How'd We Do? Show Showdown Tony Predictions Wrap-Up

This post discusses the accuracy of the predictions we made here at Show Showdown. Suffice to say that none of us should leave our day job and go into fortune-telling. Mind you, we did all get Curious Incident for best play, Fun Home for best book, and Helen Mirren for best actress in a play. We may not be Nostradamuses, but we are awake! (And I'm not going to point out the ones where we were all wrong.)

Fun Home wins Best Musical, proving that it takes a village
(of extremely talented people)
Photo: Sara Krulwich

The "total right" stat at the bottom of this table is a little unfair, because not all of us made predictions in all the categories (hence the empty cells). The numbers in parens after the "total right" numbers are how-many-right-per-how-many-predicted stats.

Our correct predictions are highlighted.

	Cameron	Liz	Sandra	Wendy
Best play: Curious Incident	Curious Incident	Curious Incident	Curious Incident	Curious Incident
Best musical: Fun Home	An American in Paris	Fun Home	An American in Paris
Best revival of a play: Skylight	Skylight	Skylight	Skylight	You Can’t Take it With You
Best revival of a musical: The King and I	The King and I	On the Twentieth Century	The King and I	On the Twentieth Century
Best book of a musical: Fun Home	Fun Home	Fun Home	Fun Home	Fun Home
Best original score: Fun Home	Fun Home	The Last Ship	Fun Home	Fun Home
Leading actor in a play: Alex Sharp	Alex Sharp			Alex Sharp
Leading actress in a play: Helen Mirren	Helen Mirren	Helen Mirren	Helen Mirren	Helen Mirren
Leading actor in a musical: Michael Cerveris	Robert Fairchild	Michael Cerveris	Ken Watanabe	Michael Cerveris
Leading actress in a musical: Kelli O’Hara	Kristin Chenoweth	Kristin Chenoweth	Leann Cope	Kristin Chenoweth
Featured actor in a play: Richard McCabe	Richard McCabe			Micah Stock
Featured actress in a play: Annaleigh Ashford	Annaleigh Ashford	Annaleigh Ashford		Annaleigh Ashford
Featured actor in a musical: Christian Borle	Brad Oscar	Andy Karl	Christian Borle	Christian Borle
Featured actress in a musical	Ruthie Ann Miles		Sydney Lucas	Judy Kuhn
Scenic design, play: Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Wolf Hall	Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time		Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Scenic design, musical: Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris	The King and I	The King and I	The King and I	The King and I
Costume design, play: Christopher Oram for Wolf Hall Parts One & Two	You Can't Take It With You	The Audience		Wolf Hall Parts One & Two
Costume design, musical: Catherine Zuber for The King and I	On the Twentieth Century	The King and I	The King and I	The King and I
Lighting, play: Paule Constable for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time		The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Lighting, musical: Natasha Katz for An American in Paris	The Visit			The King and I
Direction, play: Marianne Elliott for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Marianne Elliott for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Marianne Elliott for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time		Marianne Elliott for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Direction, musical: Sam Gold for Fun Home	Sam Gold, Fun Home		Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris	Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten!
Choreograpy: Christopher Wheeldon for An American in Paris	Joshua Bergasse, On the Town	Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris	Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris	Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris
Orchestrations: Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliott for An American in Paris	John Clancy, Fun Home	Rob Mathes, The Last Ship	Rob Mathes, The Last Ship	Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky and Bill Elliott, An American in Paris
Total correct	13 (13/24)	12 (12/19)	9 (9/16)	15 (15/23)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Brinkhoff/Moegenburg

Have you ever seen Change of Habit (1969), the last movie Elvis Presley had a starring role in? Presley plays a doctor who works at a clinic. . . "In the Ghetto". Mary Tyler Moore co-stars as an undercover nun (seriously) who assists him in the clinic and, soon enough, agonizes over whether she should throw Jesus over for him. It's as horribly, brilliantly, gloriously awful as it sounds, and if you haven't seen it, you should, especially if you are drunk, high or (ideally) both. A subplot involves a young, autistic patient at the clinic. "She's hiding behind a wall of anger," Elvis knowingly tells Mary when they first examine her. Elvis and Mary eventually load up on coffee--and gumption!--and let the patient rage and scream and flail and cry for, like, a full day without a break. Lo and behold, at the end of the day, she's exhausted, but magically cured of autism, and Elvis and Mary happily go back to making moony eyes at one another while attending to other slum-dwellers.

Change of Habit popped into my head at some point during The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, not because the latter is even remotely awful, but because I wondered if, someday, The Curious Incident would seem as quaintly ridiculous and outdated as Habit is when it comes to its depiction of neurodevelopmental disability. I certainly hope so, not only because medical advances are a good thing, but also because I have a son on the autism spectrum, and I admit feeling frequently frustrated by how little anyone really knows about the disorder. During positive moments, though, I like to remind myself that, at the very least, we've left Elvis in the dark ages. As far as autism goes, we no longer resort to dumb, simplistic assessments involving real or metaphorical walls of anger. As we work toward answers, simplistic black-and-white dichotomies have given way to a lot more gray. There's something comforting in the gray. It's what we have right now. That's something.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Photo: Brinkhoff/Moegenburg

The only aspect of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time about which I am curious is what the appeal of this show is to so many people. Adapted by Simon Stephens from Mark Haddon’s prize-winning novel and transported from London, where it won seven Olivier Awards and continues to do brisk business, the current Broadway production opened over the weekend to rapturous reviews. (Example: Marilyn Stasio of Variety implores us to “believe the buzz” and describes it as “spectacular, like Cirque du Soleil for the brain.” Okay.) The box office numbers are through the roof, and major award nominations are a foregone conclusion. Then why did virtually every aspect of this endeavor leave me so cold?