How Nicole Scherzinger, Audra McDonald, Darren Criss and Jonathan Groff are battling for Tony Awards

The weather was rainy in New York last week.And on Broadway, when it rained, it poured.There was a torrent of activity in the race to the Tonys on June 8 — a lot of campaigning, some award shake-ups and the Broadway League’s Spring Road Conference.That’s when hundreds of out-of-town presenters, known as “the road,” descend on Manhattan to party, I mean, work!The annual convention’s main purpose is to encourage regional markets to book tours of new musicals. One lyin’ presenter told me, “We want ALL these shows to come to us!” Yeah, yeah, yeah.But the conference’s dirtier use is to sway the 100-or-so road voters to pick them at the Tonys next month.

There are only about 800 voters in total, so Florida, Ohio and Illinois make a dent. A big hit, I’m told, was the “Death Becomes Her” soiree at Sony Hall.The comedy’s stars Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard and Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child all showed up and schmoozed. The much funnier stage version of the movie starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn was also very popular with the visitors.“Death” has emerged as the more traditional, crowd-pleasing alternative to the Best Musical frontrunner, robot rom-com “Maybe Happy Ending,” which stars Darren Criss and Helen J.

Chen as smitten androids.That special show’s fete was at the Edison Rooftop.Revelers posed with breakout star HwaBoon, a prop houseplant.

Team “Maybe Happy Ending” team will likely soon be posing with a Tony.Not entirely giving up, fellow nominees — the corpse-icals — got in on the action, too.“Operation Mincemeat” threw a bash at La Grande Boucherie, and little “Dead Outlaw” went low-key with just a talkback. Scrappier is the fight for Best Play.“Oh, Mary!,” Cole Escola’s Mary Todd Lincoln farce that’s printing money at the Lyceum, held a post-show chat with famous funnyman Tony Kushner.

Smart.The “Angels in America” writer’s stamp of approval lends a bit of prestige to Broadway’...