Welcome back to Tony Talk, where Gold Derby contributors Sam Eckmann and David Buchanan offer Tony Awards analysis. In this edition, we tackle the two starry new plays that opened this week — one fresh off an Olivier-nominated run in London and the other a revival of a beloved classic.
David Buchanan: Sam, we’re capping off yet another busy week of Broadway openings with two productions of significant star voltage in the same number of days. The Fear of 13, starring two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody and BAFTA nominee Tessa Thompson, opened on April 15, and the first Broadway revival of Proof, with Oscar nominee Don Cheadle, Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri, and two-time Tony winner Kara Young bowed just one day later.
Let’s start with Lindsey Ferrentino’s Fear of 13, which earned two Olivier Award nominations last year for Best New Play and Best Actor for Brody, but lost both races to Giant and its star, John Lithgow. These two productions and stars may very well face off again at the Tonys in June. But the play received fairly lukewarm reception from New York critics, with mixed consensus on its tone and Brody’s performance. Did their assessments and your own affect your predictions?
Sam Eckmann: I think the subdued reaction to The Fear of 13, and the biggest hurdle it faces at the Tony Awards, is the narrative structure of the play. The documentary upon which the play is based, is essentially a 90-minute monologue from its subject Nick Yarris, a wrongfully convicted death row inmate. His story is compelling, especially when heard from the source. But Ferrentino has chosen to dramatize this format by basing the majority of her play in narration and direct-to-the-audience address.
As we saw in the reviews for the Broadway production, many folks are not too fond of that style of writing inside a play. For that reason, I have removed The Fear of 13 from my Best Play predictions, at least for the moment. I still think Liberation by Bess Wohl and Giant by Mark Rosenblatt are the only two locks in the category. But in looking for two other plays to join them, we have Tony darling David Lindsay-Abaire with his timely comedy The Balusters, the Broadway debut of celebrated playwright Samuel D. Hunter with Little Bear Ridge Road, and recent Olivier winner Punch by James Graham. The Fear of 13 has two major factors going for it: the play is still running and will be fresh in voters’ minds, and it details a story of horrific social injustice which some voters will be tempted to boost. Still, Broadway is an insular community. And I suspect many of the nominators will be drawn to the aforementioned familiar playwrights and their greater critical successes this season.
For this reason, Adrien Brody is on shaky ground in Lead Actor. John Lithgow, Nathan Lane, and Mark Strong have solidified themselves as formidable figures in the race. It would be an enormous upset if any of them missed a nomination. And while Every Brilliant Thing doesn’t offer up the type of role that traditionally gets nominated, I still can’t attend a press performance or sidle up to the bar at Joe Allen without hearing how much folks adore Daniel Radcliffe. So we might be at a point where there is only one slot “open” in Lead Actor. It could certainly go to Brody, who I thought makes a dynamic Broadway debut in a fully committed and physically realized performance. He is gifted several affecting moments that will tug at your heart, particularly in the revelations surrounding Nick’s past towards the end of the play. But the style of the script threatens to hold his performance at arm’s length from the audience. I think he and Jon Bernthal are in a similar position when it comes to the awards race. Bernthal, too, is highly emotive in a Dog Day Afternoon, but both actors must deal with a muted overall response to the production. If both Brody and Bernthal are sunk by critical reaction, we might actually see Will Harrison, who wowed audiences in Punch back in the fall, pull ahead of these two screen stars.
Tony Awards Nominations 2026
Buchanan: If anything, the reviews of The Fear of 13 have bolstered my confidence in Little Bear Ridge Road. I agree the Olivier victories for Punch could be a boon for that production, but the combination of Samuel D. Hunter’s established New York track record coupled with Laurie Metcalf’s dual performances this season help keep that beautiful script top of mind, and nominators and voters always keep in mind the playwright when they’re voting on Best Play.
