NEW YORK – The theme is the stuff of theatrical lore: the onetime star desperate for a comeback. On this occasion, though, it’s an entire industry that’s aching for the comeback – in a story that reaches its climax on Sunday night.

I’m talking about Broadway and the Tony Awards, the celebratory vehicle by which American theater sells itself to a national television audience. Oh, yeah: It also hands out a bunch of statuettes to talented show people. But make no mistake. Marketing the Great White Way’s latest output is the Tonys’ most sacred mission. What producers really want to hear, each time the band strikes up on this exuberant evening in Radio City Music Hall is the sweet sound of ka-ching.

The stakes surrounding the event – the Tony’s 75th-anniversary ceremony, hosted this year by “West Side Story” Oscar winner Ariana DeBose – could not be higher: A win in a major category can add weeks, months or more to a show’s life. And this year, Broadway is still in what you might call a viral convalescence, recuperating from the debilitating effects of a pandemic shutdown that began in March 2020. It didn’t begin to ease until late June 2021, when Bruce Springsteen led the way with the return of his hit solo show. Then came the first post-pandemic play in August, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over,” and the return in September of the tentpole warhorses – “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “Hamilton” and “Chicago.”

Dozens of other returning or new shows followed in the 2021-22 season, which ended April 30 – the first full season on Broadway since 2018-19. (Last fall’s oddly conceived, catch-up Tonys gave out awards for the abbreviated 2019-20 season.) This season has proved to be an artistically robust re-engagement, even surprisingly so, as evidenced by an unusually overstuffed slate of nominees: six shows vying for best new musical; seven contenders for best actor in a play. (The norm is four or five at most.) Works up for consideration, including the musicals “A Strange Loop,” “Six” and “Girl From the North Country,” and such plays as “The Minutes,” “The Lehman Trilogy” and “Clyde’s,” speak to those vital renewable resources of the arts, freshness and inventive energy.

But if Broadway and the theater beyond are staging a comeback, well, not everything has done so successfully. Just this week, three musicals that saw triumphs on pre-pandemic Tony nights – “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” and “Come From Away” – announced end dates for their Broadway runs. Broadway’s health has indeed been spotty, with some productions, including the Tony-winning “Hadestown” and the star-driven Hugh Jackman revival of “The Music Man,” reporting brisk business. At the same time, such newcomers as the musical version of “Mrs. Doubtfire” and the revival of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” prematurely cratered.

A glance at statistics published by the Broadway League – the trade group that runs the Tonys with the American Theatre Wing – reveals the slow progress. For the week ending June 2, 2019, for example, Broadway shows collected a total of $37 million; for the week ending June 5 of this year, the take dropped to $29 million. In 2019, 11 shows were sold out; for the comparable week this year, it was two.

“Christmas and January in New York felt like chaos,” said one veteran Broadway producer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the industry more freely. For some mainstay Broadway shows, the producer added, “all the profits were made before the shutdown. They did not come back well.”

The pandemic roller coaster has also wreaked havoc on theater reliability. Few things raise consumer anxiety more forcefully than a well-planned visit to New York scuttled by performance cancellations. Broadway menace, thy name was omicron: The coronavirus variant raced through acting ensembles and stage crews regularly throughout the holiday season. So a mad rush to open delayed productions in April, right up to the deadline for Tony Award eligibility, created an unprecedented traffic jam. That affected the bottom line, too, as shows that garnered outstanding reviews had little chance to lasso the media’s, and therefore the public’s, attention.

“Shows were opening five times a week for four weeks,” the producer said, explaining the dearth of buzz-fueled momentum. “Everyone was having one good day, and no one could break out.”

In such an environment, the need to acquire the publicity-enhancing luster of a Tony Award takes on a more urgent dimension. The traditional Tony broadcast – which on Sunday begins with an hour of awards in design and other categories on Paramount Plus and continues with a three-hour event on CBS – draws a nationwide audience in the 5 1/2 million-viewer range. That may be minuscule by network TV standards. But history demonstrates that a sparkling production number in prime time can give a show a substantial box-office boost, because those who tune into the Tonys tend to be theater patrons.

A total of 29 shows earned nominations in the 26 eligible categories this year. Nineteen of those shows are still running, including all six vying for best musical. (These also include “Paradise Square,” “MJ” and “Mr. Saturday Night.”) The race, I think, is between “Six,” a rollicking, revue-style musical that tells the stories in witty, contemporary fashion of the six wives of Henry VIII, and “A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s brilliant Pulitzer-winning portrait of a struggling Black queer composer of Broadway musicals. I’d give the edge to the groundbreaking “A Strange Loop.”

In the other most coveted category, best new play, the call is harder because the competition is so fierce. The aforementioned nominees – Tracy Letts’s “The Minutes,” Stefano Massini and Ben Power’s “The Lehman Trilogy” and Lynn Nottage’s “Clyde’s” – are vying with Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and Dominique Morisseau’s “Skeleton Crew.”

This is one of those unusual years in which you couldn’t quibble no matter which way the 650 Tony voters – producers, directors and other theater professionals – decide to go. If it were a three-way tie among “Minutes,” “Lehman” and “Clyde’s,” I’d be a happy critic. In the end, I predict the trophy will go to the now closed, epic-length “Lehman Trilogy,” the story of the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers, as dramatized by three protean actors, Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester (all of whom are nominated as best actor in a play).

Other races to watch: Two young newcomers making their Broadway debuts – Jaquel Spivey in “A Strange Loop” and Myles Frost in “MJ,” the Michael Jackson musical – seem to me the favorites for best actor in a musical. Look to Sharon D. Clarke to nab the prize for best actress in a musical, for her sterling turn as the exhausted housekeeper in the revival of “Caroline, or Change.” If there is justice in Times Square, “Trouble in Mind” – Alice Childress’s play about backstage racism, making its Broadway debut more than 60 years after it was written – will win for best revival of a play.

I’d also love to see LaChanze win for her portrayal of an actress frustrated by being consigned to Black stereotypes in Childress’s comedy-drama. And in that seven-man sprint for best actor in a play, Sam Rockwell would be a worthy Tony recipient as a manic, small-time scam artist in the satisfying revival of “American Buffalo.” (Although a three-way tie among the “Lehman Trilogy” trio would also suit me just fine.)

No matter who else might be covered in glory on Sunday, there’s one universally loved winner already: Angela Lansbury, at 96, is being honored with a lifetime achievement award. That’s one Broadway denizen a theater lover wishes would always come back.

The Tony Awards begin Sunday at 7 p.m. on Paramount Plus, and then continue on CBS at 8 p.m. for three hours of coverage.

 

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