Audra McDonald, a six-time Tony winner, walked into the cocktail reception in a chic white floral eyelet gown. As she made the rounds, she met up with LaTanya Richardson Jackson, nominated for Function, and Jak Malone, nominated for the musical Operation Mincemeat, earlier than making a beeline for Jonathan Groff. This 12 months’s Tony Awards mark a milestone for McDonald, who earned her eleventh performing nomination for her lead efficiency within the newest revival of Gypsy—turning into probably the most Tony-nominated performer in Broadway historical past. The key to her astonishing success? “You’ll be able to’t do something to make it occur,” McDonald mentioned. “All you are able to do is do your work—and that’s what I really like greater than something.”
As a veteran now vying for her seventh trophy, McDonald had some ideas for the first-time nominees this season: “Bear in mind, it’s only a evening. Keep current and, it doesn’t matter what occurs, you might be sufficient. As a result of as soon as that day is over, you continue to have to return to being you. So just remember to’re settled and pleased with who you might be. And convey a fan—it will get scorching—and a few snacks. Some folks deliver flasks… however you didn’t hear that from me!”
Socializing collectively close to the bar had been Andrew Durand, nominated for Useless Outlaw, and Cole Escola, a double nominee for finest play and main actor for Oh, Mary!. Quite a few nominees approached Escola to congratulate them for his or her ridiculous reimagining of First Girl Mary Todd Lincoln, who, in Escola’s madcap present, is desperately craving to turn into a cabaret star. For the writer-performer, nevertheless, Oh, Mary! is deeply private. “The play is about having a dream that nobody else round you understands, or wanting belongings you’re not alleged to need. That is one thing that I’ve felt in my life and I nonetheless really feel,” they mentioned, carrying a classic thrifted swimsuit (with two Tony nominee buttons on their lapel). “There may be coronary heart within the play for those who need to see it—and in the event that they aren’t within the temper for that, I hope they’ll snort.”
A veteran of New York’s alt-comedy scene, Escola remains to be processing being a Tony nominee. “I can’t consider that my huge break got here from doing this,” they mentioned. “We had been slightly afraid the present would fail, however we solely needed to run it for eight weeks off-Broadway. If we had been aiming for Broadway, we’d have been much more afraid—however as a result of the bar felt slightly decrease for us, we had been much less scared. We simply needed to make an amazing play.”
