Best Musical

What Happened: SpongeBob won the Outer Critics Circle award on Monday, giving it the edge over Mean Girls which had held a tie for second as of Nomination morning. That said, Mean Girls has given us a taste of what looks like will be a vey strong campaign. Seveal of their contenders presented at Sunday’s Lucille Lortel Awards, Tony Nominee Ashley Park took home the Lortel for Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in KPOP and Tony Nominees Taylor Lauderman and Ashley Park will host the 2018 Drama League Awards next friday with their co-star, Kate Rockwell.

Best Revival of a Musical

What Happened: With My Fair Lady winning the OCC last weekend, it bumped itself up ahead of Carousel. If I were to guess, I think this is the start of a slide into third position for Caroursel, which surprised me by being the most nominated revival of the year (at 11 nods).

Lead Actor in a Musical

What Happened: The results of the OCC Awards gave SpongeBob SquarePants bumps accross the board – the production won more awards than any other musical. Ethan Slate was, himself, one of these OCC winners, bumping him up to lead this pack – a position he’s likely to hold for the next 5 weeks barring any miracles or unforseen circumstances.

Featued Actor in a Musical

What Happened: Where there was a tie for second between Ari’el Stachel and Gavin Lee, there is now a slight gap. Gavin fell in the rankings because he lost to Norbert Leo Butz at the OCCs.

Featured Actress in a Play

What Happened: The race for Best Featured Actress in a Play is one of the fiercest races this year. Dumezweni and Gough both won Oliviers for their performances in these roles on the West End, and Metcalf is…well…Laurie Freakin’ Metcalf. Last week on the OHenry Report, I mentioned that if I had to guess now, I’d say Denise Gough would win this award. At the time, I had her ranked as #2 in the category. Well, now I don’t know what to think, because it seems like American audiences aren’t as crazy about these Londoners as we expected they’d be. Metcalf won the OCC over Gough (Dumezweni was not nominated). Gough is not nominated for either the Drama League or Drama Desk, so she can’t bank on using a win in either of those awards to help bolster her chance at the Tony. Dumezweni wasn’t nominated for either an OCC or a Drama Desk Award. She is up for the Drama League’s Distinguished Performance award but there’s no reasonable chance she would win that award. That leaves both Dumezweni and Gough in a position where they will have no other big award wins to position them as actresses univerally praised as worthy of championing the category at the Tonys. Metcalf, on the other hand, has already won the OCC, is up for the Drama League’s Distinguished Performance Award, and is also a nomineed for the Drama Desk in the Lead Actress category.

It’s also important to note that Dumezweni and Gough have very similar narratives to push in their campaign – both are making their Broadway Debuts with Olivier Award winning performances. Similar narratives usually means that voters compelled by that narrative will split their votes between the two actresses, giving Metcalf a real shot at the win.

Best Book of a Musical

What Happened: Tina Fey won the OCC, but more importantly has lined up a ton of press appearances for the next few weeks that should remind voters that her book is the key to Mean Girls success.

Best Costume Design of a Musical

What Happened: With all the wins that SpongeBob SquarePants collected at the OCCs, the fact that they lost Costume Design to Catherine Zuber’s work on My Fair Lady indicates that Bikini Bottom may not be as competitive in this category as we had thought.