NEW YORK – Last week, I had the pleasure of moderating the second installment of "In Conversation," a collaboration between BAFTA New York and The Hollywood Reporter that provides an opportunity for British filmmakers to discuss their lives and careers in-depth in front of an audience of BAFTA members. Our guest for the first such hourlong conversation, which was held back in February at The Standard High Line, was Benedict Cumberbatch. This time around, we were delighted to welcome another terrific young British actor, Hugh Dancy.

NEW YORK – Last Wednesday, I attended the unveiling of composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown's caricature at Sardi's, the 44th Street restaurant that has famously displayed sketches of Broadway luminaries on its walls since the 1920s. Most events of this nature are joyous occasions. This one was bittersweet.

NEW YORK -- When the 68th Tony nominations were announced late last month, several actors found themselves nominated alongside a costar -- or, in one case, two costars -- in the same category. A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder's Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham were both nominated for best actor in a musical; A Raisin in the Sun's Sophie Okonedo and Anika Noni Rose were both nominated for best featured actress in a play; and, most notably of all, Twelfth Night's Paul Chahidi, Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance were all nominated for best featured actor in a play.

While this was undoubtedly received as good news by the nominees and their respective shows, it does beg the question, at least from a stats geek like myself: wouldn't those individuals have had a better chance of winning their category had they not been forced to compete against another actor -- or other actors -- from the same show? After all, doesn't the presence of multiple nominees from the same show increase the likelihood that fans of that show will break in different directions -- some voting for one of the show's nominees, others voting for another or others -- which would thereby undermine all of their vote totals and increase the likelihood of someone else sneaking in for the win?

I decided to investigate this theory to see if it is, in fact, supported by history.

FEINBERG FORECAST: A Look at the Tony Awards Field 

NEW YORK -- When the Tony nominations were announced two weeks ago, the team behind the new Broadway adaptation of the classic 1976 film Rocky -- including Sylvester Stallone, the film's writer and star, who co-wrote the show's book with Thomas Meehan and is one of its producers -- must have felt deeply conflicted emotions.

PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2014: The Nominees 

On the one hand, their star, Andy Karl, was nominated for best leading actor in a musical for his portrayal of the title character, a small-time boxer who gets a big title-shot. On the other hand, the Tony Awards Nominating Committee, which was empowered for the first time to nominate as many as five titles in the best musical category (and the other three categories recognizing shows), opted instead for just four -- and Rocky was not one of them.

The following projections and commentary are based on THR awards analyst Scott Feinberg's ongoing viewings of the nominees; his consultations with THR theater critic David Rooney; and careful readings of other Broadway commentators, plus Tony history books, rule books and much more. You can expect new and updated forecasts each Monday through the Tonys!

NEW YORK -- It has been exactly 20 years since Disney announced its arrival on the Broadway scene with Disney Theatrical Productions' Beauty and the Beast (1994-2007). Right from the get-go, the theater community, which can barely agree on the day of the week, seemed to agree on one thing: however entertaining the Mouse House's stage ventures might be, they represented a dark turn for the Great White Way, towards corporatization and away from originality.

NEW YORK – Last night, I attended a performance of A Raisin in the Sun, the critically acclaimed revival of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 Broadway play turned 1961 movie, at the 1,058-seat Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 47th Street, which was packed to the gills with excited folks who came to see Denzel Washington's take on a role that Sidney Poitier made famous in the same venue more than a half-century ago.

This is what a Broadway show is supposed to look and feel like, I thought to myself as the curtain came up on the veritable hit (last week it grossed more than any other production first mounted in 2014), which President Barack Obama and his wife swung by to see a few weeks ago, and which was nominated last week for best revival of a play, best actress in a play (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) and best featured actress in a play (both Anika Noni Rose and Sophie Okonedo).

The following projections and commentary are based on THR awards analyst Scott Feinberg's viewings of contenders, which will continue through the coming weeks; his consultations with THR theater critic David Rooney; and careful readings of other Broadway commentators, plus Tony history books, rule books and much more. You can expect new and updated forecasts each Monday through the Tonys!

NEW YORK -- It's one thing when a good show comes and goes before the Tony Award nominations announcement, as happened with several productions this season -- among them, eventual best play nominee Outside Mullingar (1/23-3/16); best revival of a play nominees The Glass Menagerie (9/26-2/23) and Twelfth Night (11/10-2/16); and A Night with Janis Joplin (10/10-2/9), which starred eventual best actress in a musical nominee Mary Bridget Davies. (The first three were always intended to be limited engagements; the fourth struggled at the box-office.)

But it's quite another when, less than a week after the Tony Award nominations announcement, it is announced that a good show that scored major nominations -- which usually reflect a certain level of quality and lead to a boost at the box office -- will be closing.

That, however, is precisely what is happening to two shows that have been running at neighboring 45th Street venues for the past several weeks, the play The Velocity of Autumn (4/21-5/4) and the musical The Bridges of Madison County (2/20-5/18), both of which landed best actress noms en route to being axed.

The nominations for the 68th annual Tony Awards were announced on Tuesday morning, and The Hollywood Reporter's awards analyst dug through the Tony record books to see how this year's nominees stack up against the nominees of yesteryear. The results are fascinating.

Was the first legitimate acting awards contender of 2014 unveiled this past weekend? According to a considerable number of respected pundits, the answer is yes: Tom Hardy in Locke, Steven Knight's 80-minute experimental film that features just one actor -- the 36-year-old Brit best known for Warrior (2011) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) -- and takes place entirely in a car as his character tries to extinguish numerous professional and personal crises via his phone while racing in the other direction to be with the person who caused them in the first place.

PHOTOS: 11 British Actors Invading Hollywood's 'It List'

If that reads like a bit of a tough sell, you can imagine that cutting an appealing trailer of it can't have been easy, either. For that reason, perhaps, distributor A24 has exclusively provided The Hollywood Reporter with this making-of featurette, which gives some context to the production and its aims. (Knight, who also wrote the film's script, previously scribed two other dark but estimable films, Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises.)

Richard Dreyfuss hasn't given many interviews over the last few years. Perhaps that's because the legendary 66-year-old actor, who is best known for a string of instant-classics from the 1970s -- American Graffiti (1973), The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and The Goodbye Girl (1977) -- has, of late, been primarily focused on things other than acting, including and especially his nonprofit organization The Dreyfuss Initiative, which promotes civic education. But last week, Dreyfuss, who now lives in San Diego, came back to Hollywood to revisit his glory days at the fifth annual TCM Classic Film Festival. And, after the first of his two appearances there -- one a conversation with Ileana Douglas, the other a Q&A with Robert Osborne -- he found about 30 minutes to chat about his moviemaking memories with The Hollywood Reporter.