Watching the Tonys Sunday? Keep an eye out for Northwest nominees

Actors Brooks Ashmanskas and Megan Hilty, producers Corey Brunish and Brian Rooney, and actor/playwright Cole Escola are up for awards in Sunday's Tonys ceremony.
Brooks Ashmanskas, nominated for a Tony Award as best featured actor in a musical, in Smash.
Brooks Ashmanskas, nominated for a Tony Award as best featured actor in a musical, in Smash.

The 78th Tony Awards, the annual bash celebrating the best of the Broadway season in New York, will take place Sunday, June 8, at Radio City Music Hall. The ceremony will be broadcast on CBS from 5 to 8 p.m. Pacific time and streamed on Paramount+. A live pre-show will be broadcast on Pluto TV’s live music channel beginning at 3:40 p.m.

The star-spangled evening will include celebrity show-biz presenters including, among others, Kristin Chenoweth, Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Keanu Reeves, Lea Salonga, Jean Smart, Ben Stiller, and Oprah Winfrey.

Among its many awards, two categories top the list. Best Musical will be chosen from among five nominees: Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Death Becomes Her, Maybe Happy Ending, and Operation Mincemeat. Best Play also will be chosen from among five nominees: English, The Hills of California, John Proctor Is the Villain, and Oh, Mary!

While you’re taking in the glitz and glamour on your TV screen, keep your eye on a handful of Oregon and Northwest nominees who are up for awards:

Producer Corey Brunish, a onetime regular on Portland stages, is up for two awards, along with fellow producer/actor and University of Portland grad Brian Rooney, as producers of Best New Musical nominee Operation Mincemeat, and the Thornton Wilder classic Our Town, nominated as Best Revival of a Play. It’s familiar territory for Brunish: In 12 seasons on Broadway he’s raked in 18 nominations and five awards as a producer, winning for Porgy and Bess, Pippin, Once on This Island, Sondheim’s Company, and Parade.

Corey Brunish, a producer of best-musical nominee Operation Mincemeat and best play revival Our Town. Photo: Fabrigo/Wikimedia Commons
Corey Brunish, a producer of best-musical nominee Operation Mincemeat and best play revival Our Town. Photo: Fabrigo/Wikimedia Commons

Actor Brooks Ashmanskas, who was born in Salem, graduated from high school in Beaverton, and acted in his early years at the old Portland Civic Theatre, is nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in Smash, a performance for which he’s already won this year’s Drama Desk Award in his category. Ashmanskas has also been to the Tony dance twice before: in 2007 for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me; and in 2019 for Best Actor in a Musical, in The Prom.

Actor/comedian/writer Cole Escola, born in Clatskanie, Oregon and a graduate of R.A. Long High School in Longview, Wash., is up for two awards: for Best Play as author of Oh, Mary!, and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, also for Oh, Mary!, in which they play First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Escola has already won several previous awards for writing or performing in Oh, Mary!, among them Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Obie awards, and was a 2025 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for writing Oh, Mary!

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Megan Hilty, from Bellevue, Wash., is nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, for Death Becomes Her, which is also a nominee for best new musical.

Bob Hicks, Executive Editor of Oregon ArtsWatch, has been covering arts and culture in the Pacific Northwest since 1978, including 25 years at The Oregonian. Among his art books are Kazuyuki Ohtsu; James B. Thompson: Fragments in Time; and Beth Van Hoesen: Fauna and Flora. His work has appeared in American Theatre, Biblio, Professional Artist, Northwest Passage, Art Scatter, and elsewhere. He also writes the daily art-history series "Today I Am."

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