'Hell's Kitchen' and 'Stereophonic' lead Tony Award Nominations, Shows Honoring Creativity's Spark

 Two Broadway shows celebrating the origins of sonic creativity — The AP/Images by O&M/DKC shows.
 Two Broadway shows celebrating the origins of sonic creativity — The AP/Images by O&M/DKC shows.
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'Hell's Kitchen' and 'Stereophonic' lead Tony Award Nominations, Shows Honoring Creativity's Spark

 Two Broadway shows celebrating the origins of sonic creativity — The AP/Images by O&M/DKC shows.
 Two Broadway shows celebrating the origins of sonic creativity — The AP/Images by O&M/DKC shows.

Two Broadway shows celebrating the origins of sonic creativity — the musical “Hell’s Kitchen” fueled by Alicia Keys songs, and the play "Stereophonic" about a '70s rock band at the edge of stardom — each earned a leading 13 Tony Award nominations Tuesday, a list that also saw a record number of women nominated for best director.

A total of 28 shows earned a Tony nod or more, with the musical “The Outsiders,” an adaptation of the beloved S. E. Hinton novel and the Francis Ford Coppola film, earning 12 nominations; a starry revival of “Cabaret” starring Eddie Redmayne, nabbing nine; and "Appropriate," Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ searing play about a family reunion in Arkansas where everyone has competing motivations and grievances, grabbing eight.

Rachel McAdams, making her Broadway debut in “Mary Jane,” earned a best actress in a play nomination, while “Succession” star Jeremy Strong, got his first ever nomination, for a revival of “An Enemy of the People.” Jessica Lange in “Mother Play,” Sarah Paulson in “Appropriate” and Amy Ryan, who stepped in at the last minute for a revival of “Doubt,” also earned nominations in the best actress in a play category.

"The Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons earned a supporting nod for “Mother Play,” and Daniel Radcliffe on his fifth Broadway show, a revival of Stephen Sondheim's “Merrily We Roll Along,” won his first nomination.

Redmayne in his second show on Broadway got a nod as best lead actor in a musical, as did Brian d’Arcy James for “Days of Wine and Roses,” Brody Grant in “The Outsiders,” Jonathan Groff in “Merrily We Roll Along” and 73-year-old Dorian Harewood in “The Notebook,” the adaptation of Nicholas Sparks romantic tearjerker. Harewood, in his first Broadway show in 46 years, landed his first Tony nomination.

Redmayne's “Cabaret” co-star Gayle Rankin earned a nomination for best actress in a musical, as did Eden Espinosa in “Lempicka,” Maleah Joi Moon in “Hell’s Kitchen,” Kelli O’Hara in “Days of Wine and Roses” and 71-year-old Maryann Plunkett, who plays the elderly wife at the heart of “The Notebook.”

Steve Carell in his Broadway debut in a poorly received revival of the classic play “Uncle Vanya” failed to secure a nod, but starry producers who earned Tony nods include Keys, Angelina Jolie (for “The Outsiders”) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (for “Suffs”), The AP reported.

The best new musical crown will be a battle between “Hell's Kitchen,” “The Outsiders,” the dance-heavy, dialogue-less stage adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’s 2005 album “Illinois,” “Suffs,” based on the American suffragists of the early 20th century, and “Water for Elephants,” which combines Sara Green’s 2006 bestseller with circus elements.

The best new play Tony will pit “Stereophonic” against “Mother Play,” Paula Vogel’s play about a mother and her kids spanning 1964 to the 21st century; “Mary Jane,” Amy Herzog’s humanistic portrait of a divorced mother of a young boy with health issues; “Prayer for the French Republic,” Joshua Harmon’s sprawling family comedy-drama that deals with Zionism, religious fervency and antisemitism; and “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,” Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy about the lives of West African women working at a salon.

The nominations marked a smashing of the Tony record for most women named in a single season. The 2022 Tony Awards had held the record for most female directing nominees, with four total across the two races — musical and play. Only 10 women have gone on to win a directing crown.

This year, three women were nominated for best play direction — Lila Neugebauer (“Appropriate”), Anne Kauffman (“Mary Jane”) and Whitney White (“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”) — while four were nominated in the musical category — Maria Friedman (“Merrily We Roll Along“), Leigh Silverman (“Suffs”) Jessica Stone (“Water for Elephants”) and Danya Taymor (“The Outsiders”).

A spring barrage of new shows — 14 shows opened in an 11-day span this year — is not unusual these days as producers hope their work will be fresh in the mind of voters ahead of the Tony Awards ceremony on June 16.

