Sunday night's Tony Awards ceremony (CBS, 8 ET/delayed PT) will likely attract more viewers than others in recent memory, even if it won't offer many high-profile nail-biters. Of course, the blockbuster Hamilton, which has drawn all eyes to Broadway with a hip-hop-fused account of founding father "A. Ham," will collect an armful of the record 16 trophies it's up for (though not all of them), including best musical. USA TODAY's Elysa Gardner predicts other victors in top categories. (For a list of all nominees, see the official Tonys site.)
Best musical
Should/will win: Hamilton.
Best play
Should/will win: The Humans, Stephen Karam's funny, thoughtful, sobering study of the anxieties that challenge and bind a modern, middle-class family, has all the momentum.
Best revival of a play
Should win: Director Joe Mantello (nominated for his work on Humans) and actors Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams laid bare the piercing he-said/she-said tension in Blackbird, which stings even more acutely in our current culture of finger-pointing.
Will win: It's neck and neck between Ivo Van Hove's celebrated but mannered (and polarizing) A View From the Bridge and Jonathan Kent's nuanced Long Day's Journey Into Night, which will eke out a win.
Best revival of a musical
Should/will win: Both Bartlett Sher's Fiddler On the Roof and John Doyle's The Color Purple are gorgeous and revelatory, but Doyle managed to completely reinvent a less established musical. He'll lose the director's race to Hamilton's Thomas Kail — Sher, inexplicably, wasn't nominated — so voters can compensate here.
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in play
Should win: Daniels, for his fearless, biting, humane portrait of a haunted predator in Blackbird.
Will win: Frank Langella, for his own fearless, moving portrait of an aging man in best-play nominee The Father.
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play
Should/will win: Jessica Lange, for her radiant, wrenching turn as tortured matriarch Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey.
Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical
Should/will win: Hamilton's better bet in this category isn't Hamilton creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda, but Leslie Odom Jr., for his blazing portrayal of Alexander Hamilton nemesis Aaron Burr. Both will be edged out, though, by Danny Burstein, the beloved vet — up for five Tonys previously, and never a winner — who brings both refreshing discretion and fierce heart to Fiddler's iconic dairy man, Tevye.
Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical
Should/will win: The glorious Cynthia Erivo, who charted an abused woman's evolution from meek to mighty with a soaring voice and an unforgettable presence as Celie in The Color Purple.
Best book of a musical
Should/will win: Miranda
Best original score (music and/or lyrics) written for the theater
Should/will win: Miranda
Best director of a play
Should win: Joe Mantello, for bringing us into the lives of The Humans with stunning intimacy, humor and compassion.
Will win: Van Hove, by a nose over Mantello.
Best director of a musical
Should/will win: Thomas Kail, for telling (and casting) Hamilton's story in a way that made its genius accessible to everyone.
