Kimbo said: "ashley0139 said: "OhHiii said: "MichelleCraig said: "This is a Tony nominee for sound. Wow. With all the complaints about the show’s sound design, it will be pretty interesting if it wins.."
The Sound Design categories only recently came back after a brief period without. With their return also came new voting rules governing Sound Design and Orchestration. Only a subset of the Tony voting population are able to vote for those based on their professional affiliation/experience. While the nominators surely had zero clue what Sound Design was given this got a nomination in the category, at least they've made efforts to have voting be somewhat expertise-driven.
Also, doesn't matter if a large amount of voters miss Jaquel as only those who did see him will be able to vote in the Leading Actor category. Often productions will reach out to booked voters to let them know someone is out and encourage re-booking. Trouble this year is voter calendars are already strapped with so much to see, so changing plans is likely a tougher sell, especially the number of perfs he's missed. Voters canstill see the show without him, but can't vote in that category. So the voting population in his category will be representative of folks who did see him. That said, when there are fewer voters able to vote in a category, it makes every vote more crucial. Jaquel certainly deserves this Award over his competition."
Is this true for closed shows as well? So those who missed either Carmen Cusack or Sharon D. Clarke will not be able to vote in that category, even though the shows already closed?"
I genuinely don’t think it’s as cut-and-dried as all that. Tony voters have to attest that they’ve seen all the nominees in each category they vote for, but while there is some policing going on, there’s not a strict enforcement. For example, I know in many cases several voters in the industry have legitimately already seen a show earlier in the season, or possibly at a press preview or even opening night, in which case all they’ve typically had to do is tell the reps for a given show that they’ve already seen it. So unless the practices have changed this year, I think there’s still a bit of the honor system at play.
Given that Spivey missed the entire week the out-of-town voters were here for the Broadway League conference, I believe, and by the end of voting cutoff will have only been back for 10 or 12 performances since… given that Billy Crystal’s show shut down for 2 weeks in the final stretch of voting… and given that Mrs Doubtfire closed more than two weeks before the deadline – If they really were to insist that you’re not eligible to vote unless you can prove you’ve seen all the performances, I’m guesstimating that of the roughly 800 Tony voters, the Best Actor category would be decided by only 250-300 people.
I have no idea who this benefits (logic might suggest Myles Frost, whose happened to get over his second bout with Covid shortly after the nominations were announced and who has hardly missed since, and who I know has his champions). But considering even people on the other board who caught Spivey this weekend were underwhelmed by him and said he was clearly struggling to get through the show, I’m not certain, as so many seem to think, that this is Spivey’s award to lose (or that it would be even if he had a better attendance record). Personally I have a feeling that the awards are gonna spread the wealth around a bit; Strange Loop deserved every one of the 11 nominations it got, but if I were a gambler I’d bet it goes home with 5 or 6."
Bingo - in my perfect world Loop wins 5 Tonys: the Triple Crown, Leading Actor, and Orchestrations. It will tie with The Lehman Trilogy (Play, Direction of a Play, Lighting, Set, Sound), and only Company will win more awards than the two aforementioned shows.
“I am furious, but I am sailing.”
