Tony Awards: Broadway Names Faves

By Stephen M. Silverman

05/07/2002 at 01:02 PM EDT

Kathleen Turner, Jason Biggs and Alicia Silverstone were shut out Monday as the nominees for Broadway's Tony Awards -- the Great White Way's equivalent to the Oscars -- were announced, in anticipation of June 2's Tony Awards, to be broadcast from Radio City Music Hall. The trio star in a critically derided stage adaptation of the 1967 movie classic "The Graduate," starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, based on the novel by Charles Webb. The production didn't glean a singe nomination. On the other hand, the top nominee, the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie," also based on a 1967 movie (starring Julie Andrews), received mostly favorable reviews -- except in the most influential paper of all, The New York Times. Monday's gift by the Tony nominating committee could be interpreted as a slap in the face to that paper's critic, Ben Brantley. Other top nominees included a musical revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods," which is a different take on Grimm's Fairy Tales, starring Vanessa Williams as a witch, and the musical "Urinetown," a satire of an apocalyptic future. The most honored drama was a revival of Paul Osborne's 1939 play "Morning's At Seven," with an all-star cast of nominated performers that includes Estelle Parsons (Roseanne's mother on TV's "Roseanne"), Frances Sternhagen and Elizabeth Franz.