Tracie Bennett got a deserved nomination for her vivid, nerve-jangling performance as Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow. But the show, a re-creation of Garland’s last stage appearances in London before her death from a drug overdose in 1969, is being classified as a straight play, not a musical. Thus Bennett is up against more conventional critical favorites like Linda Lavin and Stockard Channing. Yet her rendition of Garland numbers like “The Man That Got Away” and “Come Rain or Come Shine” rival the year’s best musical performances too.
