Should the Tonys Split Acting Awards for Revivals vs. Original Productions?
by Chris Peterson
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the 2025 Tony Awards made it impossible to ignore. Why are performances in revivals and original productions still judged together?
We already separate Best Musical from Best Revival of a Musical, and we do the same for plays. That’s because we know those are fundamentally different creative efforts. One involves building something from the ground up. The other is about reimagining something that already exists. We accept that difference when it comes to producers and directors, yet we continue to judge performers from both categories by the same standard.
In a year like 2025, where the difference between those two artistic tracks was on full display, it became even more clear how overdue this conversation really is.
When Jasmine Amy Rogers made her Broadway debut in Boop! The Musical, she wasn’t just playing Betty Boop, she was inventing her for the stage. There was no past Broadway version to mimic, no legacy to live up to. She created the voice, the rhythm, the entire emotional blueprint. And it resonated. She won a Theatre World Award, earned Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle honors, and received a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Now compare that to Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard. Here’s a revival of one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most iconic musicals. Nicole was stepping into the role of Norma Desmond, a character already etched into theatre history. Her performance was bold, commanding, and vocally thrilling. It drew major attention on both sides of the Atlantic, and she went on to win the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical.
Both women delivered powerhouse performances. But the creative journeys they took to get there were nothing alike.
In the Best Actor category, there was a similar mix. Tom Francis in Sunset Boulevard was recognized alongside Darren Criss for Maybe Happy Ending and Jonathan Groff for Just in Time, both of which were original musicals.
This year’s races made it clear that we’re asking voters to compare creation and interpretation without making space for either to be fully seen.
Yes, it would add a substantial amount of acting categories(unless the Tonys adapts genderless categories). But not a reinvention of the ceremony. No extra bloat. Just a clearer way to acknowledge that these types of performances come from different processes and require different artistic muscles.
It would also ensure less blatant snubs of nominations. If this happened in 2025, worthy performances such as Helen J Shen, the cast of Real Women Have Curves and Old Friends would have been recognized. With the sheer quantity of productions opening in a season now, whittling it down to just five across originals and revivals seems dated more than anything.
If we can distinguish between Best Scenic Design of a Musical and Best Scenic Design of a Play, we can recognize the difference between building a character from scratch and stepping into a role with history.
Theatre is not just about what ends up onstage, it’s about how it got there. An actor in an original production is often shaping a role as the script evolves. There may be rewrites in the rehearsal room. Their voice, movement, and emotional life help define what the role becomes, not just for now, but possibly for every production that follows.
On the other hand, an actor in a revival enters into a kind of dialogue with what has come before. They’re tasked with honoring or reimagining something already beloved. There’s pressure, expectation, and often scrutiny. That’s not easier or harder. It’s just different.
When we cram both into the same category, we’re flattening the work. And we risk erasing the unique challenges each path presents.
Yes, there will always be concern about expanding categories. But if we already distinguish between plays and musicals, leading and featured roles, and even orchestrations versus original scores, this really isn’t so radical.
This isn’t about adding fluff. It’s about precision.
Splitting the categories would give more performances the recognition they deserve. It would make it easier for voters to evaluate work fairly. And it would provide future theatre historians with a more accurate record of what was truly happening each season.
We are lucky to live in a moment where Broadway can celebrate both new work and spectacular revivals. And we’re even luckier when both types of shows feature performers operating at the highest level. But we don’t need to ask them to fight for the same trophy.
Let originators have their own space. Let revival artists have theirs. Let the craft be recognized in all its forms, without forcing voters to choose between incomparable efforts.
In a season where Nicole Scherzinger and Audra McDonald reminded us how thrilling a revival performance can be, and Jasmine Amy Rogers and the icons from Death Becomes Her showed us what it means to introduce new characters to the world, we shouldn’t have to pick one kind of brilliance over the other. We just need to stop pretending they’re the same thing.