her work in “The Roommate” reverse a recreation Patti LuPone. Can producers discover one other excuse to convey this comedy duo again collectively?

Audra McDonald in “Gypsy” at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre.

(Julieta Cervantes)

The Broadway efficiency that minimize the deepest for me was Audra McDonald as Rose in George C. Wolfe’s revival of “Gypsy,” a harrowing reexamination of the musical by way of the historic prism of race. She already holds the report for probably the most Tony wins for a performer with six awards. The one factor standing in the best way of a seventh is Nicole Scherzinger’s elegant singing in Jamie Lloyd’s fearless re-imagining of “Sunset Blvd.”

The success of “Maybe Happy Ending” hinges in no small half on the miraculous efficiency of Darren Criss, who performs an automaton with a secretly delicate coronary heart. The allure of this musical has proved to be under no circumstances ephemeral, and in a Broadway season of invigorating lengthy pictures, the blissful ending of “Maybe Happy Ending” appears all however assured.