\u2018S.N.L.\u2019 Alums Get the Last Laugh<\/p>\n
Two former \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d cast members, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, are jostling for best performance by a featured actress in a musical. Dratch (already a nominee in 2022 for \u201cPOTUS<\/a>\u201d) makes great use of her improv skills as the narrator in \u201cThe Rocky Horror Show\u201d \u2014 half of her job consists of wrangling overenthusiastic audience members shouting call-outs<\/a>. As for Gasteyer, she actually made her Broadway debut as a replacement cast member in an earlier revival of \u201cRocky Horror,\u201d in 2001; now she has earned her first Tony nomination for her portrayal of the town bigot, Mildred Layton, in \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d If you want to dig deeper in \u201cS.N.L.\u201d lore, just look at the featured actress in a play category, whose nominees include Laurie Metcalf \u2014 a featured player on the TV show for a single episode, in 1981. ELISABETH VINCENTELLI<\/p>\n An Absolutely Fabulous Decision<\/p>\n You can\u2019t make a superb champagne cocktail without Veuve Clicquot and a cube of sugar, and happily the Tony pooh-bahs realized the same, nominating both Rose Byrne and Kelli O\u2019Hara as lead actresses in the revival of No\u00ebl Coward\u2019s \u201cFallen Angels,\u201d the season\u2019s most delicious serving of pure fizz. It might have been one or the other in a crowded category where comedic acting is too often taken for granted. Better to let these two versatile performers, having a grand old time onstage as increasingly soused frenemies, take their hilarious rivalry to Tony night. Drink up! SCOTT HELLER<\/p>\n Bright Spot (Mostly) in Design<\/p>\n Of Soutra Gilmour\u2019s Broadway set designs this season, one was an undeniable showpiece, the other a sly puzzle box: a revolving mountain of luggage evoking the Manhattan skyline, with small scenic treasures hidden away inside. That set, for the rom-com musical \u201cTwo Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),\u201d received a Tony nomination. But Gilmour\u2019s starkly magnificent design for \u201cWaiting for Godot\u201d \u2014 Jamie Lloyd\u2019s revival, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter \u2014 went unrecognized. Beckett famously specifies a tree; it had no tree. Instead it was a vast, tunnellike, tapering void, which was thrilling to behold. Shocking to ignore. The category of lighting design for a play, though, brought a pleasant surprise, especially in a male-dominated season. Women landed five of the six nominations: Isabella Byrd for \u201cDog Day Afternoon,\u201d Natasha Chivers for \u201cOedipus,\u201d Stacey Derosier for \u201cJoe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone\u201d and Heather Gilbert for \u201cBug\u201d and \u201cThe Fear of 13.\u201d LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES<\/p>\n Bleak Shows Get Blanked<\/p>\n The Tony nominators were clearly not in the mood to reward the grim-dark and super-serious this season. Several gloomy state-of-the-discourse pieces were completely shut out of consideration, even in technical categories: the quick-to-close musical about Florida greed \u201cThe Queen of Versailles\u201d; the domestic abuse tragedy \u201cCall Me Izzy\u201d; the biting, your-friends-hate-you comedy \u201cArt.\u201d There were also only a pair of design nominations for \u201cThe Fear of 13,\u201d which gazes into the U.S. carceral system and finds, mostly, horror. Other low-scoring shows, with single nods, include the existentially depressing \u201cWaiting for Godot,\u201d the bleak \u201cLittle Bear Ridge Road\u201d and the tale of a real-life tragedy, \u201cPunch.\u201d The total blanking of \u201cBeaches,\u201d a grief-focused musical, and \u201cProof,\u201d a play about mental fragility, follow the wan critical reception of both productions \u2014 though, again, it may be that downbeat this season simply wasn\u2019t the rhythm nominators wanted. SHAW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018S.N.L.\u2019 Alums Get the Last Laugh Two former \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d cast members, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15258,15255,10684,15125,15254,15256,15257,8,9643,15136,15261,15253,15260,9,15135,13484,15126,15259,8196,12729,15122,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-24923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-ana","9":"tag-andre","10":"tag-burke","11":"tag-byrne","12":"tag-de-shields","13":"tag-dratch","14":"tag-gasteyer","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-june","17":"tag-kelli","18":"tag-lea","19":"tag-marylouise","20":"tag-michele","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-ohara","23":"tag-rachel","24":"tag-rose","25":"tag-squibb","26":"tag-theater","27":"tag-theater-broadway","28":"tag-tony-awards-theater-awards","29":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116523871836909616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}