Meet the CMU alumni who are nominated for this year's Tony Awards

Carnegie Mellon University has plenty to brag about now that this year’s Tony nominations have been announced.

The 77th Tony Awards, which honor the season’s best efforts on Broadway, will take place this year on Sunday, June 16. When nominations were announced on April 30, six alumni of Carnegie Mellon netted a total of 11 nominations. In addition, it was announced on May 7 that alumnus Billy Porter will receive the Isabelle Stevenson Award ”in recognition of his outstanding dedication and contributions as an activist and spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ communities.”

So who are these stars who once graced the Carnegie Mellon campus? Here’s a little bit about them — so that everyone knows who to root for on Tonys night.

Leslie Odom Jr.

This isn’t Leslie Odom Jr.’s first shot at the Tonys — he won the 2016 award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.”

This year, he’s nominated for two awards, both for the play “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch.” As one of the play’s producers, he was nominated for Best Revival of a Play, and also for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for his turn as the title character.

Odom Jr. graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2003.

“Carnegie Mellon University was everything,” he said. “I came to New York when I was 17 and joined a Broadway show called ‘Rent’ and there was this guy in the show that was with the highest admiration; a professional. He had a process and he was consistent and reliable and I was just so impressed. His name was Michael McElroy and he had gone to a school called Carnegie Mellon University. So, I went to Carnegie Mellon to be like Michael McElroy.”

In addition to his much-lauded performance in “Hamilton,” Odom Jr. has found success in film. He is featured in 2017’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” “One Night in Miami” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”

“I like to say half of my education came from my professors and the other half was from my classmates. From these really talented, brilliant kids from all over the country. We learned and stole [ideas] from each other and challenged each other. It was really good for me and I think for all of us, the way we pushed each other,” he said of his time at Carnegie Mellon.

Will Brill

Brill is making his Tony debut this year as a nominee for the Best Featured Actor in a Play award for his role in “Stereophonic.” The play itself broke records with its 13 overall nods.

A 2009 alum of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, Brill has had roles in the series “The OA” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” as well as Broadway experience in “Act One” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

He also acted in the off-Broadway American premiere of the play “Tribes” in 2012 and 2013, an experience, he said, for which his time at Carnegie Mellon prepared him.

“Carnegie Mellon really trains you for the spiritual and physical and mental endurance that is required of a person in this business. It’s relentless. I don’t know that without that, I would have been able to do a year in ‘Oklahoma!’ or a year in ‘Tribes,’” he said.

Jamie deRoy

With an impressive five nominations this year, producer Jamie deRoy — who graduated Carnegie Mellon in 1967 — may very well add to her collection of 12 Tonys.

This year, she’s nominated in two categories: Best Revival of a Musical for “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Gutenberg! The Musical!” and “The Who’s Tommy,” and Best Play for “Stereophonics.”

She has helped to produce more than 80 Broadway shows over her career.

deRoy also has appeared onstage and onscreen, including in “The Threepenny Opera” with fellow Carnegie Mellon alum René Auberjonois.

Joshua Harmon

Playwright Joshua Harmon earned his MFA at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2010. His play, “Prayer for the French Republic,” was nominated for three Tony Awards, including Best Play.

The play opened off-Broadway in 2022 and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play that year.

Harmon is a passionate advocate for the value of the arts.

“All we hear about now are the rising levels of depression and isolation that kids feel. The arts and theatre, in particular, is a communal experience where you collaborate with other people and try to make something together.

“It is a place of connection where whether you’re making it or you’re in the audience experiencing it, it taps into something that goes beyond the rational. It’s an emotional experience and those experiences are more important than ever in a world where I think people feel more and more isolated,” he said. 

He looks back fondly at his time at Carnegie Mellon.

“What I remember most about my time at Carnegie Mellon was the opportunity to collaborate with the directors and the actors. I made a lot of friends, and we made a lot of theatre.”

Sarah Pidgeon

The university’s most recent alumna to be nominated this year, Sarah Pidgeon, who graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2018, has netted a nom for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for her role in “Stereophonics.”

She has also appeared in the series “The Wilds” and “Tiny Beautiful Things.”

“My time at Carnegie Mellon University was filled with so much joy. Four years I think anywhere is a weird experience; you’re figuring out who you are and I feel so lucky that I was able to do that with my class and with people who had such a passion for acting and the craft with so many incredible teachers that not only instructed me and encouraged me and inspired me, but also really helped me figure out who I was when I was 18, 20 years old,” she said.

Leigh Silverman

A 1996 Carnegie Mellon School of Drama alumna, Leigh Silverman was nominated for Best Director of a Musical for “Suffs.” The musical is about the fight for women’s right to vote in the early 20th century.

Silverman is a prolific Broadway and off-Broadway stage director. She was also nominated for the Tony in 2014 for the 2013 revival of the musical “Violet.”

Many see Silverman as a pioneer, as she was a woman directing at the highest levels of theater when women were scarce in that role.