Tony Awards Close-Up: Meet the Mastermind of GREAT COMET, the Great Dave Malloy!

Dave Malloy is the most Tony-nominated creative of the season, earning nods for Best Score, Orchestrations and Book for his masterpiece- Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Below, watch as the mastermind of Broadway's most innovative new musical explains the highs and lows of the show's journey!

Malloy is a composer/ writer/ performer/ sound designer. He has written eleven musicals, including Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, in which he also originated the role of Pierre. Other shows include Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the hypnotized mind of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert's "Winterreise"; Black Wizard/Blue Wizard, a philosophical escapist fantasy; Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage; Beardo; Sandwich; Clown Bible;and (The 99-cent) Miss Saigon. He has won two OBIE Awards, the Richard Rodgers Award, an ASCAP New Horizons Award, and a Jonathan Larson Grant, has been a Guest Professor in devised music theater at Princeton and Vassar Universities, and is the composer for Banana Bag & Bodice. Future projects include adaptations of Moby-Dick and Shakespeare's Henriad. He lives in Brooklyn. davemalloy.com

Natasha is young, Anatole is hot, and Andrey isn't here... but what about Pierre? Natasha is a beautiful ingénue visiting Moscow while she waits for her beloved fiancé Andrey to return from the war. In a moment of indiscretion, she is seduced by the dashing (but already married) Anatole and her position in society is ruined. Her only hope lies with Pierre (Groban), the lonely outsider whose love and compassion for Natasha may be the key to her redemption... and to the renewal of his own soul.

The American Theatre Wing's 71st Annual Tony Awards will air live from Radio City Music Hall on the CBS Television Network on Sunday, June 11, 2017 (8:00-11:00 PM, ET/delayed PT), hosted by Tony winner Kevin Spacey.