The Tony Awards Administration Committee has released rulings from its first meeting for the 2024-2025 Broadway season, with eligibility determinations for the first 11 productions of the season. Productions that open between April 25, 2024, and April 27, 2025, will be eligible for this year's Tony Awards, with several more batches of eligibility rulings expected ahead of the announcement of 2025 Tony nominations May 1, 2025.
Productions discussed at this first meeting were Home; Oh, Mary!; Job; Once Upon a Mattress; The Roommate; The Hills of California; McNeal; Yellow Face; Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; Left on Tenth; and Romeo + Juliet.
The Tony Awards has eligibility rules that place artists in consideration for the various award categories based on billing at opening night. The Administration Committee rules when artists will be considered in ways that fall outside of those rules.
Most notable among this season's first round of rulings is that Cole Escola, who is non-binary and playing a female character in their Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum, will be considered eligible in the Leading Actor in a Play category. Escola is the latest non-binary actor to need special category designation in a still binary system for acting performances. J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell became the first non-binary actors to win acting Tony Awards in 2023, both competing in male actor categories. The designation is typically left up to the actor to decide. Playbill has confirmed with Oh, Mary! production representatives that this is the case with Escola as well.
Non-binary & Juliet star Justin David Sullivan declined to be considered in either gendered acting category in 2023. At the time, Tony Awards representatives said in a statement that they "recognize that the current acting categories are not fully inclusive," and that they were "currently in discussion about how to best adjust [the categories] to address this." No further updates have been announced on this front.
The Tony Awards will broadcast live on CBS nationwide June 8, and will stream on Paramount+, live for Showtime-level subscribers, and on-demand for Essential-level subscribers beginning June 9. The CBS broadcast will be live on both coasts, running 8-11 PM ET and 5-8 PM PT (check local listings).
See the full list of determinations below:
Tory Kittles will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play category for his performance in Home.
Cole Escola will be considered eligible for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play category for their performance in Oh, Mary!
Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor/Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category for their respective roles in Job.
Laura Donnelly will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category for her role in The Hills of California.
Michael Yeargan (sets) and Jake Barton (sets and projections) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on McNeal.
Yellow Face will be considered eligible in the Best Revival of Play category. David Henry Hwang will be considered eligible as author.
Jim Parsons will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play category for his performance in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Beowulf Boritt (scenic design) and Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (projection design) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on Left on Tenth.
All other eligibility will be consistent with the opening night credits.
