Since 2018, I've been doing a series on this website titled 'And the Tony Almost Went to...', where I take a deep dive into a show that (likely) came in second for Best Musical in any previous Tony Awards year. While there are some years where the runner-up seems obvious, there are others where they don't appear to be as much. So something I've decided to do is a new series where I focus on a musical that might've finished in third place at best, but people argue could've been in second. For the 2022 edition of 'And the Tony Almost Went to...', I settled on MJ as the runner-up to A Strange Loop. Though today, we're going to look into whether or not it could've actually been Six.
The original cast included Adrianna Hicks as Catherine of Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Anne Boleyn, Brittney Mack as Anna of Cleves, Abby Mueller as Jane Seymour, Samantha Pauley as Katherine Howard, and Anna Uzele as Catherine Parr.
The production received 8 Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical (Lucy Moss & Jamie Armitage), Best Original Score (Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss)*, Best Choreography (Carrie-Anne Ingrouille), Best Orchestrations (Tom Curran), Best Sound Design of a Musical (Paul Gatehouse), Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Tim Deiling), and Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gabriella Slade)*.
*denotes an award it won.
So where do I think Six finished in the final rankings of the 2022 Best Musical nominees?
On the One Hand...According to the New York Times' Tony voter survey, Hadestown apparently benefited from the absence of a consensus alternative. However, they did mention that the show with the strongest shot of overtaking it appeared to have been The Prom. Though Tootsie and Ain’t Too Proud were reportedly not far behind. New York Post columnist Michael Riedel mentioned in his predictions that Tootsie is "a fun show, but some say it doesn’t quite live up to its reviews. 'The songs are clever, like Gilbert and Sullivan, but there are no great tunes,' one voter says." He went on to add that "The spoiler here is The Prom. It’s original, delightful, and the underdog."
On the Other Hand...According to the New York Times' survey (which interviewed about 181 out of 650 voters) that year, half of the voters surveyed favored A Strange Loop. Although about one-fifth of them supported MJ. The other contenders had less support. Six appeared to have lost some heat among voters who no longer thought of it as a new show because its run began before the pandemic. It was literally hours away from opening on Broadway when everything shutdown on March 12th, 2020 and was the first new musical production to have opened when performances all over the New York theatre district resumed performances in the fall of 2021. So it seems to me that by the time Tony season rolled around, MJ took over as the crowd pleasing alternative to A Strange Loop. But shed no tears for Six: it is proving to be hugely successful, with strong box office grosses and a thriving touring market.
In the End...I think it was probably very close to what might've finished in second behind Hadestown. There are certainly cases to be made for The Prom and Tootsie as both shows did have their pros and cons. I will say that Best Musical in 2019 probably would've at least been more of a race between them if Hadestown wasn't there. Which would've been interesting given how they were both these musical comedies centered on Broadway performers. Though with that being said, I am glad I settled on Tootsie as the runner-up in the first place due to both of its major wins.
As for The Prom, a couple months after the Tony Awards, the Broadway production ended up closing at a loss of $13,500,000 after 309 performances on August 11th, 2019. Although the musical has since been introduced to a wider audience with its recent movie adaptation released on Netflix in December of 2020. While the film did receive mixed reviews from critics, it at least proved to be very commercially successful as it placed at #7 in the top ten SVOD movie debuts of 2020 (according to Screen Engine's count). Not to mention that a U.S. national tour is currently set to launch in Cleveland, Ohio this November. After that, the show should go on to have a pretty good afterlife with productions being produced by schools, community, and regional theatres all over the world.
The production received 8 Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical (Lucy Moss & Jamie Armitage), Best Original Score (Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss)*, Best Choreography (Carrie-Anne Ingrouille), Best Orchestrations (Tom Curran), Best Sound Design of a Musical (Paul Gatehouse), Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Tim Deiling), and Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gabriella Slade)*.
*denotes an award it won.
So where do I think Six finished in the final rankings of the 2022 Best Musical nominees?
On the One Hand...According to the New York Times' Tony voter survey, Hadestown apparently benefited from the absence of a consensus alternative. However, they did mention that the show with the strongest shot of overtaking it appeared to have been The Prom. Though Tootsie and Ain’t Too Proud were reportedly not far behind. New York Post columnist Michael Riedel mentioned in his predictions that Tootsie is "a fun show, but some say it doesn’t quite live up to its reviews. 'The songs are clever, like Gilbert and Sullivan, but there are no great tunes,' one voter says." He went on to add that "The spoiler here is The Prom. It’s original, delightful, and the underdog."
On the Other Hand...According to the New York Times' survey (which interviewed about 181 out of 650 voters) that year, half of the voters surveyed favored A Strange Loop. Although about one-fifth of them supported MJ. The other contenders had less support. Six appeared to have lost some heat among voters who no longer thought of it as a new show because its run began before the pandemic. It was literally hours away from opening on Broadway when everything shutdown on March 12th, 2020 and was the first new musical production to have opened when performances all over the New York theatre district resumed performances in the fall of 2021. So it seems to me that by the time Tony season rolled around, MJ took over as the crowd pleasing alternative to A Strange Loop. But shed no tears for Six: it is proving to be hugely successful, with strong box office grosses and a thriving touring market.
In the End...I think it was probably very close to what might've finished in second behind Hadestown. There are certainly cases to be made for The Prom and Tootsie as both shows did have their pros and cons. I will say that Best Musical in 2019 probably would've at least been more of a race between them if Hadestown wasn't there. Which would've been interesting given how they were both these musical comedies centered on Broadway performers. Though with that being said, I am glad I settled on Tootsie as the runner-up in the first place due to both of its major wins.
As for The Prom, a couple months after the Tony Awards, the Broadway production ended up closing at a loss of $13,500,000 after 309 performances on August 11th, 2019. Although the musical has since been introduced to a wider audience with its recent movie adaptation released on Netflix in December of 2020. While the film did receive mixed reviews from critics, it at least proved to be very commercially successful as it placed at #7 in the top ten SVOD movie debuts of 2020 (according to Screen Engine's count). Not to mention that a U.S. national tour is currently set to launch in Cleveland, Ohio this November. After that, the show should go on to have a pretty good afterlife with productions being produced by schools, community, and regional theatres all over the world.