I have had Adrien Brody in my predictions for Best Actor for a while now, especially since he enters the season with that Olivier nomination for this role. While I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see him nominated even if the play misses out, I think this opens the field a bit more to an unexpected nominee. You’ve mentioned Radcliffe as an extremely strong contender, plus Harrison; I’d like to float a longer shot possibility like Namir Smallwood from Bug. That production received largely positive reviews, and if it gets into the competitive Best Play Revival race, we could see this Steppenwolf staple get a well-deserved Tony welcome. I don’t think Carrie Coon’s performance would have worked as extraordinarily well as it did without Smallwood as a counter ballast; he played the role much more unassumingly than Michael Shannon, and truly created something unique with a well-established character.
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While we’re talking revivals, Proof enters award season with impeccable credentials, both past and present. Back in 2001, it won the Pulitzer Prize for David Auburn and earned a trifecta of Tony Awards victories for Best Play, Best Director for Daniel Sullivan, and Best Actress for Mary-Louise Parker. It also ran for an impressive 917 regular performance with numerous, notable replacement casts. This production boasts the enviable ensemble of Edebiri, Cheadle, Young, and Jin Han, with Hamilton and Sweeney Todd director Thomas Kail at the helm.
But I suspect many Tony nominators and voters still remember that acclaimed original run starring Parker. I’m wondering if this remounting did enough to clear that very high bar and convince the nominators to choose it in many categories with razor-thin margins of error. Is there room for it in Best Play Revival with contenders including Oedipus, Death of a Salesman, Marjorie Prime, Bug, Becky Shaw, and the forthcoming Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, to name just six? Who from that impressive quartet might make the Tonys cut? Kara Young never makes a false move, and I could easily see her earning her fifth – fifth! – consecutive nomination.
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Eckmann: Kara Young exists in a rarified air as far as the Tonys are concerned. We haven’t seen someone ride a wave of awards popularity like this in a long time, perhaps not since Audra McDonald starting scooping up Tonys. And there’s good reason: Young has tackled a plethora of vastly different roles in all sorts of styles and nailed them all. With Proof, she stepped into the play late in the process, when Samira Wiley was forced to bow out for health reasons. The lack of preparation time seemingly hasn’t halted her progress though, as Young is the one element of unanimous praise from every critic. If she scores a nomination, and I suspect she will, she will break her own Tony record by being nominated for an acting category for five consecutive years. Should she win, she would have a record smashing three consecutive acting wins!
Though praise for Young was exuberant through and through, critics were much more scattered in their overall thoughts on the revival. I suspect this is because the specter of the original 2001 production still looms large. Perhaps the shoes left by Parker and company are simply too big too fill. This act of comparison might spell bad news for Edebiri, who is angling for a spot in Lead Actress. The current frontrunners in that field are Lesley Manville from Oedipus, Carrie Coon from Bug, and Susannah Flood from Liberation.
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If Edebiri were to make the cut she may be one of the only, or the only, nominee from a currently running show. That would be a huge advantage for the win. I’ve yet to hear anyone speak ill of Edebiri’s performance in a real life conversation, but I have heard plenty of comparisons to Parker’s star-making turn. The fact that conversations keep turning back to the woman who originated the role is a major red flag for her awards prospects, and I fear that she could be overtaken by Laurie Metcalf for Little Bear Ridge Road, or by the one-two punch of Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne, who are performing physical comedy gymnastics in Fallen Angels.
The production itself faces similar uncertainty in an overstuffed Play Revival race. Five of the productions you’ve mentioned have already opened to an overall stronger reception. Ditto, Every Brilliant Thing. Plus Fallen Angels and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone are waiting in the wings. I think this race might be too tight to fit in a production many only “like” instead of “love.” Does Proof still figure in your predicted five?
Buchanan: I actually have not had Proof in my Best Play Revival predictions at all this season, purely because the category is bursting at the seams with exceptional productions. I have had Death of a Salesman, Oedipus, and Marjorie Prime as my top three contenders, with Bug and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone rounding out my predicted five. But after seeing the extremely funny and incisive Becky Shaw, I now have to make room for that show somehow, at the expense of one of my final two picks or a potential switch to Proof. The Tony nominators truly have an unenviable task this year of winnowing down this exciting field to only five choices.
