The Tonys are officially postponed! — Page 2

Stephen75 said: "I still think Woolf is going to come back in some form. It makes zero sense why it couldn’t come back besides a scheduling thing, especially considering all the other shows are looking to be coming back. If it’s The Conners issue, they can do it next Spring as long as Lane’s schedule allows for Salesman at a later time. If it’s a Everett/Tovey/Ferran not being in the US thing, I would imagine they would love to chance to open this. Tovey said on IG Live today he “hopes the show has another life” which made me feel a bit better."

There are $ thousands $ of $ reasons $ it makes sense why it wont return. By "closing" the show, they are closing the chapter on all financial and contractual investments with it. The set will be thrown away as soon as it can, the marketing budget has been spent and went down the toilet, and with all the creative team/cast contracts ended, the odds of getting them all together to remount this is so small.

I wouldn't be surprised if 10 or more shows close as a result of this. And if that's the case, we're gonna have people making the case why each one of them will "come back in some form." But shows open and run a couple of weeks and close all the time, this isn't fully a new situation. 

As for the Tonys, it's up to the Broadway League to decide what they deem a season. It's gonna be a boring as hell season if they keep the cutoff date at late April, and the ceremony will be forgotten and the winners will always have the shadow of this mini-season over them. I do think it should just merge with the 20/21 season, as shows will be recovering from this for the next 12 months. I don't think things will magically be normal in the Fall. 

Kad said: "The bulk of the awards-bait productions for this season were crammed, as they often are, into the spring and are now canceled, postponed, or face an indefinite future. A 20-21 season is likely to be thin as people financially recover. Just scrap them for this year and have all productions this season eligible for next. I don't think it's that big of a deal."
 

This isn't about awards. It's a televised commercial for Broadway. Broadway needs the Tonys within 2 months of "reopening." It's not a matter of X number of original scores, or seemingly worthwhile shows that are no longer happening: the League needs to signal that Broadway is back, and that it's okay to go to a theatre again. Which is going to be hard, especially if COVID gets better in the summer then escalates again in the fall, as some expect it might.

ACL2006, thanks for that list. I bet Sing Street delays to 2021, and Diana and Lehman never open. Which leaves Six, Company, and Doubtfire, plus the shows with questionable finances that might not return.

They did it on the premiere of Sunset Boulevard, they can do with 4 new musicals again and they will do it.

I bet it will be a special Tony Awards, more focused on the community, with several performances from the surviving long runners, ready to remind you what's waiting for you.

Hell, I'd bet on a Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim duet.

Kad said: "But it's an awards show, one that struggles with low viewership anyway, and one that would be honoring shows that largely aren't running anymore. Hell, of ACL's list of shows this season, the overwhelming majority were closed before the theaters were shut down. As a commercial, that's weak. As something to appeal to viewers, it's nothing."

Yes, but this isn't just about the new shows. Every show will need a boost, new shows above all. And despite its low viewership, it's still one of CBS's highest-viewed live events per year (sans sports). It's an opportunity for some big names to come together to support the industry they love. this wouldn't be a normal Tonys.

Guys.... it’s not going to happen this season (at least not based on the current crop at time of the shutdown), as the ACL2006 list makes clear. Unless I’m wrong, there are about 18 shows that are eligible (things like Derren Brown, American Utopia, Slava’s Snowshow, Freestyle Love Supreme and all the other various concerts already being deemed ineligible). And that’s INCLUDING open-ended shows that were playing at the time
of shutdown but that might not come back, which (as was the case with Carrie in 1988 when it suddenly closed after a few performances) would then HAVE to be automatically declared ineligible because not all the nominators and voters will have been given an opportunity to see them (question marks here include Girl from the North Country, West Side Story, maybe Jagged Little Pill).... so if some combination of those kinds of shows don’t come back, the complete list of eligible qualifying productions could be down to as low as around 15.

There have arguably been even worse seasons for sure quality-wise (1985? 1995?) but never any so anemic in number (the 1985 season, when they cut several categories, and the 1995 season, when they were only 2 nominees for Best Musical and Best Actress, both included around 35 offerings). So there just isn’t enough there to constitute an awards show, and all the caterwauling about how it MUST happen and WILL happen isn’t enough to make it so.

As Kad said, it’s just a function of where this fell in the calendar, with more than half the season (16 shows, and most of the heavy hitters) set to open during this shutdown period. AND if they wait for the half-dozen or so postponed shows to open this fall, and hold Tonys then, they then face an equally undesirable, and possibly even more depressing, scenario where they’re holding a -2021- ceremony comprised of only shows opening between December and April... which will presumably (and assuming money can be raised) similarly be only about 12 or 15 shows again. So as much as it breaks my heart, barring a miracle where theater is up and running by Easter, I just don’t see it still happening with a Tonys this year and a Tonys next year. 

