Mary Poppins - Best Score Tony eligibility

[slimandslam]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 9:30pm

Well, this is sort of a moot issue, since it didn't get nominated, but I wanted to figure something out:

Over on the Official Tony Nominations thread, there was a very short debate about whether Mary Poppins was eligible for Best Score.

Was it? Or, more precisely: was the entire score eligible for Best Score?

Back in 1996, State Fair got nominated for Best Score, but only for part of its score. Says so right at tonyawards.com: (only the songs Driving at Night, You Never Had It So Good, When I Go Out Walking With My Baby and Boys and Girls Like You and Me are eligible for Tony Award consideration.)

Does that rule still apply today, such that only Mary Poppins's new songs were eligible for Best Score consideration, or have the rules changed since '96? Information please.

(I suspect that the rules haven't changed: the official name of the Tony category, after all, is "Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre." Songs written for a movie were not written for the theatre.)

[AnnaK<3LMIP]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 9:33pm

Good question...

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 9:34pm

I thought it was eligible but I could be wrong. In that case, it was just not nominated.

[ShuQ]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 10:05pm

The Poppins score was deemed eligible for nomination in the Best Score category.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 10:07pm

Yes, the score was elligible.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 10:12pm

They didn't specify specific songs because music and lyrics were changed in nearly every song (there are only two that didn't change, sans who sang it)...it would've been too hard to narrow down between the old and the new, as they were all mixtures of both.

[slimandslam]

Posted: 5/15/07 at 10:24pm

Ah. That makes sense. Thanks, TTP.