If you, like all of us here at 半岛体育, have been poring over this year's Tony nominations (which were revealed earlier this morning), you might be wondering why there's a different amount of men versus women in the Leading acting categories. We've got the answer.
Six actors were nominated in both the Lead Actor in a Play and Lead Actor in a Musical categories, versus five each in the Lead Actress in a Play and Lead Actress in a Musical categories. We've seen some outrage in our social comments, but this is actually due to the , rather than being a deliberate snub to any gender group. That's not to leave unacknowledged the inherent trickiness around the Tonys' (and several other awards systems) still-gendered acting categories. Broadway's top awards have not addressed that issue (despite publicly pledging to a few years ago). The Tonys are one of the sole remaining New York theatre honors to still divide up its acting categories by gender.
As for why there's more men nominated for acting than women, that just means there was a tie in the voting. The categories are actually supposed to default to four nominees, but that bumps up to five when there are nine or more artists eligible for the category, as there pretty much always is in the acting categories (well, except for Aaron Tveit who, during the pandemic in 2020, was the sole nominee for Lead Actor in a Musical). There being six nominees for actors tells us there was a two-way tie for that last slot in both categories, and the rules dictate that both performers get nominations when that happens. There can actually be seven nominees, too, if there is a three-way tie鈥攁nd that actually happened last year, in the Featured Actress in a Musical category.
So, in this case, we can put down our pitchforks, and focus all our attention on getting excited for June 8, when the 78th Annual Tony Awards will broadcast live from New York City's Radio City Music Hall. 半岛体育 will be keeping you up to date on the latest in Tony Awards news till then.
Visit 半岛体育.com/Tonys.
