These Tony nominators aren't starstruck

Let no one accuse the Tony nominating committee of being starstruck ratings-hounds. Although most producers followed the current playbook by casting lots and lots of stars, especially in plays that might otherwise be hard to sell, the conscientious 22-member committee seemed not to get the memo.

Instead of nominating famous people to glam up the Tony Awards telecast (June 10 on CBS), the committee picked many gifted people who will mean nothing to potential tourists out there in the dark. Imagine the backstage drama.

That is, imagine the producers of the TV show, right now, planning campaigns to lure the (at times, egregiously) shunned Ricky Martin, Angela Lansbury, Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew Broderick, Rachel Griffiths, Alan Rickman, Hugh Dancy, Blair Underwood, Stacy Keach, Tyne Daly, John Larroquette, Kim Cattrall and Rosemary Harris to be good sports and hand out other people's Tonys on the show.

(The presence of Bernadette Peters, outrageously overlooked in "Follies," has been guaranteed by giving her a special public-service award for, bless her, loving work with animals. And Hugh Jackman, whose outrageously popular showcase can't get a Special Event Tony because the category has been expunged, will get a special award for, well, for loving Broadway.)

Oh, and the nominators managed to shut out "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark" for everything but sets and costumes, which aren't even considered important enough categories to make the three-hour show. So much for the only musical title of the season that, admit it, everyone in America can recognize.

I should quickly add that I'm not complaining about the Spider omission, just noting how it can make news even when it is ignored. Broadway has had a mediocre musical season, but the original and enchanting "Once" deserves its 11 nominations. "Newsies," which has eight nominations, is a by-the-numbers but enjoyable family show. And "Nice Work If You Can Get It," with 10, is a happy Franken-musical, stitched together with body parts from old Gershwin songs and a new-old bootlegging script.

The fourth slot, the one generally believed to be the Spidey slot, appears to have been filled by what I'm imagining to be the dart-board method. That is, nominators could just as well have tacked the other five musicals on the wall and tossed a dart -- so long as it doesn't hit the Spider show. Winner, such as it is, has turned out to be "Leap of Faith," a lame, skimpy adaptation of the 1992 movie -- and part of the season's inexplicable trend toward dead-serious shows about Christianity.

SEE PHOTOS48 celebrities who've had Broadway roles

But the news this year has not been the musicals or the revivals that usually dominate the commercial theater. We have had a remarkable 14 new plays, surely the most I have seen in a single season. The two satisfying and substantial contenders are John Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities" (five nominations) and Bruce Norris' "Clybourne Park" (four). David Ives' "Venus in Fur" (two) is another daring Broadway entry. The many fans of the English music hall farce, "One Man, Two Guvnors," expected it to fill that wild-card fourth slot. I understand, even if I don't agree.

Instead, that slot has been filled with "Peter and the Starcatcher," a Peter Pan prequel that uses '60s story-theater techniques and music in relatively inventive ways. Its inclusion is part of a disturbing trend of the season -- the blurring of the lines between plays and musicals. "Peter" has nine nominations, including one in the best original score category.

Why wasn't this project -- and its nominated actors -- competing with other musicals instead of taking a slot away from such worthy plays as "The Columnist," "The Mountaintop," "Stick Fly" or even "One Man, Two Guvnors"? (The situation for original scores is so dire that the incidental music for "One Man" has also been nominated.)

"End of the Rainbow" -- a dramatic concert about the last days of Judy Garland -- is also a misfit in the new play category. It didn't get nominated. But its star, the exhaustively hardworking Tracie Bennett, who sings countless Garland songs throughout the show, has been entered as a leading actress in a play, not a musical. And she got one of the five acting slots, which could've gone -- for starters -- to Rosemary Harris, Rachel Griffiths, Kim Cattrall or Jennifer Lim, so commanding in "Chinglish."

It was a year for impressive newcomers, many of whom have nominations. This is lovely. Jeremy Jordan could have gotten one for "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Newsies," but he got the nod for "Newsies." The extraordinary Condola Rashad was remembered for "Stick Fly," as was Jessie Mueller from "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," and, of course, Cristin Milioti and Steve Kazee, the wonderful stars of "Once."

It was a slow year for play revivals, but I'm not complaining about Mike Nichols' sterling production of "Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman" or the old-school actor-fest of "Gore Vidal's The Best Man." Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice are nominated for revivals of two of their boyhood creations, "Evita" and "Jesus Christ Superstar."

I suspect that plenty will still be written about the 10 nominations for the controversial revival of "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess." The only one making me crazy right now is the one for its vandalizing orchestrations that distort and reduce George Gershwin's work.

And I'm so relieved that the nominators, who tend to remember shows that just opened, have cherished last fall's "Follies" with eight nominations.

It seems that every year there is a special heartbreak. This time, for me, it is a twofer -- the omission of Joe Mantello's exhilarating direction of "Other Desert Cities" and Thomas Sadowski's quietly spectacular performance as the brother in this fine drama. Sure, it's all just show biz, but . . .