Benj Pasek and Justin Paul on the verge of EGOT thanks to ‘Only Murders in the Building’

At last year’s Emmys, Elton John became the latest member of the EGOT club by winning Best Variety Special (Live) for “Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium.” This year the combined predictions of Gold Derby users are currently favoring two more individuals to join him. They are the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul in the category of Best Music and Lyrics.

Pasek and Paul’s EGOT journey began in 2016 when they, along with composer Justin Hurwitz, won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” Then in 2017 the two of them won the Tony for their score from that year’s Best Musical champ, “Dear Evan Hansen.” In 2018 they won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for that same show. And in 2022 they both collected additional Tonys as co-producers of the Best Musical champ “A Strange Loop.”

Now at the Emmys they’re in contention for the song “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from the third season of “Only Murders in the Building” (watch above). This marks the second Emmy nomination for the musical duo. They both previously contended for Best Music and Lyrics in 2018 for their original song “In the Market for a Miracle” from Fox’s live broadcast of their musical adaptation of “A Christmas Story.” Alas, they ended up losing to “Come Back Barack” from “Saturday Night Live.”

Pasek and Paul co-wrote “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Shaiman previously won an Emmy in 1992 for Best Variety Writing for his work on the 64th Oscars, in addition to receiving 13 other bids. Wittman has been nominated three times before, but has yet to win: he previously contended for Best Variety Special Writing for the 82nd Oscars as well as Best Music and Lyrics for the songs “Let Me Be Your Star” and “Hang the Moon” from “Smash.” All of Wittman’s nominations have been shared with Shaiman.

As of this writing “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” is the frontrunner to win the Emmy with 16/5 odds, followed by “The Medium Time” from “Girls5eva” with 39/10 odds and “Maya Rudolph Mother’s Day Monologue” from “Saturday Night Live” with 4/1 odds. If they prevail as expected, Pasek and Paul will be the 20th and 21st individuals to join the EGOT club. What’s more, Wittman, like his writing partner Shaiman, will only be an Oscar away from joining them in that illustrious company.

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