Who will win Best Musical at the 2018 Tony Awards?

This is both the weakest and most competitive crop of Best Musical Tony nominees in at least a few years.

The list of 2018 Best Musical Tony nominees looks like a 13-year-old’s fever dream.

In addition to traditional serious musical The Band’s Visit, the other three new musicals up for this prestigious honor are Disney’s stage adaptation of Frozen, the Tina Fey-penned Mean Girls and, of all things, SpongeBob Squarepants: The Musical.

Here’s a quick synopsis of each:

• The Band’s Visit depicts what happens when a busload of Egyptian musicians are stranded in one Israeli town for the evening. Hijinks and culture clashes ensue.
• Frozen follows the story of the film, with Anna trying to save her kingdom from her sister Elsa’s renegade ice powers.
• Mean Girls also follows that movie’s plot, as Cady Heron attempts to infiltrate the Plastics and take down Regina George from the inside.
• SpongeBob is an original story that forces the residents of Bikini Bottom to work together in order to save their home from an impending doom (morbid for a kid’s show, right?)

We have a musical tackling issues of international importance up against two film adaptations and a show about a talking sponge. What a strange bunch.

Unlike the last two years, where Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen were exactly the Tony juggernauts they were expected to be, nothing is guaranteed this year. Just about every musical category is up for grabs, with no clear winners in sight.

As someone who has actually seen all four Best Musical nominees, I have a few thoughts on both what I would like to see happen tomorrow and what will probably actually occur. Here you go:

Ethan Slater should win best actor for SpongeBob

Yes, you read that right: Ethan Slater, the man who played SpongeBob Squarepants, should 100 percent win the Tony for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.

It’s not so much that Slater set the stage on fire with his singing ability, though he did prove that he was far more than just a simple sponge in that department.

No, what really put Slater over the top for me was the way he embodied SpongeBob’s physicality. Anyone who has ever watched the show (which notably may not be Tony voters) knows that SpongeBob is known for having no bones, and therefore being able to contort his body at will.

Well, Slater couldn’t quite replicate that, but he was able to move in a free, cartoony fashion that never for one second made me question who he was playing. He made he believe he was SpongeBob, and if that’s not a Tony-worthy accomplishment, I don’t know what is.

Frozen was robbed of more nominations

In my ideal world, Frozen would have at least three more nominations: Best Scenic Design for its incredible ice effects, and two Best Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical nods for Caissie Levy (Elsa) and Patti Murin (Anna).

That fact that Levy’s version of Let It Go — which is easily the most spectacular musical number in any of the four Best Musical nominees — somehow didn’t earn her a Best Actress nomination is criminal. Judge for yourself:

As it stands, Frozen is only up for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. Frankly, its chances of winning any of those categories are slim. Its best bet will be to pull out an upset in the Best Original Score category, as the Tonys have a history of rewarding Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Give Tina Fey a Tony

Mean Girls has plenty of opportunities to take home trophies this year, including three acting nominations and nods in almost all of the technical categories.

It’s probably going to pick up at least one accolade, and it has a particularly high chance at nabbing a Best Scenic Design Tony for its use of screens to make the halls of North Shore High School seem just as terrifying for the audience as it feels for its students.

Personally, I would love to see it win Best Book of a Musical, which refers to all the non-sung dialogue in a show. While Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin wrote the show’s score, none other than Tina Fey herself wrote the book for the stage version of her baby.

Fey chose her spots for lifting classic Mean Girls quotes directly from the movie, and peppered in enough crackling teen banter to make the lulls between songs fun diversions from the main attraction. Chances are The Band’s Visit will win this category for its serious approach to important subject matter, but in an ideal world Fey would get halfway to an EGOT Sunday night.

Speaking of which…

The Band’s Visit will probably win Best Musical

Despite the Tonys pleasantly surprising the world by nominating three out-of-the-box choices for the night’s most prestigious award, it will probably go the safe route and anoint the show about characters from traditionally antagonistic societies coming together through the power of music Best Musical.

If I sound disappointed, it’s not because The Band’s Visit wouldn’t deserve it. On the contrary, it was a very well-done show about big ideas with pretty music and a setting rarely used in any medium. Plus, it featured Tony Shalhoub doing Tony Shalhoub things.

It’s just that after two years of rewarding innovative shows like Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, it seems almost regressive to give the night’s biggest honor to a show that, while technically solid, didn’t do anything particularly different or interesting.

It’s also quite possible Tony voters will feel that all four shows are so close in terms of quality that rewarding The Band’s Visit over two movie adaptations and a show primarily for children makes the most sense in their minds. And that would be slightly disappointing but ultimately justifiable as well.

Whatever happens Sunday night, one thing is for sure: none of these musicals are anywhere near as good as Hamilton.