And The Winner Is …

I have no crystal ball when it comes to the Tony Awards. Who will take home the shiny prize on June 9, when the awards are handed out at Radio City Music Hall, is anybody’s guess, mine included. But I can tell you what I enjoyed during the 2018–2019 Broadway season: the plays, the musicals, the performances that moved me and are worthy of your attention.

- Francis Lewis

1“INK”

Stop the presses: “Ink” by James Graham is my Best Play of the Year. In it, The Sun, a tabloid in 1969 Britain, rises like a phoenix from the ashes to win the Fleet Street circulation wars, bankrolled by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is played to a Tony-worthy turn by Bertie Carvel, who won the 2018 Olivier Award for the same role in the show’s London iteration. “People like stories,” says Murdoch at the end of the play, and this is a cracking good story. Even better for being true.

2 “THE CHER SHOW”

The greatest-hits crowdpleaser about the One and Only may have lost out on multiple Tony nominations (a measly three), but what it did earn is choice: namely, a Best Actress in a Musical nod for Stephanie J. Block as the very incarnation of the wisecracking, softhearted, worldly wise diva. And check out Bob Mackie’s costumes, all feathers and sequins and sheer net. They’re a show unto themselves. And so Cher.

3 “THE PROM”