2025 Tony Awards predictions: Earliest odds favor ‘Death Becomes Her’ and ‘Oh, Mary!’ while Best Actress heats up
Since Gold Derby started taking predictions for the 2025 Tony Awards nominations, hundreds of users have made their preliminary picks. This season 21 musicals and musical revivals and 21 plays and play revivals will compete for only a handful of slots in each category. With five more productions than last season, this year is one of the most competitive in recent memory.
Below, we break down where the top eight races stand at the very start of the season. Scroll to the bottom of the article for a tally of nominations by show in 17 of the 26 categories based on our current combined odds.
More from GoldDerby
SIGN UPfor Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
Best Musical
1. Death Becomes Her — 51/20
2. Maybe Happy Ending — 59/20
3. Operation Mincemeat — 9/2
4. Dead Outlaw — 8/1
5. Buena Vista Social Club — 14/1
Our earliest prognosticators feel strongest about the top three contenders in the race, including two of the biggest success stories from the fall — Death Becomes Her and Maybe Happy Ending — and the transfer of the Olivier Award-winning Operation Mincemeat. The last of those comes to Broadway with six Olivier nominations and two victories, including Best New Musical. Buena Vista Social Club and the forthcoming Dead Outlaw round out our top five. Of these, Dead Outlaw seems to be the most underestimated, as this new musical reunites the award-winning creatives from The Band's Visit, which won an impressive 10 Tonys. Its off-Broadway run last year earned 11 Drama Desk nominations, the most of any show, winning for Best Musical, Best Book (Itamar Moses), and Best Lyrics (David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna). This preliminary list omits such splashier fare as Boop! The Musical and Smash, which are both highly anticipated spring openings.
Best Play
1. Oh, Mary! — 9/5
2. The Hills of California — 18/5
3. English — 8/1
4. Good Night, and Good Luck — 17/2
5. John Proctor is the Villain — 13/1
While Oh, Mary! and Hills of California are far out front in terms of earning nominations, our users overwhelmingly believe Cole Escola's hilarious historical romp spotlighting Mary Todd Lincoln will win Best Play, with 84 percent predicting it for the Tony. The biggest omissions from our early odds are Purpose — the newest drama from Pulitzer and Tony winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, fresh off his Tony victory for Appropriate — and the effects-heavy Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which could follow Harry Potter and the Cursed Child's trajectory of nabbing many design nominations and a Best Play bid.
Best Musical Revival
1. Gypsy — 15/8
2. Sunset Boulevard — 23/10
3. Floyd Collins — 15/2
4. The Last Five Years — 19/2
Reminiscent of 1988, when Into the Woods and The Phantom of the Opera squared off, this race is shaping up to be a tight contest between Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. Both have the overwhelming support of our users, though Gypsy is currently favored for the win. That early confidence may be misplaced, though, as over the show's past five productions, it has only ever won the top prize of Best Musical or Best Musical Revival once, back in 1991 for the Tyne Daly production. Sunset Boulevard, meanwhile, arrived in New York with an impressive seven Olivier wins including the key victory for Best Musical Revival. Floyd Collins is the biggest unknown in the race, as Lincoln Center Theater will mount a lush production of this Adam Guettel musical. Battling their way into the lineup could also be the well-received Once Upon a Mattress revival and the reimagined Pirates! The Penzance Musical.
Best Play Revival
1. Othello — 53/20
2. Glengarry Glen Ross — 57/20
3. Eureka Day — 9/2
4. Our Town — 6/1
William Shakespeare, David Mamet, and Thornton Wilder works look strong right out of the gate, as does Jonathan Spector's Eureka Day, a newer piece which was unexpectedly deemed a revival based on its 2019 off-Broadway production. Although these four plays have an early lead in our odds, don't underestimate Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang's satirical piece from the fall which unquestionably won over critics. Since this play had never been on Broadway before, Hwang is eligible for a Tony nomination as playwright, which may very well sway voters to support it here, too.
