2025 Tony Awards: ‘Eureka Day’ crashes revival race, ‘Wonderful World’ may make history

The Tony Awards Administration Committee met on Jan. 16 to assess the eligibility of 11 Broadway productions ahead of the 2025 Tony Awards. This is the second time that the committee has met to discuss the 2024-25 Broadway season. Many of these decisions simply confirm a performer’s assumed status as lead or featured, but some surprise category placements could drastically affect the upcoming Tony race.

The productions discussed were: Sunset Blvd; A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical; Maybe Happy Ending; Tammy Faye; Elf; Swept Away; Death Becomes Her; Cult of Love; Eureka Day; Gypsy; and All In: Comedy About Love.

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The committee made the following determinations:

• Tom Francis will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in Sunset Blvd.

• Soutra Gilmour (scenic design) and Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom (video design and cinematography) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Sunset Blvd.

• David Cullen and Andrew Lloyd Webber will be considered eligible in the Best Orchestrations category for Sunset Blvd.

• James Monroe Iglehart will be considered eligible for the lead actor in a musical category for his performance in A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.

• The video design by Adam Koch and Steven Royal will be considered jointly eligible with their scenic design in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.

• Christopher Renshaw (direction) and James Monroe Iglehart and Christina Sajous (co-direction) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Direction of a Musical category for their work on A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.

• Rickey Tripp (choreography) and DeWitt Fleming Jr. (tap choreography) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Choreography category for their work on A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.

• Helen J Shen will be considered eligible in the lead actress in a musical category for her performance in Maybe Happy Ending.

• Dane Laffrey (scenic and additional video design) and George Reeve (video design) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Maybe Happy Ending.

• Katie Brayben will be considered eligible in the lead actress in a musical category for her performance in Tammy Faye.

• Grey Henson will be considered eligible in the lead actor in a musical category for his performance in Elf.

• John Gallagher Jr. will be considered eligible in the lead actor in a musical category for his performance in Swept Away.

• Christopher Sieber will be considered eligible in the featured actor in a musical category for his performance in Death Becomes Her.

• Michelle Williams will be considered eligible in the featured actress in a musical category for her performance in Death Becomes Her.

• Cult of Love will be considered eligible in the Best Play category.

• Eureka Day will be considered eligible in the Best Revival of a Play category. Jonathan Spector will be considered eligible as author.

• Todd Rosenthal (scenic design) and David Bengali (projection design) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on Eureka Day.

All other eligibility will be consistent with the opening night credits.

The most shocking declaration here is that Eureka Day will compete for Best Revival of a Play, even though the Jonathan Spector comedy is making its Broadway debut with the current Manhattan Theatre Club staging. The play was produced Off-Broadway in 2019, so the committee is using their “classics” rule to deem the work as an established part of the American theater canon, and therefore a revival. Broadway fans may remember that this rule is also why Appropriate competed in, and won, revival of a play last year for its Broadway debut. Eureka Day will join Home, Our Town, Romeo + Juliet, and Yellow Face in the revival race, along with the upcoming spring bows of Glengarry Glen Ross and Othello. Per Tony Awards rules, a category with five to eight eligible productions will yield four nominees. The inclusion of Eureka Day now means that three of these shows will be left out in the cold on nomination morning.

SEE‘Sunset Blvd’ revival could surpass Tony nominations of original 1994 Broadway production

Ironically, the committee decided Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love qualifies as a new work despite productions dating back to 2018. However, all of this family drama’s major stagings have been helmed by director Trip Cullman, so the Broadway production is considered a continuation and will compete for Best Play. The committee also could have chosen to bump up a couple Cult of Love actors to the lead races, with Zachary Quinto and Mare Winningham being the most likely candidates. With no such announcement, the entire ensemble will duke it out in the featured acting categories.

Buried in these determinations is also the potential for three people to make Tony history. A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical could become the first tuner to ever land a three-person nomination for Best Director of a Musical, with Christopher Renshaw, Christina Sajous, and James Monroe Iglehart (who also stars as Louis Armstrong) jointly eligible for a nomination.

Musical directing duos have been nominated 13 times in the past: Little Me (Cy Feuer and Bob Fosse), Follies (Harold Prince and Michael Bennett), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune), Sugar Babies (Ernie Flatt and Rudy Tronto), My One and Only (Tune and Thommie Walsh), Tango Argentino (Héctor Orezzoli and Claudio Segovia), Les Misérables (John Caird and Trevor Nunn), Black and Blue (Orezzoli and Segovia), Blood Brothers (Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson), the 1998 revival of Cabaret (Rob Marshall and Sam Mendes), Fosse (Richard Maltby Jr. and Ann Reinking), The Book of Mormon (Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker), and SIX (Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage). Follies, Les Miserables, and The Book of Mormon won the award. A trio has never earned a joint nomination for Best Director of a Musical, but this could be the year.

The 2025 Tony Awards will take place on June 8, at Radio City Music Hall. In order to be eligible for this year’s awards, Broadway productions must host their opening night by April 27. Nominations will be announced on May 1.

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