Sara Chase woke up a Tony nominee. The Hartford native received her first-ever Tony nod for playing Melissa Gimble — the Broadway‑loving OB‑GYN who gets stuck in a musical with her husband — in the theatrical adaptation of Schmigadoon!, which collected 12 nominations this year.
The number matters: 12 nominations tied Schmigadoon! with The Lost Boys for the most nods at the 79th annual Tony Awards, and the breadth of categories shows the production’s reach. Cinco Paul earned nominations for best book of a musical and best original score; Scott Pask was named for scenic design; Donald Holder drew a nomination for lighting design; and the roster includes designers, composers and actors across the show’s creative map.
Those nominations carry a regional note. Six of Schmigadoon!’s nominees have New England connections — among them Chase; lighting designer Donald Holder, who holds a degree from the University of Maine; musician Mike Morris, who attended Berklee College of Music; and Walter Trarbach, a Boston University alumnus. The slate signals unusually wide recognition across acting and technical categories for a single stage adaptation.
Chase’s nomination is personal as well as professional. Melissa Gimble is not a stock comedic role; she’s written as a suburban, musical‑obsessed physician trapped in a surreal town, and Chase’s turn drew attention from voters who rarely single out performers in high‑concept ensemble pieces. For Chase, whose career has threaded regional theater and television work, the Tony nod is the clearest mainstream recognition to date.
But the headlines about the nominations do not settle the story. Schmigadoon!’s 12 nods sit alongside The Lost Boys’ 12, and that tie turns the awards into a contest of conversion: which show will turn nominations into wins? The Lost Boys’ emergence as an equal contender has been voiced onstage and off; its performer Ali Louis Bourzgui described his show recently as, "It’s its own thing," a shorthand for how different productions can arrive at the same level of industry attention through very different routes.
The background to the nominations is straightforward: Schmigadoon! is adapted from the Apple TV series, and the Broadway production assembled a team that combined screen writers and stage designers. That mix helped the show earn votes across disciplines. The nomination list also highlights the tight weave between New England training grounds and Broadway careers — from Berklee and Boston University to Maine and Connecticut — a reminder that the region still funnels talent into the commercial theater ecosystem.
There is an open gap the nominations cannot answer: how many of Schmigadoon!’s 12 nods will become Tony wins. The nominations measure consensus about a season; the awards will measure taste and campaigning on one night. Critics and audiences will have opinions, but the definitive result comes when trophies are handed out.
The next public moment is the awards ceremony itself, where Schmigadoon!’s sweep will either be confirmed or reframed. For Chase, the nomination already changes the calendar of opportunities and expectations; for the production, the real test is not the count of nominations but how many it converts into awards at the 79th annual Tony Awards.
