Who Is Alex Newell? 5 Things to Know About ‘Shucked’ Star Making History With 2023 Tony Nomination

usmagazine.com:

No shucks given! Alex Newell is making history with their 2023 Tony Award nomination.The 30-year-old Broadway star portrays Lulu in the new musical comedy Shucked, which opened in New York City in April following its 2022 run in Salt Lake City.

When nominations for the 76th annual Tony Awards were announced on Tuesday, May 2, Newell became the first gender nonconforming performer to earn a nod in the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical category.“It’s a hot topic, isn’t it?” they teased during an interview with Variety published one week before the announcement, reflecting on how they chose which category to be recognized in. “I went based off the English language.

The standard has always been a male is an actor and a female as an actress. And I don’t like that. Because when I say I’m an actor, I mean that is my profession, the craft that I studied, the craft that I’m doing.

Everyone who does acting is an actor. That is genderless.”Newell noted that they “appreciate” the separation between actor and actress in order to give more performers “an actual fighting chance” at taking home a trophy. “If we can create that, we can create more lanes for other people who don’t want to stick to those two categories,” they added. “I think me choosing actor, I hope, will be a spark to use that word as it was meant to the art of acting.”While the singer called other nonbinary stars “admirable” for withdrawing from awards consideration as a form of protest — as Yellowjackets‘ Liv Hewson recently did — they also urged the industry to make a change. “It should be a wake-up call.