There were some firsts this season, including “Here Lies Love” with Broadway's first all-Filipino cast, which earned four nominations, including best original score for David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim. And seven openly autistic actors starred in “How to Dance in Ohio,” a first for Broadway but which got no Tony love.

Academy Award winner and Tony Award-nominee Ariana DeBose, who hosted both the 2023 and 2022 ceremonies, will be back this year and will produce and choreograph the opening number.

This year’s location — the David H. Koch Theater — is the home of New York City Ballet and in the same sprawling building complex as Lincoln Square Theater, which houses the Broadway venue Beaumont Theater.

Like last year, the three-hour main telecast will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+ from 8 p.m.-11 p.m. EDT/5 p.m.-8 p.m. PDT with a pre-show on Pluto TV, and some Tony Awards handed out there.

This season's Broadway numbers — about $1.4 billion in grosses and 11.1 million tickets — is running slightly less than the 2022-23 season, off about 4% in grosses and down 1% in tickets.



‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
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‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

There was Ozzy before "The Osbournes" and Ozzy after "The Osbournes."

For much of his life, the Black Sabbath founder and legendary heavy metal frontman who died at 76 on Tuesday was known to much of the public as a dark purveyor of deeds.

Wild stories followed him. Clergy condemned him. Parents sued him.

But with the debut of his family reality show on MTV, the world learned what those who'd been paying closer attention already knew: Ozzy Osbourne was soft and fuzzy under the darkness.

During its relatively short run from 2002 to 2005, "The Osbournes" became a runaway hit and made stars of his wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly. But more than that, it made a star of the domesticated version of Ozzy Osbourne, and in the process changed reality TV.

In 2025, when virtually every variety of celebrity has had a reality show, it's hard to see what a novelty the series was. MTV sold it as television's first "reality sitcom."

"Just the idea of the Black Sabbath founder, who will forever be known for biting the head off a bat during a 1982 concert, as a family man seems strange," Associated Press Media Writer David Bauder wrote on the eve of "The Osbournes" premiere. But on the show, Osbourne was "sweetly funny — and under everything a lot like the put-upon dads you’ve been seeing in television sitcoms for generations."

Danny Deraney, a publicist who worked with Osbourne and was a lifelong fan, said of the show, "You saw some guy who was curious. You saw some guy who was being funny. You just saw pretty much the real thing."

"He’s not the guy that everyone associates with the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and all this craziness," Deraney said. "And people loved him. He became so affable to so many people because of that show. As metal fans, we knew it. We knew that’s who he was. But now everyone knew."

Reality shows at the time, especially the popular competition shows like "Survivor," thrived on heightened circumstances. For "The Osbournes," no stakes were too low.

They sat on the couch. They ate dinner. The now-sober Ozzy sipped Diet Cokes, and urged his kids not to indulge in alcohol or drugs when they went out. He struggled to find the History Channel on his satellite TV. They feuded with the neighbors because, of all things, their loud music was driving the Osbournes crazy.

"You were seeing this really fascinating, appealing, bizarre tension between the public persona of a celebrity and their mundane experiences at home," said Kathryn VanArendonk, a critic for Vulture and New York Magazine.

The sitcom tone was apparent from its first moments.

"You turn on this show and you get this like little jazzy cover theme song of the song ‘Crazy Train,’ and there’s all these bright colors and fancy editing, and we just got to see this like totally 180-degree different side of Ozzy which was just surprising and incredible to watch," said Nick Caruso, staff editor at TVLine.

Like family sitcoms, the affection its leads clearly had for each other was essential to its appeal.

"For some reason, we kind of just fell in love with them the same way that we grew to love Ozzy and Sharon as like a marital unit," Caruso said.

What was maybe strangest about the show was how not-strange it felt. The two Ozzies seemed seamless rather than contradictory.

"You’re realizing that these things are personas and that all personas are these like elaborate complex mosaics of like who a person is," VanArendonk said.

"The Osbournes" had both an immediate and a long-term affect on the genre.

Both Caruso and VanArendonk said shows like "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which followed then-pop stars Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey after they married, was clearly a descendant.

And countless other shows felt its influence, from "The Kardashians" to "The Baldwins" — the recently debuted reality series on Alec Baldwin, his wife Hilaria and their seven kids.

"'The Baldwins’ as a reality show is explicitly modeled on ‘The Osbournes,’ VanArendonk said. "It’s like you have these famous people and now you get to see what their home lives are like, what they are like as parents, what they’re eating, what they are taking on with them on vacation, who their pets are, and they are these sort of cuddly, warm, eccentric figures."