Actress Sara Chase, originally from Hartford, earned her first Tony nomination for the role of Melissa Gimble, the Broadway-loving OB-GYN who gets stuck in a musical with her husband.
Many nominated members of her production team also have a history with the Constitution State, specifically through Yale University. These former Bulldogs include writer Cinco Paul, nominated for best book of a musical and best original score, scenic designer Scott Pask, and lighting designer Donald Holder, who also holds a degree from the University of Maine. Holder earned a nomination for “Ragtime” this year as well.
Two more nominees went to school in Boston: orchestrator Mike Morris, who attended Berklee College of Music, and sound designer Walter Trarbach, who went to Boston University.
Tied with “Schmigadoon!,” “The Lost Boys” also received 12 nominations. While the show is based on the 1987 vampire film of the same name, “It’s its own thing,” actor Ali Louis Bourzgui told the Globe last month.
Bourzgui earned a nomination for best featured actor in a musical for his portrayal of David, Kiefer Sutherland’s character in the original movie. Before he was playing villainous vampires, Bourzgui lived in Massachusetts, including in Cambridge, Revere, East Boston, and Pittsfield.
Based on the concept album from Tim Rice and ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, the first Broadway revival of the musical “Chess” premiered in November, starring Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, and Boston Conservatory alum Nicholas Christopher. Christopher, who portrays Russian chess grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky, earned a nomination for best actor in a musical.
Additional nominees in the cast include Boston College and Yale alum Bryce Pinkham as the Arbiter, who serves as the shows emcee, and Newtown, Conn., native Hannah Cruz, who plays Svetlana, Sergievsky’s estranged ex-wife.
‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
Nominated for best revival of a musical, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” reimagines Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical in New York’s queer ballroom scene. One of the minds behind this new interpretation was co-director Bill Rauch, who attended Harvard University. In May, he returned to the Cambridge campus to receive this year’s Harvard Arts Medal.
Sound designer Kai Harada (also nominated for “Ragtime”) grew up in Connecticut, and producer and beats arranger Trevor Holder, one of the nominees for best orchestration, went to Wesleyan University.
‘Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show’
Lexington native and “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch earned a nod for best featured actress in a musical for her portrayal of the narrator in the cult classic revival. Dratch does the “Time Warp” again with the Tonys after being nominated for best featured actress in a play in 2022 for her role in “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.”
‘Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman’
Greenwich native Christopher Abbott earned a nomination for best featured actor in a play for his portrayal of Biff Loman in the Arthur Miller classic, starring alongside Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf.
Two-time Tony award winner John Lithgow earned his seventh nomination for his portrayal of children’s author Roald Dahl in the new play “Giant,” which opened on Broadway this March. Before starring in films like “Terms of Endearment” and “The World According to Garp,” Lithgow attended Harvard University, where he studied history and literature. The actor also received this year’s John Willis Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.
The Broadway production of this Pulitzer Prize winning play featured direction from Whitney White, who received an MFA in acting from Brown University in Rhode Island. “Liberation” marks White’s second Tony nomination for best director after earning a nod for “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” in 2024.
Scenic designer David Korins earned his fifth Tony nomination for his work on the stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning crime film. Korins, whose work has previously been seen in musicals like “Hamilton” and “Beetlejuice,” grew up in Mansfield, where he acted in school plays and painted sets. While studying at UMass Amherst, he took a “Beginning Techniques in Design” class, where he discovered a way to be “tangentially connected to the arts,” that inspired the trajectory of his career, he told the Globe in 2019.
Annie Sarlin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @anniesarlinjournalism.
