Opinion: The "Best Book" category should be altered to include play scripts

One of the most common complaints about the Tony categories is that there is no category for Best Script of a Play, and a result we end up with shows like Harry Potter, War Horse, Curious Incident, etc. winning Best Play for their production value, while superior scripts go unrecognized.

Meanwhile, the pool of worthy candidates for "Best Book of a Musical" is dwindling drastically. So much so that most of the nominees end up being pretty mediocre. Not that there are no good books anymore, but the best books rarely have any serious competition.

So why not kill two birds with one stone and have a "Best Book or Script written for the theatre" category? (not necessarily with that name) The play scripts can get their recognition separate from the full production, while mediocre books will stop getting nominated by default, and maybe book writers will even start stepping up their game. I realize that writing a play and writing the book of a musical have different requirements, and slightly different skill-sets, but I personally think they're similar enough that they can be put together.

What do you all think? I know a lot of people - including myself - have suggested just having a separate "Best Script of a Play" category, which I think is still a valid option, but I think my suggestion would be more elegant and effective for the reasons I stated above.

Plus, if we had "Best Script of a Play," there might be too much overlap with "Best Play" on years when we don't have any production-heavy plays. If all the nominees are very text-based, the 2 categories will essentially be identical. But if we throw them in the mix with the musical books, it's more varied and interesting.

Updated On: 6/10/18 at 12:32 PM

TotallyEffed said: "No."

How succinct. Care to expand on that?

BroadwayConcierge said: "I think the challenges of penning a play versus writing the book of a musical are two very different animals. "



One could say the same thing about writing music for a play vs. writing the score a musical, and yet they are both eligible in the same category for the Tonys.

Updated On: 6/10/18 at 12:41 PM

Back in the 1960s, there were years where they had a Best Play category and a Best Producer (Dramatic) category. Sometimes, they were won by the same show; sometimes not. And in 1965, they even had a third category: Best Author. And all three prizes were won by different shows (!): Frank Gilroy's ''The Subject Was Roses'' won Best Play; Claire Nichtern (''Luv'' ) won for Best Producer (Dramatic), and Neil Simon (''The Odd Couple'' ) won for Best Author. … But given how skimpy the Play category is, I don't expect them to split this up again. How sad is it that there are 5 nominees for Best Play, but only ''Harry Potter'' is still running?

Writing a book for a musical is a totally different animal, than writing a straight play. Bookwriters often have to allow their best scenes, that is the dramatic highlights, to be turned into song. Librettists deserve their own category. And I don't believe in tossing dramatic scores for plays, alongside song scores for musicals. They should be separate, as they are at the Drama Desks.

Updated On: 6/10/18 at 01:24 PM

GeorgeandDot said: "There really needs to be a Best Book of a Play category. Last year Sweat would have won Best Book while Oslo won Best Play. This year The Children or Junk would win Best Book and Harry Potter would win Best Play. I really think it needs to be there. Most years, Book and Play would probably go to two different shows. The best production doesn't always have the best script and vice versa.

As for Book including plays and musicals, I think it's unfair. They're two very different animals. You cannot compare them."

I pretty much agree with you...War Horse was not the best play of its year, it was the best production; same thing for this year...Potter is about the production, as the script is pretty mediocre. I also agree with Wayman that it is hard to argue for giving separate awards when there is such a dearth of productions these days...it could end up a total repeat between categories, which would only accentuate how few productions there are, although I am a little more optimistic re next season with recent announcements.

I also agree that this is a category where musicals and plays should not be combined. They are different beasts.

I certainly wouldn't claim that they are exactly the same thing. But I don't think the principals are as different as many seem to believe. At the end of the day, it's all playwriting in some form or another. The writer of a book comes up with (or adapts) a story, they structure it, make sure the scenes are in the right order, make sure the character arcs make sense, they develop themes, and they write dialogue. It's more challenging to do all of this while taking songs into consideration, yes, but many of the same skills are being put into play.

RE the collaboration aspect: Yes, they often have to do this in collaboration with others, but not always. Should musicals be ineligible for best book if the book writer also wrote the score, because they aren't collaborating? And some plays like Harry Potter are also highly collaborative.

Maybe if book writers, producers, audiences, etc. stopped thinking of them as entirely "different animals," (to use the phrase almost all of you used) we would have some better books out there. Producers would actually hire book writers who know how to do something other than get from song to song. If you look at some of the best books out there - especially in the Golden Age, and many of Sondheim's collaborators - they actually give the book room to breathe, and to serve as the foundation of the show, which the songs then deepen. In those cases, the book writer's work often doesn't feel so different from a playwright's work IMO, because the book is allowed to be a strong entity in the room, and not just a weak link providing context for the score.

I'm having trouble putting this idea into words, so I'm sorry if what I'm trying to communicate isn't clear.

I'm a playwright who also writes musical librettos, so I wanted to chime in with my experiences. I do believe that a separate category for play scripts, separate from overall Best Play, is a great idea, but I cannot agree with those who think that musical books and play scripts are similar enough to warrant a shared category.

Yes, both deal with structuring a story and writing the dialogue, but the specific craft of each is very different. In a non-musical play, your primary concern is how to convey the story and themes through dialogue and action. In my experience, the dialogue becomes of paramount importance, and in most plays (not all, of course), it's about the language used to reach specific moments of conflict and catharsis.

In writing the book of a musical, we still deal heavily with structure, but the form itself requires that we sacrifice some of the emotionally rich moments to the songs. A musical that doesn't use its songs for emotional and plot development is not a truly integrated book musical. Writing the book of a musical is about figuring out how to apportion out the richest scenes: which need to become songs, and which need to remain spoken? There are all sorts of "cues" or "codes" embedded in the use of music for song moments: for instance, if two characters share emotionally rich scenes but never sing together, that "says" something. A book writer has to assemble these parts and work with the songwriter(s) to create a unified voice.

Good playwrights often are not good librettists, and vice versa. Speaking from personal experience, I know I'm an okay playwright but a relatively decent book writer (and sometimes lyricist). Combining play scripts into the Book category would probably result in only one "style" becoming the favorite: either plays are usually recognized and musicals only when they resemble plays, or vice versa.