Tony "Best Musical" Question

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/2/05 at 11:53pm

Has any OFF-Broadway Musical ever won a Tony Award or do they all have to be on Broadway to be nominated?

[commasplice]

Posted: 3/2/05 at 11:55pm

They all have to be on Broadway to be nominated.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/2/05 at 11:56pm

Even "best Play" nominees?

[commasplice]

Posted: 3/2/05 at 11:58pm

Yup. To be nominated for a Tony, your show must be ON Broadway, not off. (Which is why there's been so much hullabaloo recently about Spelling Bee transferring to Broadway, for example, because now it's eligible for the Tonys)

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 1:35am

Oh okay, Thanks. So I guess Bare won't even get mentioned huh? ha.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 1:37am

No.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 1:48am

The only exception (and this is just for you trivia lovers) was the 1956 landmark revival of Threepenny Opera which played down at Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) on Christopher Street. This was at the very beginning of what we now call Off-Broadway and it was so acclaimed that it was made Tony eligible. Two of the actors were nominated and one of them, the legendary Lotte Lenya won for Best Featured Actress. The show was also awarded a Special Tony (there was no revival category at the time).

After that year, as more critically acclaimed shows opened downtown and off-Broadway, the Tonys changed the rules so that it would be a "Broadway only" award which it has been ever since.

Updated On: 3/3/05 at 01:48 AM

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 1:54am

Thanks for that trivia, Margo! That is very interesting!

[mikeonbroadway]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 10:24am

even if off-broadway were considered at the tonys...bare would've been for last year's tony awards.

the village voice does the obies for off-broadway shows.

[Urban]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 11:44am

Taking the question in reverse, wasn't there controversy about "Asassins" being nominated for Rivival instead of original because it had never 'technically' played on Broadway?

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 1:25pm

I believe that GREASE, the original production, was allowed for Tony consideration, because its move to Broadway was planned, but had not taken place yet.

I recall some hoopla about GREASE being called the first off broadway show to ever have Tony nods.

I guess at the time the folks had forgotten about ThreePenny Opera as Margo has pointed out.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 3:38pm

Here's where it can get really obscure. Grease was Tony-eligible because it was produced under the Production contract which is the one that Broadway shows are produced under. (Some are done under a LORT contract now.) The theatre it opened in was the Eden (soon-to-be-Entermedia and now the Village East 7-plex movie theatres) at 2nd Avenue and East 12th Street. The capacity of the theatre was about 1100 then.

Tony-eligible is usually by theatre and/or contract. Hence the Beaumont which uses the LORT contract for the first 10 weeks of the run and if business warrants must switch to the Production contract, is still an eligible house. Back in 1972 the Eden/Entermedia was on the eligible list. By 1981 or so with Joseph... I'm not sure it was on the list any more.

I told you it was obscure.

NB-History Time: Before becoming the Eden in 1969 or so for the original run of Oh, Calcutta (non eligible, I believe), this same theatre was the Casino East for a long run of an old fashioned burlesque show starring a slightly-long-in-the-tooth, former strip queen named Ann Corio called This Was Burlesque and before that was the Phoenix, home of the famed and legendary Phoenix Rep Company where Once Upon a Mattress and The Golden Apple among many many others, originated. It was built as one of the Yiddish theatres that flourished on lower 2nd Avenue. Indeed if you go into what is called Theatre #1 which is pretty much all of the Mezzanine and the front of the orchestra of the original theatre, you will see the landmarked ceiling which has a huge Star of David inlaid into the dome.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:12pm

Makes me glad to be plugged in to this board to see all the great knowledge people share here! Bravo all!

Rentboy, we are heading into the fun part of every Tony season: When all the decisions are made by the committee: What will be eligible and in which category! And you get to see it play out here as we endless debate: How is Frogs a New Musical and 12 Angry Men a revival? Hos is this part Supporting and this part a Lead? Oooh, I shiver in anticipation!

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:24pm

Why wouldn't THE FROGS be considered new, and 12 ANGRY MEN a revival?

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:24pm

Every year i never watch the tonys. Usually something comes up and i don't get a chance to see them. but this year i'm def. going to sit down and watch them.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:32pm

12 Angry Men falls under the Tony "Classics" rule where even though it's never played Broadway, it's been an established and oft-performed work for 50 years and shouldn't be considered new.

The Frogs however played once 30 years ago in the Yale swimming pool and at the time was more of a 45 minutes skit than a full-fledged show. And that 45 minutes version has rarely been perfomed anywhere since. With six news songs from Sondheim and a new-ish book from Nathan Lane, the now two act, two and a half hour show is for all intents and purposes a new work for Broadway.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:35pm

No, I know that I'm agreeing with the fact that FROGS is new and MEN is a revival...joe just made it seem like they weren't, and I was curious as to why.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 9:39pm

Sorry Munk I wasn't arguing, I was just citing that as a type of question that gets asked and debated at Tony time: These are both old shows, why is one of them "New" and one of them a "revival". Margo explained it perfectly-- It wasn't really an issue to me it was just the only Tony question I could think of at the moment.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 12:04am

WAIT isn't The Frogs being considered as a new musical this year??????

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 12:25am

I have to say that I am so glad I chose to read this thread. Thank you all for the great info. There are so many threads/so little time that I am glad I opened this one.

Was there not talk in 1994 that Timon of Athens could be nominated for Best Play because it can hardly be considered a "oft performed" classic and had never been produced on Broadway? Thus it could have been possible that Kushner could have been up against Shakespeare. And God knows that Angel in America is a better play than Timon.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 12:34am

Well, the "classics" rule is only a couple of seasons old. The issue really came to a head in 2002 when Turgenev's 150 year old play "Fortune's Fool" got nominated for Best Play (it had never been mounted on Broadway before).

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 12:39am

Thanks, Margo. But who do you think would have won in '94 if Shakespeare and Kushner had both been up?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 12:41am

Angels vs Timon of Athens?

Angels in a walk.