{"id":692070,"date":"2026-06-08T18:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/692070\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:53:12","slug":"rocky-horror-ali-louis-bourzgui-2026-tony-awards-snubs-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/692070\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Horror, Ali Louis Bourzgui: 2026 Tony Awards Snubs, Surprises\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRagtime and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/broadway-cats-revival-1236586791\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Cats: The Jellicle Ball<\/a> battled it out at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/2026-tony-awards-winners-list\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">2026 Tonys<\/a>, leading to some unexpected wins and snubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe musical revivals went into Sunday night\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/awards\/\" id=\"auto-tag_awards_1\" data-tag=\"awards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">awards<\/a> ceremony with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/2026-tony-awards-nominations-full-list\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">11 and nine nominations respectively<\/a>, and they ended the night with Ragtime in a slight lead with four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/gallery\/2026-tonys-red-carpet-looks-arrivals-1236615895\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Tonys<\/a> to Cats: The Jellicle Ball\u2018s three awards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRagtime <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/tonys-2026-recap-highlights-winners-1236616152\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">triumphed in the best musical revival category<\/a>, arguably the closest race of the night. However, Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, who directed Cats: The Jellicle Ball, won best direction of a musical over Ragtime director Lear deBessonet, triumphing in a close race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAnother Cats snub and surprise win came in the featured actor in a musical race. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/theater-0\/\" id=\"auto-tag_theater-0_1\" data-tag=\"theater-0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Theater<\/a> legend Andr\u00e9 De Shields was seen as having an edge in the category for his role as Old Deuteronomy, a literally show-stopping performance, but instead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/ali-louis-bourzgui-palestine-fascists-tonys-speech-1236616098\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Ali Louis Bourzgui was the surprise winner<\/a> for his role as The Lost Boys\u2018 charismatic vampire leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBourzgui delivered a powerful speech, in which he spoke out against fascists and billionaires and in support of Arab artists and Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAnother notable surprise and snub came in the featured actor in a play category as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/alden-ehrenreich-broadway-audiences-1236591121\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Becky Shaw\u2018s Alden Ehrenreich<\/a> beat out Death of a Salesman\u2018s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/christopher-abbott\/\" id=\"auto-tag_christopher-abbott_1\" data-tag=\"christopher-abbott\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christopher Abbott<\/a> in what was another close race. Death of a Salesman also suffered a rare defeat in the lead actor in a play category, when star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/nathan-lane\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nathan-lane_1\" data-tag=\"nathan-lane\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nathan Lane<\/a> lost to Giant\u2018s John Lithgow, though Lithgow had been widely viewed as the winner, particularly after he won the Olivier Award for the same role last year. Still, Lane led a strong campaign and was praised for his performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tA number of shows that went into the night with multiple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/tony-awards\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tony-awards_1\" data-tag=\"tony-awards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Awards<\/a> nominations were completely shut out: Nine-time nominee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/luke-evans-dr-frank-n-furter-on-broadway-1236604572\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Richard O\u2019Brien\u2019s The Rocky Horror Show<\/a>, eight-time nominee Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) and four-time nominee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/marla-mindelle-titanique-tony-nom-celine-dion-interview-1236586903\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Titan\u00edque<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ragtime and Cats: The Jellicle Ball battled it out at the 2026 Tonys, leading to some unexpected wins&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10546,21540,79984,88,300201,12362,144710,270839,270552,299821],"class_list":["post-692070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-awards","tag-broadway","tag-christopher-abbott","tag-entertainment","tag-nathan-lane","tag-theater","tag-tony-awards","tag-tony-awards-2026","tag-tonys","tag-tonys-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}