Chita Rivera Awards: 2025 Nominations for Film and Broadway

by Nathaniel R

We've mentioned the low-profile Chita Rivera Awards a few times here at The Film Experience. The awards, named after the legendary Broadway performer of West Side Story, The Rink, Chicago, and Sweet Charity fame are a fun idea, honoring dance in both feature films and on Broadway (the more common place for dance to be honored). Since we love all three art forms and the namesake we are all for this! The 2025 honors will be their 7th installment.

This year's ceremony will be held in NYC on May 19 with the amazing Tony & Emmy winner Bebe Neuwirth (Chicago, Cheers) as host. The most famous nominee this year is surely Jonathan Groff. While we've had an enormous crush on him for years, we swear that it's his abundant talent and not his beauty that have kept the fires burning. Plus mad respect for the surely difficult but highly welcome balancing act he's been doing mixing feature films, tv shows, and Broadway shows fairly consistently for years. Groff is involved in both the stage and film categories this year. Read on for the nominations and a few comments...

STAGE CATEGORIES

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHY IN A BROADWAY SHOW

• Boop! The Musical - Jerry Mitchell
• Buena Vista Social Club - Patricia Delgado /Justin Peck
• Death Becomes Her  - Christopher Gattelli
• Just in Time - Shannon Lewis
• Pirates! A Penzance Musical - Warren Carlyle
• Smash -Joshua Bergasse
• A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical - Rickey Tripp / DeWitt Fleming Jr

I am sad to report that I have yet to see any of these shows. If only I had more time and more money.  But I am fantasizing that I will find a way to see them all quickly. 

It'll be interesting to see which of these is nominated for Best Musical at the Tonys. They can't all be!  There are only five nominees per year and these aren't the only seven shows eligible for the category. It's an unusually competitive year with 15 eligible productions, many well regarded, vying for nods.  The other eligible original musicals are Dead Outlaw, Maybe Happy Ending (superb! but no dancing), Operation Mincemeat, Real Women Have Curves, Redwood, Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends (a nostalgia fest), Swept Away, and Tammy Faye. In short the Tony nominations -- announced very soon -- will be a blood bath.

OUTSTANDING DANCER IN A BROADWAY SHOW
If the show is closed it has an asterisk by the name

• Angélica Beliard, Buena Vista Social Club (3rd Broadway show) - ENSEMBLE
• Kevin Csolak, Gypsy (4th Broadway show) -FEATURED
• Carlos Falú, Buena Vista Social Club (2nd show) -ENSEMBLE
• DeWitt Fleming, Jr., A Wonderful World* (debut) -FEATURED
• Jonathan Groff, Just In Time (5th show) - LEAD
• Robyn Hurder, Smash (8th show) -LEAD
• Héctor Juan Maisonet, Buena Vista Social Club (2nd show) -ENSEMBLE
• Ilda Mason, Buena Vista Social Club (2nd show) - ENSEMBLE
• Marielys Molina, Buena Vista Social Club (5th show) - ENSEMBLE
• Jasmine Amy Rogers, Boop! The Musical (debut - LEAD 

The awards used to be split into male and female categories but they've since been degendered.

I was surprised to see Groff here. Though he's a thrilling tap dancer, his new Broadway Show is about 1960s popstar and songwriter Bobby Darin, so I didn't expect there'd be much dancing in it?

Kevin Csolak (who was one of the Jets in Spielberg's West Side Story), is the only nominee whose show isn't up for Best Choreography. That's less of a surprise though since he plays Tulsa in the latest revival of "Gypsy" (Audra McDonald headlines). Tulsa is a great opportunity for triple-threat actors with the showcase number "All I Need is the Girl". (Revival Tangent: David Burtka (most famous as Neil Patrick Harris' hubby) played Tulsa in the underrated Bernadette Peters led revival (2003) which was the first time I ever saw this oft-revived musical on stage, the next time it was on Broadway with Patti Lupone (2008) the role went to the always thrilling Tony Yazbeck (a previous Chita Rivera winner, albeit not for that role) who is one of Broadway's sexiest male stars, in the most recent revival prior to this season's show (led by Imelda Staunton - literally the best "Mama Rose" I've ever seen), West-end regular Dan Burton, was so strong he was Olivier-nominated. 

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE IN A BROADWAY SHOW

• Boop! The Musical
• Buena Vista Social Club
• Death Becomes Her
• Just In Time
• Pirates! The Penzance Musical
• Smash
• A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical*

Can I please see all seven of these shows IMMEDIATELY? It'll be interesting to see which of these is nominated for Best Musical at the Tonys. They can't all be nominated. There are only five nominees per year and 

FILM CATEGORIES 

Originally there was a single film/doc category but now they've split them...

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHY IN A FEATURE FILM
Previous winners of this category: Barbie, tick tick Boom!, 13:The Musical, Mary Poppins Returns, The Greatest Showman

• A Nice Indian Boy, Choreographers: Zina D. Mello, Breanna English, Christian Lagasse
• Emilia Perez, Choreographer: Damien Jalet
• Sh’ma: A Story of Survival, Choreographer: Suki John
• Snow White, Choreographer: Mandy Moore
• Wicked, Part 1, Choreographer: Christopher Scott

We did not expect in the summer of the year of our Lord 2025 to still be dealing with Emilia Perez but here we are!

In brighter news, I cannot recommend A Nice Indian Boy highly enough. If it comes to your city, make sure you see it. The romantic drama about a reserved gay Indian man and his new white boyfriend (an endearingly earnest Jonathan Groff) navigating emotional hangups, fraught family introductions, and cultural assumptions in a refreshing, tear-jerking, and uplifting way. It's in limited theatrical release at the moment.

The only film we weren't familiar with here was Sh'ma: A Story of Survival. Upon investigation it's a narrative feature told in dance (ooh, we have to see this) about a woman from her "school days to the ghetto, to her deportation to a concentration camp, and finally her immigration to the U.S."

OUTSTANDING DIRECTION OF A DANCE DOCUMENTARY

• A Resilient Man, Director: Stephane Carrel
• Better Man, Director: Michael Gracey
• Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, Director: Bruce David Klein
• Two Roads, Director: Susan Wittenberg
• Who Cares About Pal Frenak, Director: Gloria Halasz

Allow us a moment to chuckle at Better Man, the December released bio-musical about Robbie Williams (depicted as an ape) which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, being dubbed a "documentary". Okayyyy. It is so very much not a dance documentary, even if there are a quite a few musical numbers in it with fun dancing. If you want the category to be expansive just say "Outstanding Direction of Dance Film/Documentary" instead!  (Longtime readers know how crazy inaccurate category titles make me). 

You might not have heard of the other nominees...

A Resilient Man and Who Cares about Pál Frenák are documentaries about famous male dancers, Steven MacRae (principal dancer of the Royal Ballet) and Pál Frenák (multi-hyphenate Hungarian force in the dance world).

There are multiple movies called Two Roads but the movie in question is an interesting sounding doc about the complex cultural bond and shared journey between Black and Irish Americans, and their common ground and shared humanity through music, song, and dance. 

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story is, naturally, a doc about the one and only. It's just fabulous and you will have a great time if you see it. If you're looking for a career doc / biography though, be warned that it's not that and all the better for it as its more specific. It's mostly about Liza's big heart and intimate relationships with the influential people who helped her create her star persona.