Sam Tutty co-stars as Christianni Pitts earns first Tony nomination
sam tutty shares the Broadway spotlight with Christianni Pitts, who earned her first Tony nomination for best leading actress in a musical for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). Pitts said there were a lot of tears when she found out. For a two-person musical that opened on Broadway last November, the nomination puts a small show into a category stacked with bigger titles.
Robin Rainey and Dougal
Pitts is nominated for her role as Robin Rainey in the musical, which follows Robin and Dougal over 36 hours around New York City. Tutty plays Dougal, making the show a tight contest in a field where every performance detail gets magnified. Pitts called it “We’re the little show that could,” and the line fits the scale of the production.
Radio City Music Hall on Sunday
The 2024 Tony Awards were set for Sunday at Radio City Music Hall, with the ceremony scheduled to air live on CBS and Paramount+ at 8 p.m. Pitts faces actresses from Schmigadoon!, The Rocky Horror Show, Ragtime and Titanique in the category. That lineup turns her nomination into a test of whether a smaller, intimate musical can break through against more recognizable properties.
Pitts said, “The magic of our show is human connection, the intimacy without all the fluff.” She added, “I love that Broadway is able to do big things, but our show is the opposite.” That contrast is the point: the nomination rewards a performance built on scale-down storytelling rather than spectacle, and it gives a performer from Atlanta a place in one of Broadway’s most visible races.
From Decatur to Broadway
Pitts began acting at age 5 as a background cow in a Nativity scene at her local Decatur church, then said she wanted to be on Disney or Nickelodeon after that early performance. During her senior year in 2011, she said a small role in Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son made her realize she could make a career out of acting. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in music theater at Florida State University.
Broadway then offered her both The Lion King and a supporting role in A Bronx Tale, and she chose A Bronx Tale because, in her words, “I thought ‘Lion King’ would be my dream job but ‘A Bronx Tale’ gave me new material to dig my teeth into, an opportunity to craft a character” and “You can’t do that with ‘Lion King.’” That decision led to the current nomination path, and it leaves her in a stronger position than a regional breakout would: a first Tony nod, a visible category, and a show whose appeal rests on intimacy rather than volume.
