Tony Throwback: Deep Dive Into The 1995 Broadway Season
- Noah Moore
- May 17
- 8 min read
By Noah Moore
It’s no secret that I have a hyperfixation on the Tony Awards, and in the countdown to the 2025 ceremony, I wanted to look back at some Tonys of years past—because none are quite as chaotic as the 1995 awards. Glenn Close. Ralph Fiennes. One of the sparsest musical seasons in Broadway history. It’s just too juicy to ignore. So let’s dig in!
1995 Season Overview
The slog of a season began with a summer revival of Hedda Gabler, which ran from July through August 1994, and Philadelphia, Here I Come!, which ran from September through October. Hedda received decent reviews—though The New York Times noted it “had forced moments.” Philadelphia fared similarly, with Variety calling it a show that “comes close to magic.” But summer openings rarely fare well with the Tonys, so don’t get too attached.
Next to open was the juggernaut of the season (produced by the ever-controversial Garth Dr*binsky): Show Boat. A 1928 musical revived in the ‘90s may seem like a strange move, but under Harold Prince’s direction and with Susan Stroman’s choreography, it landed with critics and audiences alike. But as we all know, there can never be just one buzzy musical...
Enter Sunset Boulevard, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s glitzy epic, complete with a hovering staircase and behind-the-scenes drama. After ALW parted ways with Patti LuPone (and if you’ve read her book, you know parted ways is putting it kindly), Glenn Close took over the role. Patti got the last laugh, though—she won a settlement and built a pool, which she named after him. Directed by Trevor Nunn, this production broke advance ticket records and spared no expense. These two musicals had a chokehold on the season... and there wasn’t much else to challenge them.
Seriously. For five months, Show Boat and Sunset Boulevard were the only new musicals in sight.
Back to the plays. A Julie Harris-led revival of The Glass Menagerie opened in November, with most of the praise centered on Harris and co-star Calista Flockhart. Variety noted she may have had “too much Northern crustiness bred in her bones to be an ideal Amanda,” but still called her performance a spell-caster. Shortly after came The Shadow Box, a 1977 Best Play winner about three couples over 24 hours—earning praise for Mercedes Ruehl (but more on her later... wink).
December saw two new plays premiere: What’s Wrong With This Picture, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Faith Prince, and A Tuna Christmas, a quirky Texan holiday comedy. Joe Sears got raves, but neither show made a major splash. All four of these plays closed before the New Year, leaving Grease to haunt us. (Yes, it even showed up in the 1995 ceremony from its stop in Boston on tour. The season was that sparse.)
Things stayed quiet into January before Love! Valour! Compassion! burst in on Valentine’s Day. Written by Terrence McNally and starring Nathan Lane and John Glover, this play follows a group of gay friends across a year at their lakeside getaway (a lot of cabin plays this season, huh?). It coincidentally opened in the same house where Angels in America once ran, and the NYT declared it a hit in the making.
Next came two revivals: The Molière Comedies, a two-hander of short Molière plays that fared better than a revival of Uncle Vanya, which also closed in mid-March.
Then finally—finally—another new musical appeared: Smokey Joe’s Cafe. A spirited jukebox revue, it opened March 2, 1995, and was welcomed with open arms by audiences and critics alike. That brings the new musical count to... two.
The plays, however, just kept rolling in. The Heiress, the 1947 classic, returned with Cherry Jones in the lead and Gerald Gutierrez directing. It received warm praise and ran through the end of the year. Then came Translations by Brian Friel, a play about Irish identity and cultural erasure. It struggled without big stars or buzz and closed in April.
An offbeat entry followed: Defending the Caveman, a one-man comedy show by Rob Becker. It ultimately became the longest-running solo comedy in Broadway history. But it was soon eclipsed by Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Billy Crudup and Paul Giamatti in his Broadway debut. A time-jumping tale set between 1809 and the present, Arcadia was brainy, acclaimed, and a bit high-brow for some.
Musicals finally got some backup when Des McAnuff’s revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opened, starring Matthew Broderick and Megan Mullally. It was a hit and ran through the summer of 1996. Then came two more plays: The Rose Tattoo, also starring Mercedes Ruehl (told you she'd be back), and Having Our Say, based on the bestselling memoir of the Delany sisters, which ran through the end of the year.
And finally—the final musical of the 1995 season: a revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, transferred from the Goodspeed Opera House. Unfortunately, it flopped with critics, who said it was swallowed up by Broadway. It opened April 10 and closed by April 30. Rude.
Five more plays rounded out the season, so we’ll keep it quick:
My Thing of Love, starring Laurie Metcalf, closed after a month.
A Month in the Country, starring Helen Mirren and directed by Tony snub legend Scott Ellis, ran through June.
Indiscretions, an English adaptation of Les Parents terribles, starred Cynthia Nixon and Roger Rees.
On the Waterfront, a stage adaptation of the film, closed within a week—losing a record-breaking $2.6 million. (Don’t worry, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark will steal that crown later.)
Hamlet, directed by Jonathan Kent and starring Ralph Fiennes, opened May 2 and ran through July. Traditional, solid, and appropriately moody.
Are you dizzy yet? Here's the final breakdown:
2 new musicals
3 musical revivals
10 new plays
11 play revivals
A truly unhinged season. Let's see how that all shook out in the nominations...
1995 Tony Awards Nominations
The 1994-1995 Tony nominations were announced on May 9, 1995, just a week after the final production opened. There were some surprises, but the musical categories were truly scant.
For Best Play, LVC and Arcadia were locks, but Mann's Having Our Say and Cocteau's Indiscretions rose to the top of the pack in a normally-crowded play season.
BEST PLAY - 1995 TONY AWARD NOMINEES
For the musical categories, one simply had to open a new musical to make the cut, which included both eligible musicals (they decided not to pull a 2021 move a la Aaron Tveit). I think both musicals are fine and thankfully deserved the nominations, but I mean, seriously?! TWO?!
BEST MUSICAL - 1995 TONY AWARD NOMINEES
There was the most play revivals of any other type of production; however, the Tony rule that the category can be expanded to five was added in 2014, so there will still be four nominees. The Heiress and Hamlet seemed sure, while The Moliére Comedies' and The Rose Tattoo squeaked in despite being closed at the time. That must have stung a bit to the only non-nominated play revival then-currently running, A Month in the Country.
BEST PLAY REVIVAL - 1995 TONY AWARD NOMINEES
The Molière Comedies
Musical revivals were nearly just as few as the original musicals, but despite three eligible productions, the Tony nominators notably excluded Gentlemen Prefer Blondes from the line-up. As such, there are only two nominated musical revivals this year, though both have the pedigree that it feels justified.
BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL - 1995 TONY AWARD NOMINEES
Across the play acting categories, Indiscretions tied Angels in America Pt. 1 as the most nominated play in history at the time, with nine nominations. Across the acting categories, the New York Times critic at the time, Donald G. McNeil Jr., summed it up handily.
In the musical performance categories, Best Actress in a Musical matched the overall season’s chaos by nominating the only two eligible women: Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard and Rebecca Luker in Show Boat. The only other leading lady in sight was Lonette McKee, also in Show Boat, but she'd already been nominated for the same role back in 1983—so, no dice this time.
Show Boat also managed to snag two male lead nominations: John McMartin and Mark Jacoby. Rounding out the category were Alan Campbell (Sunset) as the brooding Joe Gillis, and Matthew Broderick for his lauded, ladder-climbing turn in How to Succeed.... Who got snubbed to make room for these guys? Honestly, who even knows—there weren't many options to begin with.
And if you think the leading categories were light, wait until you peek into the featured races. Since Smokey Joe’s Cafe is structured as a revue, it was able to squeeze four performers across the two featured categories: Victor Trent Cook in Featured Actor, and Brenda Braxton, B.J. Crosby, and DeLee Lively in Featured Actress. A vote split waiting to happen. Gretha Boston rounded out the Featured Actress lineup with her powerhouse turn as Queenie in Show Boat.
Besides Cook, the featured actor pool continued to echo the leading men: Michel Bell and Joel Blum (both from Show Boat), and George Hearn from Sunset.
Now, if the performance categories weren’t sparse enough for you, let’s talk about the book and score races. Or should I say race? Because both only had one nominee—Sunset Boulevard. Yup, Don Black and Christopher Hampton won for book, and Andrew Lloyd Webber for score. A real nail-biter. Whoop-dee-doo.
As McNeil noted in his piece above, Sunset Boulevard led with 11 nominations, followed by Show Boat with 10, Indiscretions with 9, and The Heiress and Smokey Joe’s Cafe with 7 apiece. Love! Valour! Compassion! pulled in 5. It was clearly shaping up to be Sunset’s year... not like there was much standing in its way. I mean, we literally had categories with a single nominee.
This Broadway season may not have broken new ground, but it certainly left an impression. In a year defined more by bold choices than brilliant ones, the Tonys reflect a landscape in flux—messy, memorable, and unmistakably alive. Stay tuned for part 2, when I deep-dive into the 1995 Tony Awards Night through a rewatch of the broadcast.
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