Tony Awards 2013 Nominations Live Blog

How many of the Hollywood stars on Broadway this season - Tom Hanks, Bette Midler, Alec Baldwin, Jim Parsons, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Chastain among them - will be nominated on Tuesday for Tony Awards, the theater industry’s highest honor? Which of the most popular new musicals this spring - “Kinky Boots,” “Matilda,” and “Motown” - will rack up the most nominations? Will any performances from last fall’s flop shows be remembered, like Carolee Carmello in the musical “Scandalous”? And the biggest question of all: who will make the cut for best actress in a play, one of the most competitive races in recent memory?

The nominations for the 67th annual Tonys will be announced at 8:30 a.m., and we’ll be live-blogging throughout the morning with analysis of the picks, the snubs and their artistic and commercial importance. This year’s contests will include some nail-biters for best musical and best play, best actor and actress in a musical, and several other Tonys that 38 Broadway productions are eligible to win at the awards ceremony on June 9.

By far the hottest race will be for best actress in a play, with eight performers easily worthy of a nomination - but only five nominations available. Those eight powerhouse actresses, who are all acclaimed by theater critics, are Ms. Midler in “I’ll Eat You Last,” Jessica Hecht (“The Assembled Parties”), Laurie Metcalf (“The Other Place”), Amy Morton (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”), Kristine Nielsen (“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”), Fiona Shaw (“The Testament of Mary”), Holland Taylor (“Ann”) and Cicely Tyson (“The Trip to Bountiful”).

A case can be made for each actress, but some admirers of Ms. Nielsen, a veteran New York theater actress, are particularly adamant about a nomination given their dismay that the Tony Awards Administration Committee unilaterally ruled on Friday that she be eligible in the lead actress category. The producers of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” had wanted Ms. Nielsen to be eligible for a best featured actress nomination - and she was seen as a likely winner in June. But a majority of committee members believed that Ms. Nielsen’s character amounted to a leading role.

As for the best musical Tony Award, “Matilda” and “Kinky Boots” are favorites to fill two of the four nominations; one recent flop, “Hands on a Hardbody,” which received some critical praise, has a shot at a third slot, and “Motown” - the best-selling new musical of the season - may round out the category.

The race for best play is fairly wide open; in the running for the four nominations are “The Nance” (by Tony nominee Douglas Carter Beane), “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” (Tony nominee Christopher Durang), “Lucky Guy” (Oscar nominee Nora Ephron), “The Assembled Parties” (Tony winner Richard Greenberg), and “I’ll Eat You Last” (Tony winner John Logan), among other works.

Will the race for best director of a musical come down to Matthew Warchus (“Matilda”), already a Tony winner, against Diane Paulus (“Pippin”), whose last two Broadway musicals won for best revival? Will the race for best actor in a musical be Bertie Carvel (“Matilda”) vs. Billy Porter (“Kinky Boots”), if both are nominated as expected, or will a third actor have a real chance?

Which Broadway shows were shut out? Who wuz robbed? Keep checking back here for ongoing updates and analysis starting at 8:30 a.m.