Issues with a Best Ensemble award at the Tonys?

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:03pm

It seems this year that the American Theatre Wing will again not recognize the fabulous work that ensembles do on Broadway.

Whether you think it should become a new category or not, why do you think the Wing hasn't made it one? Too difficult to define? Politics? For the sake of not adding another award?

Discuss!

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:07pm

It should be a category.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:08pm

Thanks for your input, but that's not what I wish to discuss...

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:10pm

I think the Wing won't do it because sometimes an "ensmble" is to hard to define.
Updated On: 1/28/07 at 04:10 PM

[theaterdude87]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:11pm

I have always thought that there should be this category,

[Raviolisun]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:12pm

Yes, I think it would pretty hard to define.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:17pm

And who gets to bring home the statuette? It's kind of a silly idea, frankly.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:17pm

Perhaps the Tony Administration Committee wants to keep winning an award a very rare, unique, exclusive club. Giving out an ensemble award means handing trophies to potentially an extra dozen or more people every year -- the vast majority of whom wouldn't/couldn't have won individually on their own. You're giving dozens of people a chance to be able to call themselves Tony winners, which makes the award seem less special and, as such, much less of an honor than it is now.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:49pm

Margo, as always, a great contribution.

To solve that, though, I would award one individual statuette to the ensemble to display in the lobby of the theatre. When the show closes, or when the award is given out again the following year, the award would move on to the next winning show's ensemble. So it's not a physical award statuette they get to keep, but more of an honor they receive for the year (or length of show's run until next year).

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:49pm

^ I agree. It would make it seem less special being called a Tony Winner.

[mikem]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 4:58pm

I think the concept of ensemble awards is admirable, but I agree with Margo that it's difficult to execute without making the Tonys lose some of their luster. For example, the Screen Actors Guild has ensemble awards, and those awards cause some weird anomalies. Ryan Phillippe is one of only a handful of actors with 2 SAG Awards (even Meryl Streep only has one!), and the twins who play Felicity Huffman's kids on Desperate Housewives are SAG Award winners, even though I don't think anyone would say they are giving award-worthy performances.

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:14pm

How about a Tony for Best Broadway Fan? For that special fan who stagedoors more often, who enters the lotto again and again, who never fails to hype "their" show no matter what! I think THAT is the true champion who deserves to take that statuette home!

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:19pm

Aside from the comments about it being hard to define (just what IS an "ensemble?" A group of all principle performers, or is it a "chorus" of musical performers?), as well as detracting from the specialness of winning a Tony (and I agree on both counts)... I don't think another performance award of any kind is needed. They already have EIGHT categories for performers per season.

It's not nearly as justified as adding a Best Sound Design award. In this day and age, it's just plain stupid to not recognize the sound designer's crucial contribution to each and every Broadway show.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:46pm

Besty,

I completely agree that Sound Design deserves to be recognized, but my problem has always been -- how on earth do you evaluate which designer has done the best job in any given season? Unlike sets, costumes or lighting, the quality of a given sound design is extremely difficult to quantify from one show to the next. I know that I rarely have any trouble hearing and understanding what actors are singing and saying, so to me it seems like sound designers do a great job 9 times out of 10 and I would have no idea how to choose whose sound design is the "best" in any given season.

It's also true that some theaters are less acoustically strong than others and have dead spots throughout the house (and the quality of the sound may depend on where in the house you are sitting for the given performance you attend). Should the award go to the sound designer who managed to achieve the most flawless sound in the most acoustically challenging theater -- and if so, how am I to know which theaters were harder to design for than others? Anyway....

It's similar to two awards that the Tonys used to give out in the past, but no longer do -- Best Conductor and Best Stage Technician. While no one would deny the critical importance of both of those jobs to any successful production, how can one evaluate the "best" in any given year?

It strikes me that just about every conductor I've ever seen leading a Broadway orchestra was at least competent, if not more so at his/her job. So how do you pick a "best?" Do you pick the one who had the most difficult score to conduct? I don't know.

And as for stage technician, how one earth can any voter be able to evaluate the talents and qualities of a given, unseen, stage technician while sitting in the audience? It's not to say that stagehands don't do a great and necessary job, but how the heck are you supposed to figure out the "best" one in any given season (if you're not sitting backstage and in the lighting booth at every show watching them as they work each show)?

Some categories are simply too difficult to be fairly evaluated by your typical audience member and as a result, probably are best left unawarded.

[AC126748]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:50pm

Hasn't the Drama Desk been giving an ensemble award for years?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:53pm

Yes, and the Obies have given out awards for notable ensembles in the past (not every year, but in seasons when a particularly fine ensemble has come along).

[singtopher]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:54pm

I've often thought that there should be a Best Musical Direction Tony. I mean if there is Best Direction, and Best Choreogrpahy, it would onlu make sence. However, like Sound Design, it would be difficult to judge. Its a much more difficult area to make an artistic impact on a show.

I've advocated Best Ensemble awards before, but you guys certainly make compelling arguments.

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 5:58pm

Doing so would make EVERYONE list "has one a Tony award for his work in . . . " in the playbill.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 10:07pm

^Wow, I'm surprised no one pointed that out already!

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 9:07pm

They will never give a sound Tony Award, because as much as Broadway has become reliant on it, the amplification of theatre - both musical and dramatic is still a subject producers like to keep quiet: particularly on the Tony Awards which is advertised as honoring "live" theatre.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 9:29pm

Instead of making it an award category, they could make it an honor. That way there won't be the problem of making the value of the award less special.

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 9:35pm

But would sound design include how acoustically well you can hear? And/or would it include the sound effects?

I suppose that's a lot like light - yeah, we can see the actors, but what else is there there?

And some shows just have more sound effects than others. Does the award go to Drowsy for the way they worked the sound in regards to the record player? Do you give it to Sweeney for the whistle?

I think it would have to be a very specifically defined award, which would make it difficult.

[broadwaystar2b]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:11pm

Didn't the cast of Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme recieve an honorary Best Ensemble Tony?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:35pm

They just received a Tony award for the principle performers, as there were three sets of rotating lead casts...it would have been impossible to single one or two out for a Tony nomination.

If that made ANY sense.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 2/3/07 at 12:11am

What if award winners who had no other Tony were only allowed to phrase it "Member of the Tony-Award winning Ensemble of In My Life."*





*The Joe Brooks Musical "In My Life" is only a hypothetical example. No offense was meant to the cast and crew of the Original production or the audience of its 23 previews and 61 performances.