Predictions: Which Directors and Choreographers Will Win a Tony Award in 2023?

The Tony Awards will be announced on Sunday. Our critics have some thoughts. Earlier this week, they offered their predictions of the musical and play acting categories. Today, they talk directors and choreographers. Here’s who they think will win — and who should win:  

Best Direction of a Play 

THE NOMINEES
Saheem Ali, Fat Ham
Jo Bonney, Cost of Living
Jamie Lloyd, A Doll’s House
Patrick Marber, Leopoldstadt
Stevie Walker-Webb, Ain’t No Mo’
Max Webster, Life of Pi 

Zachary Stewart
Will win: Patrick Marber
Should win: Patrick Marber 

It takes a firm hand to lucidly stage a sprawling play like Leopoldstadt, and Marber does it. While this category seems designed to reward auteurs, Jamie Lloyd’s house style of erotic whispers and funeral attire is not going to cut it this year.  

Hayley Levitt 
Will win: Patrick Marber
Should win: Patrick Marber 

Leopoldstadt, like all of Tom Stoppard’s work, is dense and wordy and can be deadly in the wrong hands. Patrick Marber somehow wrangles all of its tentacles and makes it look easy.  

Pete Hempstead 
Will win: Patrick Marber
Should win: Jamie Lloyd 

Patrick Marber will almost certainly take this award for his deft depictions of one family’s history across decades of time and for creating captivating scenes of beauty and horror. But I would like to give Jamie Lloyd a “should” for creating a visually and emotionally stunning Doll’s House on a minimalist stage. It could have been a complete bore, but it was riveting.  

David Gordon 
Will win: Patrick Marber
Should win: Patrick Marber 

Directing is Patrick Marber’s side gig — he’s primarily a playwright himself — but what he does with Leopoldstadt is gorgeous. Five decades of action, 38 actors playing dozens of roles, 130 minutes with no intermission that goes by in the blink of an eye. (But honestly, I’d be fine with anyone on this list except Life of Pi — a production that is designed only for the mezzanine, forgetting that the orchestra seating section exists.) 

Best Direction of a Musical 

THE NOMINEES
Michael Arden, Parade
Lear deBessonet, Into the Woods
Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot
Jack O’Brien, Shucked
Jessica Stone, Kimberly Akimbo 

Zachary Stewart
Will win: Michael Arden
Should win: Michael Arden 

Arden’s staging of Parade is both economical and arresting, expanding the world of the play through powerful visual details (the young soldier losing his virginity, the ghost of Mary Phagan, Frankie Epps off to war). He makes a brilliant case for Parade as a great American musical, and voters will reward him for it.  

Hayley Levitt 
Will win: Michael Arden
Should win: Michael Arden 

Michael Arden has a special talent for reimagining musicals, as the Tony nominating committee has previously recognized in his revivals of Once on This Island and Spring Awakening. Parade reaches its full potential under Arden’s direction and I think the third time will be the charm for him.  

Pete Hempstead
Will win: Michael Arden
Should win: Michael Arden 

Arden has achieved what will be remembered as the quintessential production of what is, in my opinion, JRB’s most complex, arresting, and satisfying musical. He has done an often overlooked and misunderstood show proud. 

David Gordon 
Will win: Michael Arden
Should win: Michael Arden 

Nothing to add to what my colleagues have already beautifully stated. 

Best Choreography 

THE NOMINEES
Steven Hoggett, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot
Susan Stroman, New York, New York
Jennifer Weber, & Juliet
Jennifer Weber, KPOP 

Zachary Stewart
Will win: Casey Nicholaw
Should win: Casey Nicholaw 

This is Nicholaw’s consolation prize for losing Best Direction. There are only a handful of directors actively maintaining Broadway as a space for brassy showmanship (Susan Stroman is one), and Nicholaw has been the most reliable in the last decade. He won this award when he staged the tap dance chase scene in Act 2.  

Hayley Levitt 
Will win: Casey Nicholaw
Should win: Casey Nicholaw 

In Some Like It Hot, Casey Nicholaw blends dance and storytelling while also delivering a perfect. old-fashioned musical comedy. It’s the best of every world and I think will land him his first choreography Tony. 

Pete Hempstead 
Will win: Casey Nicholaw
Should win: Casey Nicholaw 

This one was a no-contest for me. Nicholaw made good old-fashioned dance magic throughout the whole show, but that final tap-dance chase scene still sticks in my head more than any other choreographed number I saw this season. I would give Nicholaw the award for that alone.  

David Gordon
Will Win: Casey Nicholaw
Should win: Jennifer Weber (for both KPOP and & Juliet) 

Casey Nicholaw being a perennial Tony Awards bridesmaid (one win for direction out of 13 nominations) — mixed with the dazzling tap dance chase scene — will win him his first Choreography Tony this year, but I think the most interesting work this season created by Jennifer Weber, who got to show off very different styles in & Juliet and KPOP.