www.forbes.com: No one deserves to be forgotten, especially at the Tony Awards.
After declaring that the Tony Awards ceremony would be presented digitally in the fall of 2020, rushing to announce all of nominees, and then going silent for several months, the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League have emerged from the shadows to confirm that the polls will finally open next month.
6 comments:
This article had a lot of really interesting elements to it that made me think about things I was previously totally unaware of in regards to the Tony awards. I think it is really interesting how much producers typically try and coordinate when voters will be seeing their shows in order to keep it fresh in their minds. To that point, it will be really interesting to see how the timeline of different shows will impact the shows that receive awards. I often consider how easily I end up forgetting details of shows, and instead remember how I felt overall about the show, what it looked like mostly, and the highs and lows of the show. I think this is probably a universal truth about what happens when time increases from your current thinking about a show and when you saw it. I will be extremely curious to see how this impacts the coming Tony Awards.
The Tony Awards have really handled the awards this year rather poorly. I have still not forgiven them for what they did to The Lightning Thief. There were only four musicals eligible for best new musical and rather than just celebrate the theater that was able to be produced, they went out of their way to snub one of the four shows. The only show that has actual original music. We’ve gone now almost a year without any performances on Broadway, so this just seems like a bad year to try to give out awards. With everything that article mentions about memory-loss and market campaigns, not to mention that most of the nominated shows will probably re-open when Broadway returns, it was just not necessary to have a Tony awards this year. This energy could have been put to better use by just reminding everyone what we like about theater with like a benefit night or just a concert.
Opening with the Dear Evan Hansen lyric immediately caught my attention. Aside from that, the American Theatre Wing has disappointed me once again. At this point I am not even surprised. Usually my anger toward the American Theatre Wing stems from its racism regarding their nominee pool for the Tony Awards, but this time it is for their lack of communication about the Tony Awards as a whole. I was legitimately talking to some of my troupe members from high school today about when the awards ceremony is actually occurring. My friend Aleks actually directly messaged the Tony Awards on Instagram asking “Are the Tony’s happening? Like when sis? Cause it's been a minute since nominations.” I completely agree with the article in the fact that the voters opinions will be skewed because of the gap in time. Personally, I would hate to work so hard on a production and finally get nominated for a Tony Award only for the voters to forget the details and emotions they saw while watching my show.
I definitely understand why the Tony’s have been delayed so long. They are not, and honestly shouldn't be a priority right now. With a distinct lack of theater to judge, then pandemic would be an ideal time to take a step back and look at how we want theatre to return. What injustices need correcting and what improvements can be made. I’m not sure what the American Theatre Wing is doing besides preparing for awards, but honestly I don’t care one bit that it's not focusing on the Tony’s. Theater is just trying to survive right now, who cares about an awards show. Especially one that is rendered meaningless by the fact that there were only about 3 entries. I usually love the Tonys as much as anyone else. But putting them on this year really feels like counting down my top ten house parties of mid to late 2020. Theres a good chance I’m just a bitter, slimy old man, I just don't see the point when there are way more important, less stupid things to focus on.
I found this article extremely interesting. I remembered when the nominations came out and some of the devions made were quite shocking. I mean having the annual award show with only a half baked season seemed like an odd thing to do for me. But I belive that even though the pool is limited the excitement that this award gathers will be beneficial. I am accustomed to all award show seasons and I am keen to track all of the nominees and different predictions especially during the Tonys. I think that because the voting has been delayed, most of the voting will be based on what was the most memorable. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I predict that this mean all the winners will be obvious choices. The marketing of these shows that has continued during the pandemic is surely going to affect the outcome. A show that has been quit since shut down is not going to have the strength to go against a show like Moulin Rouge that has still been active.
Comment at 8:57 am was Evan Riley
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