The Great "Best Musical" Race of 2019 — Page 3

Actual word-of-mouth takes time to kick in. Tootsie's had 4 weeks of previews and 4 performances since its reviews came out; The Prom has been running 6 months, has a cast album, and has had national TV appearances. And despite all that, it's been on life-support.

Individual social circles are usually poor indicators of word-of-mouth as it relates to sales –– unless your social circle happens to be 63% tourists and 66% wealthy women over 45.

Updated On: 4/28/19 at 12:03 AM

RE: whether/not Cher should perform at the Tonys, I hope she won't.

On Fallon's show, which was devoted to Cher, and promoting The Cher Show, she was pretty vocal about how she's never heard anyone who'd ever done a really good impression of her. She said that they "make some noises and facial expressions, and I try to find myself in there, and it's just so much bullish_t".

She got applause and hoots/whistles from the audience, but I wish she had followed up with some kind of mention re: the 3 actresses portraying her in The Cher Show, who had just performed as a means of promoting her show.

Cher wants EGOT status - and why not? She's a well-deserved legend. But I don't see any need to overshadow the three ladies who are helping her reach that goal, on a night that's meant to (possibly) honor them.

Hadestown, Ain’t Too Proud or King Kong will win the Tony

Strong contenders for the other nomination spots: Beetlejuice, The Prom, The Cher Show, Be More Chill and Pretty Woman

bjh2114 said: "HeyMrMusic said: "Actually, there’s also a rule about tie-breakers this year, so we won’t see more nominees than the prescribed number...(Four in Revival of a Play ... if they don’t decide to combine the categories.)"

Technically Revival of a Play could have as many as 5 or 6 based on the tiebreaker rule. There are 8 eligible productions, so 4 shows will be automatically nominated. But if the 4th highest vote getter has the same number of votes as another production (or two), all of those tied productions will be nominated. But yes, we're for sure getting 5 in Best Musical and Best Play and 2 in Best Revival of Musical (assuming they don't combine for a Best Revival category)."

On another thread, we discovered there’s language in the rules for a nomination tiebreaker (meaning only the set number of nominees allowed) and also a tie allowing all tied nominees (within three votes) getting in, so who knows which one is true.

The only way I see Cher getting in is because of the respected people in the industry behind it, but I just still think it'll fall short to Be More Chill. Get those teens tuning in for Tony night by nominating BMC for musical, score, and Salazar for supporting actor.

SomethingPeculiar said: "Mike Barrett said: "Get those teens tuning in for Tony night by nominating BMC for musical, score, and Salazar for supporting actor."

I REALLY don't think the Tony nominators have that mindset. And if the BMC grosses are any indication, the word-of-mouth isn't translating to sales.

Look at this list of 48 nominators, it's kind of a random group: 9 actors, 8 director/choreographers, 8 writers, 5 designers, and 15 people associated with non-profit theatres or theatre-adjacent arts industries. These aren't the 850 people (featuring a lot of producers) who vote on the Tonys."

Very fair point! I guess I wasn't aware virtually no producers vote on nominations, I guess its surpassing to me for some reason but makes sense. Thoughts like the one I mentioned may have more impact on the winners than the nominees.

@ Mike Barrett, it's an odd group of -- no offense -- "second-tier" theatre people, including some who haven't worked on Bway. And anyone with a conflict-of-interest or who missed a show this season has to recuse themself in all related categories (eg, Peter Hedges' son is Lucas, Mara Isaac is connected to Hadestown, etc.)

HeyMrMusic said: "On another thread, we discovered there’s language in the rules for a nomination tiebreaker (meaning only the set number of nominees allowed) and also a tie allowing all tiednominees (within three votes)getting in, so who knows which one is true."

The tiebreak rule as written in this year's version reads "In the event that there is a two-way or three-way tie for the last slot of nominations in any of the 26 established competitive categories, both or all three of those candidates shall be nominated." I take that to mean that if there is a tie for the first, second, or third nomination slots, we will only get four nominees. But if there is a tie for the 4TH spot, we will get 5 (or 6).

RippedMan said: "I enjoyed "Tootsie" but didn't think Santino really did anything impressive, and sad that he'll probably win as it is a weak year for Best Actor.

But there's no way "Tootsie" can win in this climate without utter backlash. I mean it's a white dude who doesn't like the way things are going so he decides to be a women to take a job away from a woman..."

The thing that gets me about this is that it was a movie before it was a musical. if people were aware of the concept of the movie, and found it offensive, why would they waste energy insulting the show? Aside from not bringing the show to Broadway (an unrealistic expectation?) how could they have altered what is the main plot point of the show? I hate seeing all this hate for the show. I wanted to support people who are very upset about the concept and see something else like Beetlejuice, but wit the strobe in that show, should I really put my health at risk? It breaks my heart that there are so many wonderful shows on Broadway right now: I feel like we've been so spoiled. There's something for so many people. If a show offends you so much...how about just don't see it, educate people on why you don't like it, but don't call it trash? I've seen such rude comments, and I have to wonder how many people making those comments have actually seen the show. I know if you heard about their merchandise fiasco it would turn you off of the show. But people still shouldn't be condemned for wanting to see what interests them. Celebrate the shows you love. It's really that simple.