NEW YORK — Can anyone stop the “Hamilton’’ tidal wave at Sunday’s Tony Awards ceremony? It’s that rare musical to break through to the mainstream, become a cultural phenomenon, and lift all Broadway boats. Yet despite its unprecedented 16 nominations, “Hamilton’’ is unlikely to replicate the record-breaking 12 Tonys that “The Producers’’ bagged in 2001. It’s also leading the pack in one of Broadway’s most diverse seasons ever. Unlike #OscarsSoWhite, this year’s Tony nominees include 14 actors of color, plus a slew of others in the directing, writing, and design categories. Here’s a look at contenders in the major races, with our predictions.

Best Musical

Will Win/Should Win: “Hamilton’’

Also nominated: “Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed,’’ “Bright Star,’’ “Waitress,’’ “School of Rock’’

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s “Bright Star,’’ with its bluegrass-flavored score, is an enjoyably folksy, warm-hearted melodrama. “Waitress’’ and “School of Rock’’ both have their considerable charms, but are ultimately conventional adaptations of the films on which they were based. The Tony poobahs overlooked the droll “American Psycho,’’ a candy-colored pop confection obscuring an obsidian-black satirical heart. With “Shuffle Along,’’ critics cheered infectious songs, intoxicating dance sequences choreographed by Savion Glover, and a show-stopping cast led by Audra McDonald. But is there any question who’s walking off with this prize? Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-fueled “Hamilton’’ is a juggernaut for a reason. With its genre-hopping score, it’s the most refreshing and innovative musical to sail onto the Great White Way in many moons — and to quote its title character, it’s not throwing away its shot.

Best Play

Will Win/Should Win: “The Humans’’

Also nominated: “Eclipsed,’’ “King Charles III,’’ “The Father’’

In “King Charles III,’’ Mike Bartlett employs iambic pentameter to imagine Charles as the newly anointed British monarch following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, with his ascension sparking a constitutional crisis after he makes a series of misbegotten moral stands. While that play is a riveting piece of speculative fiction, this category is likely a showdown between “The Humans’’ and Danai Gurira’s “Eclipsed.’’ A win by Gurira, who plays the sword-swinging Michonne on “The Walking Dead,’’ would be historic. A black female playwright has never pocketed this prize, and only two women have ever won it. But “The Humans,’’ by Stephen Karam, whose “Sons of the Prophet’’ was seen at the Huntington Theatre Company in 2011, feels achingly of-the-moment, zooming in on a middle-class family battered by deep social and economic anxieties.

Best Revival of a Musical

Will Win: “The Color Purple’’

Should Win: “Spring Awakening’’

Also nominated: “She Loves Me,’’ “Fiddler on the Roof’’

Deaf West Theatre’s re-imagining of the pop-rock musical “Spring Awakening’’ featured a mix of deaf performers and hearing actors, with sign language providing a poignant underscore to the emotions of its anguished adolescents. As he did with “South Pacific’’ and “The King and I,’’ director Bartlett Sher finds the contemporary echoes in his first-rate revival of “Fiddler.’’ But it’s a rare Broadway revival of “She Loves Me,’’ with a score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (who also did “Fiddler’’), that could land the upset thanks to Scott Ellis’s rapturous staging. Still, momentum seems to be behind director John Doyle’s radical reworking of the 2005 musical “The Color Purple,’’ with a streamlined script and a stripped-down design, allowing the vivid characters to drive its powerful story.

Best Revival of a Play

Will Win: “A View From the Bridge’’

Should Win: “The Crucible’’

Also nominated: “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’’ “Blackbird,’’ “Noises Off’’

Ivo van Hove’s radical remounting of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge’’ is the favorite in this race despite finishing its run in February. The Belgian director zeroed in on the blood-soaked Greek tragedy of the play to create a primal scream of repressed emotion and sexual longing inside a boxing ring-like set. The latest revival of Eugene O’Neill’s final masterwork “Long Day’s Journey Into Night’’ may not have probed quite as deeply as the Vanessa Redgrave-Brian Dennehy Tony winner from 2003, but it’s still a contender. However, Van Hove’s biggest competition might be himself and his equally revelatory revival of another Miller classic, “The Crucible,’’ in which the director employs haunting supernatural effects and underscores the timeless allegorical implications of the Salem witch trials.

Best Leading Actor in a Musical

Will Win: Leslie Odom Jr., “Hamilton’’

Should Win: Danny Burstein, “Fiddler on the Roof’’

Also nominated: Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Hamilton’’; Zachary Levi, “She Loves Me’’; Alex Brightman, “School of Rock’’

The buzz is that Miranda, who will surely win best score and best musical, may lose this prize to his “Hamilton’’ cohort Odom, who plays the Founding Father’s nemesis Aaron Burr and commands the musical’s biggest show-stopper “The Room Where It Happens.’’ TV star Levi (“Chuck’’) makes for a charismatic leading man. But if the vote between Miranda and Odom gets split, Burstein, a six-time Tony nominee who has never won before, could pull the upset for his soulful performance as Tevye, the traditionalist father facing the winds of change.

Best Leading Actress in a Musical

Will/Should Win: Cynthia Erivo, “The Color Purple’’

Also nominated: Laura Benanti, “She Loves Me’’; Phillipa Soo, “Hamilton’’; Carmen Cusack, “Bright Star’’; Jessie Mueller, “Waitress’’

In a show that premiered at the American Repertory Theater last summer, Mueller gives a deeply empathetic turn as an anguished woman trapped in a loveless marriage. Soo and fellow nominee Renée Elise Goldsberry, up for featured actress in a musical, play the tough-minded Schuyler Sisters at the heart of “Hamilton,’’ but Goldsberry gets the more complex character arc. The divine Benanti is daffily irresistible as the lovestruck yet stubborn Amalia in “She Loves Me.’’ Still, Erivo’s star-making performance will grab the gold. With a diminutive stature belying her powerhouse vocals, Erivo renders Celie’s transformation with an awakening inner-strength that’s a force to be reckoned with.

Best Leading Actor in a Play

Will Win: Frank Langella, “The Father’’

Should Win: Gabriel Byrne, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night’’

Also nominated: Mark Strong, “A View From the Bridge’’; Jeff Daniels, “Blackbird’’; Tim Pigott-Smith, “King Charles III’’

Strong’s titanic portrayal of a Brooklyn longshoreman with eyes “like tunnels’’ and a roiling stew of repressed emotions has long been the favorite. But this race has heated up. As the whiskey-soused James Tyrone, Byrne captured the character’s mix of maudlin bluster, prideful self-delusion, and bitter regret. Meanwhile, Langella recently pocketed Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for his harrowing portrait of a man whose mind is unraveling from the ravages of dementia. Could those laurels be a harbinger of Tony night, or can Strong hold him off? Bet on three-time Tony winner Langella, 78, to nab his fourth trophy.

Best Leading Actress in a Play

Will/Should Win: Jessica Lange, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night’’

Also nominated: Lupita Nyong’o, “Eclipsed’’; Michelle Williams, “Blackbird’’; Sophie Okonedo, “The Crucible’’; Laurie Metcalf, “Misery’’

Williams is a tremulous ball of anger, recrimination, and fraying sanity as a woman confronting her dark past. But this contest probably comes down to a face-off between upstart Oscar winner Nyong’o and the veteran Lange. Nyong’o transforms from victimized young woman to shellshocked rebel soldier, while Lange travels a wide emotional bandwidth, from sensual exuberance to regret to self-loathing, as the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone. Look for Lange to add a Tony next to the Oscars and Emmys already on her mantel.

Christopher Wallenberg can be reached at chriswallenberg@gmail.com.