With Daytime Emmy wins, Katrina Lenk and Ari’el Stachel move closer to EGOT

EGOT (Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Tony) has two new contenders knocking at its door. Katrina Lenk and Ari’el Stachel earned Daytime Emmy Awards yesterday for the Today Show performances for The Band’s Visit. They won individual Tonys for their performances last year and Grammy Awards for being part of the cast that earned the prize for Best Musical Theater Album.

Getting one step closer is even easier than before with the Daytime Emmys recent creation of the Best Musical Performance in a Daytime Program category. It’s how Cynthia Erivo (The Color Purple), Rachel Bay Jones and Ben Platt (both for Dear Evan Hansen) all recently earned their 3rd Emmy infinity stones on their way to the grand slam.

The Ultimate EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) List

The Daytime Emmys as an EGOT qualifier have always been given the side-eye by staunch EGOT enthusiasts and completionists. Whoopi Goldberg has often defended her EGOT status, one that was cemented by a Daytime Emmy win for her documentary Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel, in a very public way, and even making a cameo in 30 Rock‘s Tracy Jordan EGOT episode.

But a win is a win and now Lenk and Stachel are just an Oscar away from closing the deal. The Oscar is often the toughest award to bag and puts the two in the company of Harry Belafonte, Cyndi Lauper, Bette Midler and Quincy Jones (as well as about 19 others). It might not take much more than a movie musical version of The Band’s Visit to lock that in but it’s not going to be easy.