About the Tonys

You might be thinking of the Outer Critics Circle awards: this past year, instead of doing a traditional nominee/winner structure, they just decided to come up with a list of "honorees," where they recognized as many people/productions as they wanted - and everyone was on the same level.

But there are 2 major differences between the OCC awards and the Tonys, in this scenario:

(1) The OCC awards decided to do this BEFORE they released their list. They didn't release a list of nominees and then later say "hey, good news, everyone won!" as you suggest. For the Tonys to do this, it would've required an entirely different voting process from the very beginning. So for them, that ship has sailed. It's not fair to either branch of the Tony committee (the nominators and the voters) to suddenly take away their ability to differentiate like this. When the nominators voted, they did so with the assumption that they were voting for nominations, not wins. And likewise, the people who do the final Tony votes shouldn't be denied the opportunity to cast their vote for a real winner.

(2) The OCC also includes Off-Broadway in addition to Broadway. This means that the pool of contenders was much larger. Meaning that for them, it was actually possible to honor a group of people who all deserved the same level of recognition. The Tony pool (for musicals, at least) was much more slim pickings. They have already nominated a ton of people/productions who probably wouldn't have been nominated in a normal year. In my opinion, giving everyone the award would bastardize and de-legitimize the Tony Awards even more than they have been already.

I'll say the same thing about this that I've been saying about the whole Tony situation this year: if making everybody happy and giving participation trophies has a tangible, positive effect on the industry, then fine. More power to them, and it's probably for the best. But I question whether it's really best in the long-run to dilute the meaning of a Tony award by giving them out like candy. And likewise, I doubt that any artist will derive any real, meaningful honor in being given an award under these circumstances.

I don't think the OP was commenting either way about whether it should be done now or later. Just about whether or not this "everybody wins" idea might work.

there’s no benefits at this point. None!


HogansHero said: "re who benefits:

1. Producers

2. Nominees who win.

3. Some others.

ymmv"

unclevictor said: "there’s no benefits at this point. None!"

That's a joke, right?

Phantom of London said: "An award shouldn’t be about benefits.

It should be about recognising excellence, then rewarding the best."

That is true of some awards but not the Tonys. A benefit to producers is the sine qua non of the Tonys. What you are saying is tantamount to suggesting that the advertisements on a website should be restricted to the best in its category.