By Barbara & Scott Siegel…
Best Performances of the Year – So Far…
While the first half of the 2025-26 Season suggests a rich and eclectic smorgasbord of shows (more on that in a future column), we wanted to focus this column on some of the breakout performances that might (or might not) be remembered at the end of the year when award season rolls around. So, in no particular order, let’s begin…
We suspect that all three of the leads in Chess — Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, and Nicholas Christopher — will garner Tony nominations; this despite generally mixed reviews for the show. Everyone loves the music, few care for the book, but oh can those three sing! If the show gets through the Winter and is still running in the Spring, one, two, or all there of them will get a Tony nod. Hopefully, not overlooked, Bryce Pinkham as The Arbiter, should get a Supporting nomination. As the show is now rewritten, he gives the performance that glues the whole show together and he’s really quite riveting.
The show with the worst title on Broadway: Little Bear Ridge Road, also features one of the Best Actress in a Play performances you are likely to see in either half of this season. Laurie Metcalf is sensational! She gives a performance that is at once funny and heartbreaking. Metcalf is always worth seeing in anything, but this is something really special. She plays an older woman, making the choice to live alone with a fierce determination. Into her life comes a grown man she knew as a child (a relative) who arrives to briefly stay with her while he sells his deceased father’s home. This play by Samuel D. Hunter doesn’t sound like much, but it is! Metcalf is a shoe-in for a Tony Nomination.
Art at the Music Box Theater has three standout performances by its stars, Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, and Bobby Cannavale. Each is quite wonderful and the revival of Yasmina Reza’s intelligent and insightful play, as directed by Scott Ellis, is perfection. But it’s all about the performances. Harris has the least showy role, so he might be passed over in favor of James Corden who has the flashy part — and makes it shine. But for our money (if we had any) it’s Bobby Cannavale who deserves the most attention. An electric performer, who always seems absolutely real and rivetingly dangerous, its his performance around which the other two revolve. The show is casting gold, but Cannavale deserves the recognition for this standout work as the catalyst that makes everything happen in this smashing revival!
In the brilliant revival of Ragtime at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, there is one towering performance that will surely be remembered at Tony time, and that is Joshua Henry as Coalhouse Walker, Jr. The role has been powerfully played on Broadway in the past by Brian Stokes Mitchell (the original) and Quentin Earl Darrington (the first revival), but Henry’s dynamic voice, coupled with his ferocious acting is the tent pole upon which the whole production swirls.
Another standout is Brandon Uranowitz as Tateh, who is as heartbreaking in his devotion to his daughter, as he is proudly steadfast in his need to express himself as an artist. In addition to those two award-worthy performances, Ragtime, itself, is certainly going to be nominated for Best Revival of a Musical — and it will take a lot to beat it.
While the long shot chances of an original musical without famous stars in the two (and only) roles in the show might be dicey, one need only look at last year’s Maybe Happy Ending to give one hope that Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) might get some traction. And if it does, it will owe some of that traction to the thrilling performance of Sam Tutty as Dougal, the innocent, and certainly scrappy, young man from the UK who comes to New York to attend the wedding of his millionaire father, a father he has never met.
The show is, God help it, a romantic comedy; when is the last time you saw one of them on Broadway? And it’s a musical! The book and music are okay, but the lyrics are quite clever (all by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan). And thank’s to Tutty’s electric performance, Two Strangers glows with charm. His co-star, Christiani Pitts is solid, but she’s essentially the foil for Tutty’s winning performance. If the show lasts through to Tony season, he should definitely be nominated.
In our next column, we’ll take a look at a swath of shows that define the first half of this season. Among the shows we’ll discuss: The Queen of Versailles, Kyoto, Liberation, Oedipus, Rob Lake Magic, and more about Chess, Art, Ragtime, etc.
Photo: Aaron Tveit in the Broadway production of ‘Chess.’, credit Matthew Murphy
