TEN!

It's been far far too long since the word SQUEEEEE!1!!11 was mentioned on this blog! Coast of Utopia has swept the Tony nominations! Here's the damage:

• Best Play
• Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play: Brian F. O'Byrne
  
• Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play: Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke
• Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play: Jennifer Ehle (double woot!), Martha Plimpton
  
• Best Direction of a Play: Jack O'Brien
• Best Scenic Design of a Play: Bob Crowley and Scott Pask (Mr Crowley is also nominated in two other categories for Mary Poppins)
  
• Best Costume Design of a Play: Catherine Zuber
  
• Best Lighting Design of a Play: Brian MacDevitt, Kenneth Posner, and Natasha Katz (Mr MacDevitt is competing against himself in this category for Inherit the Wind)
  

Head-to-head nominations in TWO categories! As noted below, Utopian David Pittu was nominated in his musical LoveMusik. Congratulations all! The NY Times sez that Utopia is the most-nominated straight play ever.

Broadway.com has nominees' reactions to the announcement; here's Ms Ehle's:

I found out by getting an email from [co-star] Kellie Overbey on my Blackberry. I was in the car—we live upstate and were driving home. She wrote and said congratulations, and at the same time, I got another e-mail from my friend, Brooke Smith, saying the same thing, so I knew it must be true. I instantly wrote back to Kellie going, 'Who else? Who else?' It's just a huge shock, but for some reason, finding out everybody who got nominated was when the real thrill and excitement kicked in because it means that we get to celebrate this production for another month. Having just closed, that's such a joy. It's so great that we get to go on seeing each other. It kind of feels like it's keeping alive for a little bit longer. I didn't scream, I didn't cry. I called my mother and told her, and I told my husband, who was in the car, and my son. He's four and said, 'What are you guys talking about?' And we were just like, 'Oh, some people liked the way mama helped to tell a story, and we're happy about it.' I'm kind of in a state of shock. It's very exciting. I sent [co-star] Martha [Plimpton] an e-mail, and I got an e-mail from director Jack [O'Brien], but I haven't actually spoken to anyone. We literally moved back from Manhattan to where we live upstate today, so it's already a bit of a big day. We got home and saw how many weeds had grown in the garden since last week and set to work on that. I'm celebrating by pulling weeds and doing laundry and just being home. I'm thrilled for David Pittu, of course. David got nominated for LoveMusik, but we claim him still, because he will always be a part of Coast as well. To stand alongside Martha in this category representing the women of Utopia is the best thing of all. It is a glorious thing to have happened."

Awww. More from Billy Crudup, Scott Pask and Martha Plimpton. Watch this page.

Too much news. Have some disorganised linkies:

• The Drama Critics' Circle Awards photocall sports a nice piccy of Martha Plimpton, Jennifer Ehle, Bianca Amato and Jason Butler Harner.
• Lawson Taitte's Dallas Morning News review of a marathon.
• BroadwayWorld forums: "should/will win", initial reactions.
  
• NY1's video of the announcements (I think, no RealPlayer here).
• Have a few hundred spare roubles? Go to the Tonys...the easy way.
• Utopia page on the Tonys website.
• Report from the final Utopia performance including curtain call teariness.
• Hey, Ms Ehle got to play with Meryl Streep at last, according to BroadwayWorld News:

  Jenny Schwartz -- an emerging young playwright whose numerous works include the recently-acclaimed God's Ear, along with Cause for Alarm and Escaping the Modern World-- has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Soho Rep Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellow, it was announced last evening by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson at the Soho Rep Spring Gala '07 in Manhattan [that took place on Monday May 14th].
  
  A scene from Schwartz's new work, Somewhere Fun, was given a staged reading at the Gala by a cast featuring 2 time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, recent Tony Nominee Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia), and Gala host and Soho Rep Board Member Tim Blake Nelson. [...]

• Check out pictures from the above gala.
  

PS. One more SQUEE!!! for good luck!