The Tony Awards eligibility cut-off date for the 2021-22 season will be Thursday, April 28, leaving the May opening of POTUS outside of this year’s race.
The ineligibility of Selina Fillinger’s POTUS – full title: POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive – was not unexpected: The recently announced comedy has an opening night of May 9, more than a week beyond the traditional theater season end. But the unusual nature of this return-from-Covid season, which saw the 2021 Tony Awards bumped from spring to fall, prompted some industry speculation about an expanded eligibility window.
The Tony Awards Administration Committee made the cut-off date ruling today during its second of four eligibility meetings of the season. The meetings are convened to determine, among other things, which Tony categories potential nominees will fall into.
POTUS, starring Rachel Dratch, Lilli Cooper, Lea DeLaria, Julianne Hough, Suzy Nakamura, Julie White and Vanessa Williams, begins previews at the Shubert Theatre on Thursday, April 14. Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman directs; the comedy will mark the Broadway debut of playwright Fillinger, a writer on Apple TV’s The Morning Show.
With the announcement, POTUS effectively becomes the first production of the 2022-23 Broadway season. Although that particular show falls outside this season’s window, no fewer than 15 new productions are scheduled to join the Broadway line-up between the March 28 opening of Plaza Suite (starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick) and the April 28 opening of Macbeth (starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga).
Other determinations made today:
- The projection designers for both Flying Over Sunset (59 Productions) and MJ (Peter Nigrini) will be considered jointly eligible with their scenic designers (Beowulf Boritt, Derek McLane, respectively) in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category;
- Patti LuPone will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical category for her performance in Company (the ruling leaves Katrina Lenk for the Leading Actress slot);
- Rob McClure and Jenn Gambatese will be considered eligible in the leading performance categories for Mrs. Doubtfire;
- Harry Hadden-Paton, Tony Yazbeck and Carmen Cusack will be considered eligible in the leading performance/musical categories for Flying Over Sunset;
- Myles Frost will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in MJ (Frost portrays the adult Michael Jackson, while other actors play Jackson as a child and as a young man);
- Sutton Foster will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical category for her performance in The Music Man.
An initial round of Tony eligibility determinations was made in December. Nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards will be announced on Tuesday, May 3. The awards ceremony will be broadcast live coast to coast on Sunday, June 12 on CBS.