Denzel Washington, Helen J. Shen, Real Women Have Curves: Who Was Overlooked for the 2025 Tony Awards

The 2025 Tony Awards nominations were announced this morning. Though the nominations were relatively spread out among the many eligible productions, there were still a number of artists and shows that surprisingly didn't get recognized. We're not just talking about the 13 shows that received no award nominations. We're thinking about artists who garnered a huge amount of buzz for their shows, Broadway favorites, and shows that got nominations in some categories but (surprisingly) not in others.

Below, here were the most striking omissions from this year's Tony nominations.

Celebrity and Box Office =/= Tony Nominations

This was a starry-eyed Broadway season, with some of Hollywood's best and brightest traveling to New York to prove themselves on the stage. While many can be star struck by celebrity, this year's Tony nominating committee kept their wits about them, with many famous faces left out in the cold in favor of tried and true theatrical nominees. Notably, Oscar winners Robert Downey Jr., Kieran Culkin, and Denzel Washington received no nominations—despite them bringing in high box office for their shows. This year nominations seems set to be all about the true-blue Broadway talent who, season after season, regard the theatre as their primary home.

Helen J Shen, Denzel Washington, and Tatianna Cordoba

Stacked Actor Categories Make for Tough Choices

We knew going into today’s nominations that the Tony nominating committee would have a hard task figuring out who makes the cut. This season has been particularly stacked in terms of performances, but they can only put so many names in the nomination list. This season especially, that meant there were some pretty notable names left out, likely making many fans outraged on their behalf. Tony winners Idina Menzel (Redwood), Sutton Foster (Once Upon a Mattress), and Lea Salonga and Bernadette Peters (Old Friends) certainly jump to the top of that list. But there were other buzzy performances that didn't get nods: Helen J Shen in Maybe Happy Ending, Robyn Hurder in SMASH, and Tatianna Córdoba in Real Women Have Curves. It’s years like this that make you wonder if expanding the number of nominees might be something to consider. It would be difficult to make the case that any of those performances weren’t Tony worthy!

Pirates! The Penzance Musical Getting Just One Nomination, for Revival

Revisals are always a tricky enterprise. When director Scott Ellis and adapter Rupert Holmes set out to transport Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance to the balmy environs of New Orleans, they had quite the task set for them as they stepped out from the shadows of Joseph Papp’s smash-hit 1981 revival. While the new production snagged a nomination for Best Revival of a Musical, it was otherwise excluded from the awards, with notable snubs for the very well-reviewed David Hyde Pierce as Modern Major General Stanley and for Jinkx Monsoon in her performance in the highly reworked role of Ruth. Plus Holmes was notably missing for Best Book. But who knows! Maybe they’ll pull an upset and steal away with the top prize in the end.

They Liked It�� or Did They?

With five nominations including Best Revival of a Musical (the top honor the production could earn), it seems the Tony folks really liked the current revival of Gypsy. Audra McDonald’s Leading Actress in a Musical nod for her Rose made her the most Tony-nominated actor in history, and a win would make her the most-winning one too. Camille A. Brown also picked up recognition for her choreography, along with Danny Burstein and Joy Woods as Featured Actor and Actress in a Musical. And so it becomes extra notable that director George C. Wolfe did not get recognized in Direction of a Musical—typically the list of shows in the directing categories look pretty similar to the production categories, but not this year!

And it wasn’t even just Wolfe. Operation Mincemeat’s Robert Hastie, Floyd Collins�� Tina Landau, and Pirates! The Penzance Musical’s Scott Ellis all failed to get Director of a Musical nominations even though the productions themselves—under the leadership of their respective directors!—were recognized. In the play categories, the same fate befell Purpose’s Phylicia Rashad, Eureka Day’s Anna D. Shapiro, Romeo + Juliet’s Sam Gold, Our Town’s Kenny Leon, and Yellow Face’s Leigh Silverman. At least in Leon’s case, he still has the potential to win along with his production, as one of its co-producers.

Real Women Have Curves' Two Nominations

We were surprised to see Real Women Have Curves get just two nominations, for Justina Machado’s performance, and for Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez’s score. That last one makes the musical’s lack of a Best Musical nomination extra odd, given they still considered half (or arguably more!) of its material Tony worthy. Like the performer categories, musicals this year had a tough road to make it into Best Musical, with an especially large amount of new works opening this year. I guess we should just be glad that the committee still gave the show some love, even if not making the cut for the evening’s top honor stings a bit.

Alana Arenas and Kara Young in *Purpose* Marc J. Franklin

Alana Arenas Not Getting Nominated for Purpose

While it was notable that Phylicia Rashad didn't get a directing nod for Purpose despite overseeing five Tony-nominated performances, it was even more noticeable that there was only one cast member of that production who was left out of the nominating pool: Alana Arenas. In her Broadway debut, Arenas is giving a burn-the-house-down performance as Morgan, the long-suffering daughter-in-law of the Jasper family—a role that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins wrote for her. Considering all the other members of the Purpose cast were nominated, and the show got a Best Play nomination, this omission is glaring. But Arenas is inspiring audience snaps and applause every night, so we hope it won't be too long before we see her back on Broadway again.

Good Night, and Good Luck Getting Five Nominations—But Not Best Play

It seems Tony voters preferred George Clooney's performance in Good Night, and Good Luck, and the technical elements of the play, but not the play itself. While the play received five nominations, for its acting and design, it is noticeable that it did not receive a Best Play Tony Award nomination (the film on which it based got a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards). Then again, this lack of Best Play nomination likely won't hurt the play at the box office—the five nominations will probably help it break box office records further.

The 78th Annual Tony Awards ceremony will broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall June 8, beginning at 8 PM ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S. Wicked film star and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo is set to host the evening.

The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, and White Cherry Entertainment. Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss are executive producers and showrunners for White Cherry Entertainment. Weiss will serve as director.

The American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. At the Broadway League, Kristin Caskey is chair, and Jason Laks is president. At the American Theatre Wing, Emilio Sosa is chair, and Heather Hitchens is president and CEO.

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