Three sets of acting nominations included performers who played mother and daughter on stage.

Perhaps the most famous mother-daughter act on Broadway this season was Lisa Kron and Jayne Houdyshell. Lisa played, well, herself, while Houdyshell portrayed Kron's mother, Ann Kron, in the comedy about the frustratingly unbreakable connections between grown-up girls and their moms. Kron was nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, and Houdyshell was nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.

In David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole, Cythia Nixon, nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, played a mother emotionally devastated by the death of her young child, and Tyne Daly, nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play, portrayed Nixon's sympathetic mother, who herself lost one of her children.

At least Kron and Houdyshell, and Nixon and Daly won't have to compete against each other come Tony night. That's not the case for Kate Burton and Lynn Redgrave, both nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of The Constant Wife. Burton played wily wife Constance Middleton in the W. Somerset Maughm comedy, and Redgrave was her domineering mother Mrs. Culver.

Of course, mothers also give birth to sons every now and then, and that relationship was also represented among the nominations. Awake and Sing! mom and sonny Zoe Wanamaker and Pablo Schreiber were both recognized, in the Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play categories, respectively.