The 2015 Tony Award nominations were announced this morning and Fun Home, a musical based on lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel's autobiographic graphic novel, picked up 12 nominations! The 69th Annual Tony Awards will be hosted by out actor Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth and take place at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, airing live on CBS.
Fun Home, which opened at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre on April 19, follows Bechdel's coming of age in three periods of her life, and her particularly complicated relationship with her closeted father. Fun Home's 12 nominations include Best Musical, a nomination for out playwright Lisa Kron in Best Book of a Musical, and a Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical nod for out star Beth Malone.
Out playwrights Terrence McNally and Craig Lucas are nominated alongside Kron in Best Book of a Musical for their shows The Visit and An American in Paris, respectively. Out actor Brad Oscar is nominated in Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical for the comedy Something Rotten! about two brothers trying to write the world's first musical in the time of Shakespeare. Also nominated in Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical is out actor Max von Essen for An American in Paris. Out directors Scott Ellis and Stephen Daldry are nominated in Best Direction of a Play for You Can't Take It with You and Skylight, respectively.
Tommy Tune, an out actor, dancer, singer, director, producer and choreographer who has won nine Tony Awards, will be honored with the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre at the 69th annual ceremony. Tune made his Broadway debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street in 1965 and made his directorial and choreography debut in the Broadway debut of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1978. He spoke about being out in the theatre world in his 1997 memoir Footnotes. Out actor, writer, director John Cameron Mitchell will also receive a Special Tony Award. Mitchell recently completed a starring run in the Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which he wrote with composer Stephen Trask and starred in Off-Broadway before directing and starring in the 2001 film adaptation.
Don't miss the 69th Annual Tony Awards live on CBS, June 7 at 8pm!