Best Actress (Musical)
1. Audra McDonald, Gypsy — 39/20
2. Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard — 31/10
3. Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her — 11/2
4. Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her — 7/1
5. Sutton Foster, Once Upon a Mattress — 22/1
This will be the toughest category to call on Tony night, as six-time Tony winner McDonald and Scherzinger are delivering some of the best performances of their careers right across the street from one another. Although 70 percent of our users are currently breaking in McDonald's favor, the end result will likely be much closer, as Scherzinger won the Olivier for this performance. With Death Becomes Her in our lead position for Best Musical, it makes sense that its two stars are predicted to earn nominations, too. The fifth slot, currently slated for two-time Tony winner Foster, could go any number of directions. Jasmine Amy Rogers (Boop! The Musical) and Helen J Shen (Maybe Happy Ending) both have contingents of support, as does past Tony winner Idina Menzel, who has never missed a nomination for a role that she originated on Broadway.
Best Actor (Musical)
1. Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending — 14/5
2. Tom Francis, Sunset Boulevard — 4/1
3. Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins — 5/1
4. Jonathan Groff, Just in Time — 5/1
5. Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw — 15/2
Criss' lead turn in the sleeper musical hit of the season is our early frontrunner for the Tony, but the category is far from sewn up. The four other likely nominees could all conceivably pull off a victory, including Olivier winner Francis; the reigning champ in this category, Groff, playing Bobby Darin; the Drama Desk nominated Durand in the title role of dead outlaw Elmer McCurdy; and theater mainstay Jordan debuting real-life American explorer Floyd Collins on Broadway. Ramin Karimloo is just outside in sixth place for Pirates!, while past victors James Monroe Iglehart (A Wonderful World) and John Gallagher Jr. (Swept Away) could eke out noms as well.
Best Actress (Play)
1. Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray — 9/5
2. Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California — 51/20
3. Mia Farrow, The Roommate — 8/1
4. Sadie Sink, John Proctor Is the Villain — 19/2
With fewer than nine eligible performers in this category, only four actresses will earn nominations, barring any ties. Snook is far and away the favorite to win at this moment, and with good reason, as she took home last year's Olivier Award for this performance, playing 26 different roles. Her competition from across the pond, Donnelly, looks incredibly solid, too. Ten years after her last Broadway performance, Farrow returned to the stage in a funny, sentimental role, while Sink steps into a new piece offering a contemporary reassessment of Arthur Miller. Right on the cusp of noms are Farrow's costar, three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone, and Sydney Lemmon for her shocking turn in the psychological two-hander Job.
Best Actor (Play)
1. Cole Escola, Oh, Mary! — 31/20
2. George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck — 11/2
3. Denzel Washington, Othello — 7/1
4. Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face — 17/2
5. Jim Parsons, Our Town — 16/1
One of the most assured nominations, if not wins, of the year is for Escola for their tour-de-force, zany take on the title character in Oh, Mary!, but this category will nonetheless boast an embarrassment of riches. Also with high hopes are past winner Washington, who returns to Broadway in one of Shakespeare's greatest roles, past nominee Parsons as the beloved American character the Stage Manager, Clooney now inhabiting a role he once directed on screen, and Kim, who stepped into the shoes of a fictionalized Hwang. But there are other excellent performers knocking on the door, including past nominee Jake Gyllenhaal, ostensibly the early standout of this production of Othello, plus Job's Peter Friedman, and Broadway's latest Romeo, Kit Connor.
See our official odds for our current top five contenders in the categories of Best Director of a Musical and Play, Best Original Score, Best Musical Book, and Best Choreography. Remember, the tallies of total nominations by show below do not include the categories for orchestrations, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and sound design.
Nominations Predictions (Musicals)
Death Becomes Her — 9
Gypsy — 6
Operation Mincemeat — 6
Maybe Happy Ending — 5
Sunset Boulevard — 5
Dead Outlaw — 4
Buena Vista Social Club — 3
Floyd Collins — 2
Once Upon a Mattress — 2
Boop! The Musical — 1
Just in Time — 1
The Last Five Years — 1
Pirates! The Penzance Musical — 1
Smash — 1
Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends — 1
Nominations Predictions (Plays)
Oh, Mary! — 5
The Hills of California — 4
Eureka Day — 3
Glengarry Glen Ross — 3
Good Night, and Good Luck — 3
John Proctor is the Villain — 3
Othello — 2
Our Town — 2
Yellow Face — 2
Cult of Love — 1
English — 1
McNeal — 1
The Picture of Dorian Gray — 1
Purpose — 1
The Roommate — 1
Stranger Things: The First Shadow — 1
The 2025 Tony Awards nominations will be announced on May 1.
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
