Ready, Set, Tony! Meet the Heartbreakers and Laugh Makers in the Featured Actor in a Musical 2019 Tony Award Race

When the Tony Awards telecast begins on Sunday, June 9, 40 nervous and excited actors will take their seats at Radio City Music Hall, hoping to win Broadway’s biggest prize. Throughout the season, Broadway.com has photographed and chatted with the stars at press events, opening nights and visits to our studio. In advance of the 73rd annual Tonys, we’re looking back at all of the season’s nominees. Today we're turning a spotlight on the race for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.

ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS | HADESTOWN
A majestic stage presence for 50 years, André De Shields is giving a master class in how to wear a silver sharkskin suit as Hermes the messenger god in Hadestown. "I’m prowling," he said of his Act One entrance during a rollicking #LiveatFive interview. "There’s a moment when I gesture to the audience to say, 'Welcome to our journey. Join us. We will challenge you. We might change you. But we won’t harm you.’" Not surprisingly, the crowd at Anais Mitchell’s myth-based musical goes wild. De Shields has seduced Broadway audiences in The Wiz, Ain’t Misbehavin’, his self-penned Haarlem Nocturne and in Tony-nominated performances in Play On! and The Full Monty. "I’ve always played the other," he said, "the individual character who’s unattached, almost disinterested. But magnificently so."
 

ANDY GROTELUESCHEN | TOOTSIE
"This whole thing is crazy," Andy Grotelueschen told Broadway.com days after he became a first-time Tony nominee for playing the title character’s best friend in Tootsie. Employing a perfect deadpan, Grotelueschen is an irresistible scene stealer as would-be playwright and full-time jokester Jeff Slater. (The actor’s rendition of the David Yazbek ditty "Jeff Sums It Up" is an Act Two highlight.) A native of Iowa, Grotelueschen did summer stock on a Mississippi River steamboat before moving to New York and joining the actor-driven Fiasco Theater, nabbing roles in Into the Woods, The Taming of the Shrew and Measure for Measure. "Fiasco will always be my artistic home," he said in a Fresh Face interview, adding of Tootsie, "I’m really feeling like a fish out of water in a lot of ways. But I’m having a blast." And he’s headed for the Tonys.

PATRICK PAGE | HADESTOWN
His canyon-deep voice has kept Patrick Page busy playing "complicated" characters—his preferred word for men who embrace the dark side—on Broadway, and now Page is a first-time Tony nominee for his charismatic performance as Hades, king of the underworld, in Hadestown. (In case you’ve forgotten, the versatile actor’s lineup of baddies includes Scar, the Grinch, The Green Goblin, Henry VIII and Saint Joan’s Inquisitor). On #LiveatFive, Page insisted that Hades is just misunderstood. His thirst for power "comes from a pretty soft place, which is that he’s just so in love with his wife [Persephone, played by Tony nominee Amber Gray]." Three years after Hadestown’s off-Broadway premiere, Page is savoring the chance to hand out red flowers to fans at the stage door. "It’s kind of like a rock concert," he said of nightly reaction to the show, "and I love that."
 

JEREMY POPE | AIN'T TOO PROUD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TEMPTATIONS
Only six actors have been nominated for two Tony Awards in a single season, including Jeremy Pope, who jumped from the lead in Choir Boy to golden-voiced Temptation Eddie Kendricks in Ain’t Too Proud. The double Tony recognition resulted from a killer schedule of rehearsing the big-budget musical by day and performing Tarell Alvin McCraney’s music-fueled play by night. "I was very anxious at the beginning of the process," he admitted in a Broadway.com Fresh Face interview, but a good support system and an attitude of gratitude got him through—plus Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster. Kidding aside, Pope expressed pride on opening night of Ain’t Too Proud at the opportunity to introduce the Tempts to a new generation. "We get to portray black men in such a beautiful way," he said.
 

EPHRAIM SYKES | AIN'T TOO PROUD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TEMPTATIONS
Ephraim Sykes began his career as an Alvin Ailey dancer, touring with the Ailey II company. A chance audition for The Little Mermaid led to his Broadway debut, followed by dance-heavy roles in Memphis, Newsies, Hamilton and a splashy TV turn as Seaweed in Hairspray Live. Nothing in his resume, however, could have predicted his searing performance as Temptations lead singer David Ruffin in Ain’t Too Proud. "This the most monstrous role I’ve ever had to take on," he said in a Broadway.com feature interview, but Sykes’ triple-threat skills and innate understanding of his troubled character impressed Tony nominators. "We tell a true story," the actor said of the show on opening night, "not just a pretty story, but a true, heartfelt, deep, kind of tortured story, one that humanizes these idols so we can see them and all their flaws." As for his own career rise, Sykes keeps things in perspective. "My whole journey to Broadway has been—I can’t even say dream because I could never have dreamt it."
 

Photos: André De Shields and Jeremy Pope photos by Caitlin McNaney for Broadway.com; Andy Groteleuschen and Patrick Page photos by Emilio Madrid-Kuser for Broadway.com; Ephraim Sykes photo by Matthew Murphy for Broadway.com | Design: Ryan Casey for Broadway.com