2012 Tony Award nominations announced - 'Clybourne Park' receives nominations

by ANDREW GANS, KENNETH JONES, ADAM HETRICK, Playbill.com

The Tony Awards, celebrating excellence in Broadway theatre in the 2011-12 season, will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre on the CBS television network June 10. Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris will again host.

Once, the new musical based on the film of the same name, earned 11 Tony nominations, the most of any production of the season. The two Gershwin musicals, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Nice Work If You Can Get It, earned 10 nominations apiece.

All four Best Play nominees, including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Clybourne Park, arrived on Broadway after acclaimed Off-Broadway runs. Venus in Fur and Clybourne Park were first seen by New York audiences in the winter of 2010, while Other Desert Cities and Peter and the Starcatcher debuted in 2011.

Clybourne Park received nominations in four categories: Best Play, Best Director (Pam MacKinnon), Best Set Design (Dan Ostling) and Best Featured Actor in a Play (Jeremy Shamos).