Tony nominations sort out an eclectic, erratic season — with mixed results

Theater Critic Long story short: It was a strange Broadway season — one in which old formulas proved unreliable and a few long-shot experiments yielded unexpected rewards. Not even Gayle King, who was hosting the announcement of the Tony nominations alongside actors Bebe Neuwirth and Brandon Victor Dixon, could stifle her surprise over two conspicuous absences in the best play category — Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the biggest dramatic hit of the Broadway season, and Lee Hall’s adaptation of “Network.” King’s colleagues smiled awkwardly and chalked it up to so much talent, but the answer is a good deal more complicated. The slate of works in contention for best play — Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman,” James Graham’s “Ink,” Taylor Mac’s “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus,” Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Choir Boy” and Heidi Schreck’s “What the Constitution Means to Me” — suggest a preference for original material. But a more discerning Tony nominating committee worried about the future of American plays on Broadway might have acknowledged Young Jean Lee’s “Straight White Men” or Lucas Hnath’s “Hillary and Clinton” instead. Schreck’s impassioned, expansively personal and utterly sui generis “What the Constitution Means to Me” would be my best play pick, followed by McCraney’s exquisitely sensitive “Choir Boy”.