Theater-goers disagree with Tony Award voters: BroadwayWorld.com poll
"Xanadu" star Cheyenne Jackson wasn't nominated for a Tony Award
, but he's waaaaay ahead of the chap who won that Broadway prize for best actor in a musical (Paulo Szot in "South Pacific") in an online poll conducted by BroadwayWorld.com. In fact, 
Szot only reaps 14% of the vote right now, compared to 29% for Jackson, 20% for Lin-Manuel Miranda ("In the Heights") and 17% for Daniel Evans ("Sunday in the Park with George").
For the sixth year in a row, BroadwayWorld.com is canvassing the views of regular theater-goers immediately after the Tony Awards results are known so that fans get the chance to disagree — or, sometimes, agree about best musical, for example. But in that category, while "In the Heights" is currently polling the most support (36%), the next three vote-getters are surprising and two weren't even nominated. In second place is nominee "Xanadu" (30%) and snubbees "Young Frankenstein" (12%) and "The Little Mermaid" (7%).
Tonys champ "August: Osage County" leads the best-play matchup by a walloping edge (66% over second-place "Is He Dead?" which polls 9% despite getting shut out of that Tonys category. However, poll voters prefer non-nominated Norbert Leo Butz ("Is He Dead?") over Tonys winner Mark Rylance ("Boeing-Boeing") for best actor in a play, by 18% vs. 11%.
Check out more poll results and log your own choices by CLICKING HERE.
The snide little question mark on the picture tells me that the writer of this article has not seen Mr. Jackson's performance.
I personally thought Daniel Evans should have won for SITPWG, but it WAS a travesty that Cheyenne was not nominated. As an early poster pointed out, both NY Time critics said Cheyenne was egregiously snubbed.
For those of you that don’t know, Passing Strange was produced by the Schubert Organization which controls most of the Theaters in NYC, thus it was a foregone conclusion they nominated Stew.
Posted by: Alicia | June 25, 2008 at 02:11 PM
Both New York Times Critics Isherwood & Brantely wrote that Cheyenne should have been nominated. It was a huge upset that he wasn't. Agreed, his performance was ione of the best this year.
Posted by: Chad | June 25, 2008 at 11:51 AM
The general consensus in NYC is that, Cheyenne should have been nominated. The fact that Stew from Passing Strange recieved an "Acting" nomination is a joke. Stew's other nominations were much deserved but anyone who has seen Passing Strange knows Stew just ROCKED out.
Posted by: karen | June 25, 2008 at 11:33 AM
Cheyenne is an amazing actor and he is absolutely wonderful in Xanadu. Not only did he deserve a Tony nomination for his performance, he gave the best performance at the Tony's next to Patti Lupone.
I was a Xanadu skeptic, but ended up really liking the show. And Mr. Jackson was the main reason. He had the very difficult job of being the only actor to ground his performance in reality . The other Characters were way over the top.
I see why his performance, aside from his looks and voice resonated with theater goers
Posted by: Micky | June 25, 2008 at 10:58 AM