Broadway time is coming, on PBS and CBS

For TV viewers, the Broadway season is coming up.
Well, maybe it’s a mini-season – five busy weeks, when Broadway-type shows get the focus. That starts May 10 with “Hamlet” on PBS … continues with three Friday concerts … then wraps up June 16, with the Tony Awards, which have just announced their nominations. And it includes some interesting crossovers:
— “Purlie Victorious” will be on PBS on May 24, three weeks before its shot at a Tony for best play revival.
— Audra McDonald (shown here), the all-time Tony champ, will be in two of the PBS specials. She has a solo concert May 17, then joins others May 31 for “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 80th Anniversary.” McDonald is the only person to win six Tonys in competetive acting categories; Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris each won five plus an honorary one.
At times, people have people fretted about a shortage of new musicals. There were four nominees most years, only three in 1989 and 2020, two in 1995. For best musical revival, there were three nominees most years, two in 2019, 2011 and 2002.
This year, however, there are five nominees for best musical and four for musical revival. That follows a year which, by one count, had 14 new musicals and six revivals … plus a flood of new and revival plays. Details include:
PBS BROADWAY SERIES (9 p.m. Fridays): May 10, “Hamlet” in Central Park; May 17, McDonald at the London Palladium; May 24, “Purlie Victorious”; May 31, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 80th Ammiversary.” As it happens, “Purlie Victorious” also has six Tony nominations, including best play revival, actor (Leslie Odom Jr.) and director (Kenny Leon, who also directed “Hamlet”).
TONY NOMINATIONS (8 p.m. ET, June 16, CBS, with Ariana DeBose hosting):
— Best musical: “Hell’s Kitchen” (13 nominations), “The Outsiders” (12), “Water for Elephants” (7), “Suffs” (6), “Illinoise” (4).
— Musical revival: “Cabaret at the Kid Kat Club” (9, adapting “Cabaret”), “Merrily We Roll Along” (7), “Tommy” and “Guttenberg! The Musical!” (1 each).
— Best play: “Stereophonic” (13), “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” (5), “Mary Jane” and “Mother Play” (4 each), “Prayer For the French Republic” (3).
— Play revival: “Appropriate” (8), “Purlie Victorious” (6), “An Enemy of the People” (5).