The notion that Broadway is the best of theater’s best is bullshit.

BUT, for numerous reasons, the platform that is the Great White Way bestows a certain level of prestige. And from a purely practical perspective, the sheer number of eyeballs in a Broadway house dwarfs the off-Broadway competition.

I don’t know about you, but I feel a little thrill when a favored — but under-heralded — stalwart of the stage gets to shine on New York’s biggest stages. The type who consistently turn in stellar — yet largely unrecognized — work, all while greater fame and fortune continues to elude them; theatergoers may be familiar with their faces, but maybe not their names.

Two examples from the 2023-2024 Broadway season:

Quincy Tyler Bernstine’s role in Doubt is almost designed to grant such an opportunity to these sorts of actors (Viola Davis’ career is bifurcated by BD and AD: Before Doubt, and After Doubt, her first Oscar nomination). In light of the material’s acclaimed legacy, Berenstine’s moment in the spotlight operates as a big Broadway scene in a big Broadway play on a big Broadway stage…her first return to the main stem since her debut in Sarah Ruhl’s In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), a whopping TEN YEARS AGO?!

Betsy Aidem has her beat by one more Broadway appearance, but Prayer for the French Republic cleared out more space for her than All the Way and Leopoldstadt, letting her take the reigns as the archetypal domineering matriarch in a Three-Act Family Drama.

And now, both turns have received Tony nominations.