Broadway musical Some Like It Hot leads 2023 Tony nominations | CBC News

Some Like It Hot, a Broadway musical adaptation of the cross-dressing movie comedy that starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, waltzed away Tuesday with a leading 13 Tony Award nominations — putting the spotlight on a show that is a full-hearted embrace of transgender rights.

With songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and starring Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee — all of whom got nominations — the show follows two musician friends who disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band to flee Chicago after witnessing a mob hit.

Like the movie, there are men in dresses trying to pass as women. But this time, the dress awakens something in Ghee’s character, akin to a transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly.

Three shows tied with nine nominations each: & Juliet, a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet that adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades; New York, New York, which combines two generations of Broadway royalty in John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda; and Shucked, a lightweight comedy musical studded with corn puns.

The critical darling Kimberly Akimbo, which stars American actress Victoria Clark as a teen who ages four times faster than the average human, rounds out the best musical category.

Canadian nominee for & Juliet

Canadian writer David West Read was among the nominees, receiving a best book nomination for authoring & Juliet. The comedy musical opened in London, then hit Toronto before making its Broadway debut last year.

In Read’s script, Juliet not only survives, but quickly rebounds from the loss of Romeo — before taking off to Paris for a fresh start.

This is Read’s second turn writing for Broadway. His first came a decade ago, with the play The Performers, detailing the drama that unfolds at an awards show for porn stars. He went on to write for and executive produce Schitt’s Creek, for which he won an Emmy in 2020.

Jessica Chastain, Samuel L. Jackson nominated

In the best new play category, nods were distributed to Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt (which explores Jewish identity through an intergenerational story) and Fat Ham, James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet set at a Black family’s barbecue in the modern South.

The rest of the category is made up of Ain’t No Mo’, the short-lived but critical applauded work by playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper; Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy; and Cost of Living, parallel stories of two caretakers and their respective patients.

Parade, a doomed love story set against the real backdrop of a murder and lynching in pre-World War I Georgia, earned six nods. The musical stars newly nominated Ben Platt, hoping to win a second Tony after his triumph in 2017 with Dear Evan Hansen, and rising star and first-time nominee Micaela Diamond.

Jessica Chastain, an Oscar-winner for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, got her first Tony nomination for a stripped down version of A Doll’s House. And Wendell Pierce, who has won a Tony for producing Clybourne Park, earned his first nomination as an actor on Broadway for a blistering revival of Death of a Salesman.

Jodie Comer, the three-time Emmy nominated star of Killing Eve earned a nomination in her Broadway debut — and her play, Prima Facie, got a best new play nod. Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald can extend her reign if she beats Comer as best leading actress in a play for Ohio State Murders.

Samuel L. Jackson earned his first Tony nod for August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

Sondheim revivals recognized

Two shows that closed quickly nevertheless picked up nominations — KPOP, which put Korean pop music on Broadway for the first time, and Ain’t No Mo’, in which the United States government emails every Black citizen with the offer of a free plane ticket to Africa. Each scene explores how various personalities respond to the offer.

KPOP got three nods — including best original score — and Ain’t No Mo’ nabbed six, including a best new play nomination.

Two well-received revivals from the late Stephen Sondheim — Sweeney Todd with Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban, and a star-studded Into the Woods — were recognized. Sweeney Todd received eight nominations — including nods for Groban and Ashford — and Into the Woods earned six. There, Brian d’Arcy James and Grammy Award-winning Sara Bareilles, up for her third Tony, were among the nominees.

Almost Famous, the stage adaptation of Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical coming-of-age story, earned just one nomination — for music by Tom Kitt and lyrics by both Crowe and Kitt.

Ariana DeBose will host the June 11 awards celebration from New York City’s United Palace theater live on CBS and on Paramount+. It is her second consecutive stint as host.