Rose Byrne scores Tony Award nod in rare double
Source: Late Night With Seth Meyers
Australian actor and 2026 Oscar nominee Rose Byrne has been recognised in the shortlist for the US’s prestigious Tony Awards celebrating excellence in theatre.
Byrne was nominated for her lead role in a new Broadway production of Noël Coward’s “comedy of bad manners” Fallen Angels, about two upper-class wives contemplating adultery with an old flame while their husbands are away on a golfing trip.
The production itself has garnered five nods – including for best revival of a play.
The recognition comes after a string of recent successes for Sydney-born Byrne, whose performance in the indie film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You saw her win the best actress prize at multiple awards ceremonies, including the Golden Globes, as well as being nominated for the gong at the Academy Awards.
According to Variety, only 33 other performers have been nominated for both an Oscar and a Tony in the same year
Byrne’s turn as one of the two wives in Fallen Angels has been praised by theatre critics, with The Guardian declaring she is “utterly delightful” and Variety saying she and co-star Kelli O’Hara “deliver a masterclass in physical comedy”.
In a recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Bridesmaids star described Fallen Angels as “a true comedic two-hander” and admitted she had some nerves ahead of the show, in which the two main characters get progressively drunker over the course of an evening.
“We’ve been pushing the physical comedy,” she told Meyers. “It’s a very fun escape for 90 minutes.”
Byrne also noted that theatre censors originally sought to ban Coward’s play ahead of its opening in London in 1925 because it was thought to be too risque.
“It was considered scandalous that women would have a relationship before marriage… and the only reason that Lord Chamberlain at the time in England allowed it on was because it could never happen,” she explained, laughing.
O’Hara will be vying with Byrne for the Tony Award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play, with the other nominees being Carrie Coon (Bug), Susannah Flood (Liberation) and Lesley Manville (Oedipus).
The Tony Awards are like the Oscars of New York theatre, and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is another screen star who features among this year’s nominees for his role in Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man play about depression.
Two new musicals, The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon, have topped the 2026 nominations with 12 each.
Both shows scored across major categories, including best musical, acting and design, while a fresh production of the musical Ragtime reaffirmed its enduring resonance with 11 nominations, including for its sweeping score and a slate of stand-out performances.
The nominations, announced on Tuesday by actors Uzo Aduba and Darren Criss ahead of a June 7 awards night, offer a snapshot of a Broadway season defined by new musicals, bold revivals and a renewed sense of what it means to gather in a theatre post-pandemic.
This season has also been marked by even more celebrities making their Broadway debuts – including Adrien Brody, Tessa Thompson and Patrick Ball, along with an uptick in celebrity producers including Kim Kardashian (The Fear of 13) and Barack Obama (Proof). However, none of those shows or people were nominated.
Joshua Henry was nominated for best actor in a musical for his role as Coalhouse Walker Jr in Ragtime, one of the most talked-about performances of the season.
His nomination caps a breakout moment that included his opening the Met Gala red carpet on Monday night with a performance of I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston, choreographed by Ragtime choreographer Ellenore Scott, who was also nominated.
Henry’s co-star Caissie Levy, nominated for the first time 20 years after her Broadway debut in Hairspray, told Reuters it gives her “a huge amount of satisfaction and joy in being recognised by my community at this point in my life for this role and in this show that is so resonant right now in the world we’re living in”.
Nicholas Christopher, the first Bermudian to be nominated for a Tony, got the nod for his commanding turn as the tortured Anatoly in Chess, while another co-star, Hannah Cruz, was nominated for best featured actress.
Mark Strong, nominated for his role as the title character in this season’s reimagining of Oedipus, which scored seven nominations, told Reuters he thought the production had a powerful effect on audiences because of its timelessness.
“The fact that we’re still telling that story, but to be able to update it to a modern idiom, and to a political idiom, as well as all of the family stuff that happens in the story, makes it so immediate for a modern audience,” Strong said.
Surprisingly, in a season full of beloved and well-reviewed musical revivals, only three of a possible five nominations were announced in the category: Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Ragtime and The Rocky Horror Show.
Bess Wohl’s Liberation was nominated for best play a day after it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The Pulitzer committee called it, in part, “a striking blend of comedy and sincerity that explores the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s”.
The awards will take place on June 7 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, hosted by pop star Pink.
–with Reuters
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