It's Time For The Tony Awards

This coming Sunday evening the world of the Broadway Theater will pay tribute to itself when the annual Antoinette Perry Awards, aka, The Tony Awards, are presented.  For this year, I was going to make the predictions myself with the simple statement: " 'Hamilton' will in everything."

However, I decided against that and have stuck with Grandstander tradition and called upon old friend and Broadway expert, Bill Montrose, to once again provide The Grandstander's Official Tony Award Predictions.  What follows is a cut-n-paste of an email that I received from Bill just last night:

From the Bob Sproule department of "I-believe-I-had-that", here is my Facebook quote from October 21, 2015:

"Still almost 9 months until Broadway's TONY Awards, and I'm making predictions?  Most shows haven't opened yet! Nominations haven't come out! 

A recent visit to NYC included seeing "Hamilton", the (high-buzz) Hip-hop History lesson about our founding fathers. This is a contemporary look at Washington, Jefferson, Aaron Burr (hiss/boo), and our $10.00 Alexander Hamilton. This is a high-energy "revolution" in musical theater, and it WILL win MANY Tony Awards in June of 2016; write it down ... bet on it! Many thanks to our children for the tickets, and YES, Joanne and I loved the show."

- October, 2015

Okay, so the 16 TONY nominations makes 'Hamilton' a good bet in many categories; (this may help improve my prediction results this year).  Here's my 10 picks:

BEST ORIGINAL MUSICAL SCORE:  Lin Manuel Miranda ... Hamilton

BEST PLAY:  The Humans

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL: The Color Purple

BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL:  Thomas Kail ... Hamilton

BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL:  Lin Manuel Miranda ... Hamilton

BEST PERFORMANCE (IN A MUSICAL) BY ...

   ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE:  Renee' Elise Goldsberry ... Hamilton

   ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE:  Daveed Diggs ... Hamilton 

   ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:  Cynthia Erivo ... The Color Purple

   ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:  (Upset special!!!)  Leslie Odom Jr.  (Aaron Burr) ... Hamilton (over the favored Lin Manuel Miranda) This is my "Should win" pick.

BEST MUSICAL:  Hamilton

This Sunday night, June 12, at 8:00 PM on CBS, we shall see how accurate I was.

I am planning on watching these Awards this year if only to see the performance from "Hamilton", which as you know if you have been reading anything along these lines, the "transformative" Broadway musical of the 21st century.  As you can see from Bill's email, he had the skinny on this one way back in October, when tickets could still be had for less than the cost of a three bedroom home.  That's why he is the Official Broadway Correspondent to The Grandstander.

And as for Bill's predictions, as always, watch, but don't bet.