On May 3, early in the morning, Forrest McClendon was driving to the Two Rivers Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey where he is in rehearsals for "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," when his phone started ringing like crazy.
Like all good drivers, he did not answer his cell.
But then McClendon noticed that one of the calls was from Colman Domingo, his co-star in "The Scottsboro Boys," the acclaimed Broadway show the two had starred in some five months earlier.
"I felt like something must be wrong to be calling me at 8:30 in the morning, so I answered," McClendon recalls.
"Colman asked, 'Is this Forrest McClendon?' and then paused and said, 'Forrest McClendon, Tony nominee?' And I said, 'Shut up! You cannot do this to me.' I was struck speechless."
In his Broadway debut, the East Lampeter resident, who has performed with Theater of the Seventh Sister and the Dutch Apple, has earned a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical for his acclaimed work in "The Scottsboro Boys."
His co-star, Domingo, also received a best featured actor nod. Heck, the show got 12 nominations all together, including best musical.
Their closest competitor is "Book of Mormon," which got 14 nominations.
"Book of Mormon" is a huge hit. "The Scottsboro Boys," while garnering tons of critical acclaim, never found a large enough audience and closed after 29 previews and 49 performances.
"For a show that had been closed for five months, we were not expecting anything like this," McClendon says. "Even one nomination would have been extraordinary. To get so much attention and recognition blows us all away. It's an incredible moment of validation and vindication."
The show, the final collaboration of John Kander and Fred Ebb ("Cabaret," "Chicago"), explores the infamous case of the 1930s in which nine black teenagers were unjustly accused or raping two white women on a train in Scottsboro, Ala.
A number of all white juries found them guilty, despite overwhelming evidence they were not, and they spent years in jail.
But the show takes a challenging route by setting the story within a minstrel show.
That racist vaudeville entertainment was popular throughout America in the 19th and well into the 20th century, with white actors using blackface and exploiting racial stereotypes.
Here, the concept is turned on its ear.
"We use it subversively," McClendon explains. "It's all horrifically absurd."
But maybe too thought-provoking for Broadway audiences.
"This was my first experience with commercial theater," McClendon says. "I am used to working in the nonprofit sector, where runs are limited, including the first two incarnations of this (at the Guthrie in Minneapolis and the Vineyard off-Broadway)."
But he is thrilled a production on the West Coast is in the works, and it may turn into a national tour and possibly return to Broadway.
And there is talk of a movie to be directed by Lee Daniels, who made "Precious."
"Twelve nominations is a game changer," McClendon says. "If it fuels development of the film to go to an even broader audience, I will do whatever I can to participate in that."
Meanwhile, he's enjoying the whirlwind of being a Tony nominee.
"We've been involved in quite a few events, and it's been thrilling for me," he says. "I am meeting so many people — Joel Grey, John Larroquette. I was standing at the first event, and Patti LuPone just walked by me. In all your composure you just want to scream out, 'I just saw Patti LuPone!' "
The Tony Awards will be broadcast Sunday, June 12, at 8 p.m. on CBS.
