La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Hands on a Hardbody’ Earns Tony Nominees

Hands on a Hardbody, which opened on Broadway earlier this month, was nominated for several Tony Awards.

The musical, which first premiered at Playhouse last year, was nominated for Best Original Score. In addition, Keala Settle was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Feature Role in a Musical for her performance in Hands on a Hardbody, and Keith Carradine for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.

The play focuses on contestants placing their hands on a pickup truck for as long as possible; the “hardbody” goes to the last one standing. It was a real event, an actual endurance contest, staged at a Nissan dealership in Longview, Texas in 1995, and detailed in a 1997 documentary, from which the provocative title is taken.

“I saw the film years ago, and I was absolutely gob-smacked,” playwright Doug Wright, who was commissioned to write the stage version of Hands on a Hardbody for the La Jolla Playhouse, told Patch in April 2012.

Wright teamed up with lyricist Amanda Green (High Fidelity, Bring It On: The Musical); composer/co-lyricist Trey Anastasio, lead singer of the wildly popular improvisational jam band, Phish, who created a rock/folk/country score; celebrated choreographer Benjamin Millepied (Black Swan) and acclaimed theater director Neil Pepe, artistic director of the award-winning Atlantic Theater Company in New York for Hands on a Hardbody.

The Tonys are June 9 in New York. You can watch them live on CBS.