There are five nominees from three productions for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. From Noises Off, Megan Hilty and Andrea Martin, from Eclipsed, Pascale Armand and Saycon Sengbloh, and from The Humans, Jayne Houdyshell.

Let’s take a look at what each actress has going for them as they vie for their chance to take the stage on Tony night. I’ll start with the most favored Actress, and end with the dark horses.

Pascale Armand

Pascale’s performance in Eclipsed is nothing short of hilarious – a well needed characteristic for sitting through the rest of the very dark and serious play. The main thing she has against her is that she is up against her co-star, Saycon Sengbloh, which always means a dilution of prospective votes. Pascale picked up an Outer Critics Circle Award win over her closest competition in the category, Jayne Houdyshell. Speaking of…

Jayne Houdyshell

Jayne just won the OBIE award for her performance in Roundabout’s off-Broadway production of The Humans. She was also nominated for a Lucille Lortel award for this performance.

Saycon Sengbloh

Pascale’s performance is so loud that it somewhat overshadows the deliberate, subtle performance of Saycon Sengbloh. Saycon is one of only two of the nominees who was also nominated by the Drama Desk Awards, though (the other being Megan Hilty)

Megan Hilty

Megan Hilty got a Drama League nomination and a Drama Desk nomination for her performance in Noises Off. The Drama League Award isn’t all that telling since the Drama League tends to nominate performers who have some sort of Movie/TV appeal, which Megan has. The reason she is so far down on the list is that her show has closed, and I don’t think her performance was amazing enough to keep her so fresh on the voters’ minds.

Andrea Martin

Andrea Martin is one of the greatest Broadway actresses of our time, but she already has two Tony Awards on her Mantle and with the competition she is up against, she is unlikely to pick up a third this year.