In terms of awards and eligibility, a new, maybe slightly expanded Tony ceremony at the end of the 2021 season is the only logical way to go that gives the street time to heal, the business time to bounce back, and that doesn't result in any awards broadcast that seems like a downer (with perhaps, if CBS is game, and as others have suggested, a separate celebration/party/glorified commercial this fall paying tribute to Broadway, saluting the shows up and running at that time, and promoting the ones that need it most by then.). The Oscars and Golden Globes might be facing a similar dilemma next year as well, but they have more cover, since the films most likely to wind up as awards-bait are usually scheduled to open in the last few months of THEIR eligibility period, ie Nov/Dec, when presumably movies will be back up and running. Unless we just want Best Actress to be a competition between Marisa Tomei and Laura Linney and Mary-Louise Parker, in 3 shows that by then will have all closed 8-to-10 months earlier anyway, Broadway’s calendar just doesn’t allow for the same timeline of recovery in terms of the 2020 Tonys.

Updated On: 3/26/20 at 03:13 AM

Kimbo said: "Unless we just want Best Actress to be a competition between Marisa Tomei and Laura Linney and Mary-Louise Parker, in 3 shows that by then will have all closed 8-to-10 months earlier anyway, Broadway’s calendar just doesn’t allow for the same timeline of recovery in terms of the 2020 Tonys."

1) you forgot Audra in Frankie and Johnny.

2) Most of these performances were stunning and arguably Tony-worthy, especially Parker and Audra.

BJR said: "The Tonys will not be cancelled. Who would *not* want them to happen? The American Theatre Wing or the Broadway League - which one? Neither. They both have huge incentives to make them happen, especially the producers in the League, who will want that national commercial.

Again, that list you ACL2006 so wonderfully made shows plenty of eligible shows (though a couple were left out) even is none of the ones from Spring come back and some (Company) we know will.

Agree the biggest hurdle will be having a spring season in summer or very early fall because as Kimbo noted, locals aren't around during the summer.

Right now, my money is on August re-openings and October Tonys. But who knows!"

This all makes sense, and I could feasibly see that scenario happening. But with Charlotte St Martin’s email that went out today to Broadway producers and theater owners stating that, per conversations with Gov. Cuomo, Broadway will likely be “the last area of business to come back”... (and bearing in mind no one will want to reopen if there’s even a chance of another fall outbreak, as some medical experts predict, and the theater industry being ordered to do this all over again)... plus bearing in mind that after such a long break nearly all shows will need some rehearsals and tech run-throughs, and the ones that had just started previews or hadn’t even opened yet will need an extended rehearsal period to regroup...

Well, given all that, I could also just as easily see a scenario where the shows slowly and carefully stagger their reopenings through the course of Aug/Sept/Oct, with voters being invited in November - and if that turns out to be the case, I still say I don’t think they’ll do one Tonys at Thanksgiving and another one only 6 months later. But like you said, who knows? (If on the other hand Broadway manages to get up and running sooner than August, in June-July, then maybe they will cobble together an autumn Tonys to celebrate this semi-season.)

Updated On: 3/29/20 at 02:43 PM

BJR said: "I think that all makes sense. And it truly depends on how we navigate the virus' spread and possible aftershocks, you're right.

I will note this season, even with cancellations, is still larger than many seasons in the 90s. So, in terms of quantity, there isn't a reason to combine this season and next."

Maybe. I still think if you take away the special events and concerts, if a few shows don’t reopen, and if the cutoff is based on what was up and running when Broadway shut down, you’re easily looking at an all-time low (15-18 eligible shows total).  But I’m the biggest theater fan I know so I don’t want people to think I’m doom & gloom, just reading the tea leaves and half making a prediction/half saying what I think makes the most sense under the circumstances. 

Either they’ll happen or they won’t, but while I’ve talked to a few people in the game I obviously I don’t necessarily know much more than the people saying “Of COURSE they’re going to happen”.  I’ll leave it at that for the moment with this, taken from a thoughtful and resigned article on Gothamist this afternoon- it obviously doesn’t necessarily mean this will apply to the Tonys... but if I were a gambling man, I’d unfortunately bet that it will. 

“When the coronavirus pandemic first began causing major events and parades around the city to shut down, most organizers said they would indefinitely delay rather than outright cancel the events—for example, the St. Patrick's Day Parade organizers claim that they hope to still hold it at some point in 2020. But as the crisis goes on, it seems clear that many events will not be able to logistically come together this year.”

Updated On: 3/26/20 at 05:49 PM