agreed...Memphis will win...Alot of the Tony vote comes from the road, The League of Producers and Presenters... Of the 4...Memphis is the most marketable. They own a piece of Million Dollar quartet... American Idiot and Fela would not play in Denver...etc See what i mean?
For those who keep saying that American Idiot won't tour or play well in this place or that place, I disagree. It has bigger name recognition than either FELA, Memphis or Million Dollar Quartet, and always will. That is one of its biggest assets.
My uncle has two friends who are road bookers. He has reported to me that they are more excited for American Idiot than anything else, because of its name recognition. I don't know if they are indicative of road bookers as a whole but I suspect they are.
I am coming from the perspective that not only do i personally know 4 venues i worked in 2 Therefore believe me when i say...Memphis will win..... American Idiot will tour, but the road is not as excited about it as you think.... It's a hard call....
agreed...Memphis will win...Alot of the Tony vote comes from the road, The League of Producers and Presenters... Of the 4...Memphis is the most marketable.
I'm shocked that someone whose username is "Memphis10" thinks Memphis will win!
I'm all for team Fela! winning Best Musical 2010. It's THE most original musical of the season and regardless of touring schedules/cities it is THE only new musical that the Tony's can hold onto as a quality new show that pushes the envelope for the entire musical theater genre.
doesn't anyone else think its sad that people on here are not using the "memphis is really good so i think it will win" logic, but rather "my dad works in road booking and memphis will tour better so it will win".
I cannot believe that the tony;'s are obviously bull s*&% and people on this board just take it and don't care that they have nothing to do with the quality but how much money the show will make.
And you all who "love theater so much" just seem to not even say anything. Apathy is what kills. So why do you even care about the tony awards and who wins if you know it has nothing to do with art and quality? Maybe don't watch...cause who cares?
"doesn't anyone else think its sad that people on here are not using the "memphis is really good so i think it will win" logic, but rather "my dad works in road booking and memphis will tour better so it will win"."
There is a difference between "will win" and "should win".
Again, "Tonys" has no apostrophe. Apostrophes are not used to pluralize nouns now or ever. You don't drive car's and you haven't seen Cat's, so you cannot watch the Tony's.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
^ amen mister matt. i mentioned this earlier in this same thread.
MEMPHIS10: "Memphis will win...Alot of the Tony vote comes from the road, The League of Producers and Presenters"
i don't even know where to begin here. you claim to know the road so well that 'memphis' is sure to be a lock in our opinion. but i find it hard to believe that a lot (two words) of votes come from the 'The League of Producers and Presenters' which doesn't even exist. you might have meant 'The League of American Theatres and Producers' which changed it's name to 'The Broadway League' in 2007 when Charlotte St. Martin replaced Jed Bernstein as Executive Director. a lot (again, two words) of votes come from them and other touring houses true, but not from this unknown league you are talking about.
when you make ridiculous statements regarding FACTS, i begin to doubt your opinions and claims of relationships with road houses.
as for the thread in general, read my other posts and you will see that i hope 'fela!' wins. however, i'm not betting on it. road houses are scared of what's different/not commercial, but this is old news. hopefully, they will surprise us all this year.
"the stage too must experiment - with ideas, with the psychological relationship of men and women, with speech and rhythm forms, with dance and movement, with color and light - or it must and should become a museum product. in an age of terrific implications as to wealth and poverty, as to the function of government, as to peace and war, as to the relation of the artist to all these forces, the theatre must grow up. the theatre must become conscious of the implications of the changing social order, or the changing social older will ignore, and rightly, the implications of the theatre." - hallie flanagan, director of the federal theatre project
*blame e.e. mings*
IMO, Fela's now being on the fast track re: advertising, I feel it's a matter of too little, too late. With 11 nominations, they should have been POUNDING that into everyone's faces the day the nominees were announced (think what a David Merrick would have done with that!!) -- at the very least, the first Sunday thereafter and not let the momentum sag. I think (fear?) that Memphis (and I didn't like that one, either) has a lock.
The only reason Reidel is writing about Fela is because he has been championing it since its off-Broadway run. He would like it to win, but it's still not happening.
FELA is not my thing but the story is. I would love them to make a musical on the story of this Cuban trumpet player (played by Andy Garcia in the movie) and his struggle to play and what he had to go through.
"I cannot believe that the tony;'s are obviously bull s*&% and people on this board just take it and don't care that they have nothing to do with the quality but how much money the show will make."
I think that is because we all know that the Tony's are really nothing more than a marketing tool anymore, and have long since admitted that. I now hold the Drama Desk Awards in higher regard than the Tony's as far as artistic merit is concerned. The Tony Awards have far too many silly rules for qualification, and then they can change the qualifications arbitrarily. On top of that closed shows rarely have a chance, and shows that won't do well in Peoria rarely have a chance. The only reason the Tony is held in such a high regard over the other theatre awards is because this happens to be the one that is regularly broadcast on network TV.
and like i put in my other thread concerning this, at least I took a shot at something that wasn't "AI or memphis". Everyone thought AI would come in and sweep. Fela was such a long shot...i would imagine it was second in the voting but who really knows..
I was just really excited that the Tony voters would actually pick the good show. yes I am saying memphis is a bad show. It is a paint by numbers musical. When you have a guy who doesn't talk and hasn't since his (insert tragic event here) you know he is going to speak in act 2. You know what the show is after the first 10 min when Huey and his accent that is different than any other persons on that stage (yet they all live in the same city) is about. There are no surprises.
It was a mundane, vapid and banal show. I thought if i put enough energy into the universe that a musical with some balls and that took risks was good enough to "tour" maybe the universe would listen. The tony's once again have made me sad.
Like the year Urinetown won book, lyrics, director and then lost the best musical to Millie (talk about paint by numbers). That was the year i thought..oh this has nothing to do with creativity and art, but which show will tour the best. Now i see.
I was looking at a little ray of hope that things have changed. oh well....
Sometimes commercial shows win. Sometimes they don't. But three things are always true:
1) The awards represent the opinions of the voters, not us. According to this message board the voters get it wrong every single year no matter what they do, so why should they even care about what we think? I probably would have voted Memphis for Best Musical as well. So what?
2) Someone will always be unhappy with the results, whatever they may be, so being angry that Memphis won does not make anyone smarter or more special than those who would be angry if Fela had won.
3) An apostrophe STILL does not pluralize a noun, so stop calling the Tony Awards the f***ing "Tony's".
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian