B'way's big question: How many Tonys for 'Billy'?

By Michael Kuchwara

[June 02, 2009]  NEW YORK (AP) -- The big question seems to be: How many Tonys will "Billy Elliot" take home?

If the Broadway theater gods are appeased Sunday, June 7, at Radio City Music Hall, "Billy Elliot" could win as many as 13 Tonys, which would be a record, besting the dozen collected by "The Producers" in 2001. The British musical received 15 nominations, although in the featured-acting categories it has performers competing against each other.

Here then is a look at the more prominent categories and predictions of who will win -- plus a few picks by a certain critic of who SHOULD win.

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BEST MUSICAL

"Billy Elliot" has a lock. First a hit movie. Then a hit stage musical in London. Now New York has embraced it, too. As much as some of us love "Next to Normal," the most adventurous musical of the season, it won't be able to overcome the heartwarming tale of a British coal miner's son who is born to dance and is determined to do so.

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BEST PLAY

Another shoo-in. This time for "God of Carnage." Yasmina Reza's tangy boulevard comedy, transposed to upper middle-class Brooklyn, skewers bourgeois morality. Let's hope the producers don't forget to thank casting director Daniel Swee who found a perfect quartet of actors: James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis. They are not only exactly right for the play but gold at the box office. Yes, Tony Soprano does sell tickets.

Still, the season's best play was Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty," a remarkable work about the unraveling of a relationship. LaBute has written a thoroughly contemporary play that speaks directly to the way people live and love -- and, in some cases, fight -- in 2009.

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BEST ACTOR-PLAY

The present-day ambivalence of the American male was captured perfectly by Thomas Sadoski, the emotionally and psychologically flummoxed hero of "reasons to be pretty." Sadoski delivers a nuanced, highly affecting performance, the best by an actor on Broadway this year.

But the winner will be Geoffrey Rush, who has created one of those extravagant, crowd-pleasing portraits that has Tony indelibly spray-painted all over it. As the dying monarch in Eugene Ionesco's absurdist comedy, "Exit the King," Rush is enormously entertaining and that will be enough for Tony voters.

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BEST ACTRESS-PLAY

The season's most competitive category, but one that Marcia Gay Harden will win -- and deservedly so -- for her hilarious depiction of a proper wife and mother giving in to her more primitive instincts in "God of Carnage." The actress knows how to get a laugh and create a real character at the same time. Not an inconsiderable feat, one that will get her past the category's four other contenders -- Hope Davis, Janet McTeer, Harriet Walter and Jane Fonda.

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BEST ACTOR-MUSICAL

A triple whammy win and well-deserved. Those talented lads who share the title role in "Billy Elliot": David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish. There's a heart-stopping moment in the show when Billy first begins to dance, and the audience shivers with delight. Or as one of the songs by Elton John and Lee Hall proclaims, "Electricity."

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BEST ACTRESS-MUSICAL

Give an actress the chance to seriously emote AND sing and the Tony is yours. Alice Ripley in "Next to Normal" should win the prize for her performance as a bipolar woman whose relationship with her family has fallen apart. Ripley has been on the brink of Broadway stardom for a while and this could push her to the top.

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BEST DIRECTOR-MUSICAL

There's nothing harder than marshaling the many forces that must come together to make a big Broadway musical work. And "Billy Elliot" works beautifully under the imaginative direction of Stephen Daldry. From its cast to its creative team (book writer, composer, lyricist and choreographer) to its design team, Daldry gets the most out of his many collaborators.

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BEST DIRECTOR-PLAY

It would be nice if Matthew Warchus could get Tonys for both his 2009 directing nominations -- one for "God of Carnage," the other for the revival of "The Norman Conquests." They are that good. "Carnage" is a bit slicker, so let's give the nod to Warchus and work on "The Norman Conquests," Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy of comedies about middle-class infidelity. See below.

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BEST REVIVAL-PLAY

"The Norman Conquests" should take the prize for best revival, too, three full-length plays, staged in the round by Warchus. An all-British cast, the best ensemble playing of the year, finds the comedy and the pathos in these almost Chekhovian tales of mismatched spouses and friends.

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BEST REVIVAL-MUSICAL

The sun and the Tony will shine in for "Hair," thanks to Diane Paulus' impeccable, clear-headed direction of a freewheeling show, and an exuberant cast headed by Gavin Creel and Will Swenson.

[Associated Press; By MICHAEL KUCHWARA]

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