Tony Awards classifies a season as...?

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 9:23pm

I know the season goes from May to May, but I was wondering if it was always that way. When they first started giving Tony Awards, the nominated shows don't line up with these guidelines. I was just curious to know if anyone knew the history on what was considered a season back in the day?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 9:37pm

The ceremonies (and seasons) have gotten progressively later over the years. The ceremony has been in June since the early 80s, but was in May before that and April before that and, if you go back to the first ceremonies in the 40s and 50s the ceremony was in March. Not sure exactly why it's moved so much. Perhaps, it's shifted to avoid competing with the Oscars (which had been in April for many years before moving back to February this year). Also, perhaps it has to do with the increased prevalence of air-conditioned theaters. Back in the 40s and before, some shows (in certain theaters) would shut down during the hottest summer months and then re-open in September when the weather was cooler. The notion of holding a big indoor ceremony in June would have been out of the question. That's just a guess, though.

Updated On: 4/4/07 at 09:37 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 10:39pm

Margo brought up an excellent point. Some theatres had no AC! If you look at old posters from the late 40s on, near where the theatre is listed, there is usually a label that reads "air conditioned." Not all have them though. Usually the big hits. Before that, most producers put ice in the vents. Thankfully, I wasn't alive for that.

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 4/4/07 at 11:53pm

The Oscars were in March for awhile before they bumped them into February, not April...

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 12:57pm

The early ceremonies were not given for a season as such. The Broadway season has always run June 1 - May 31 (I Think Variety made that determination, although my early Best Plays books, c. 1925, the season runs June 15-June 15.)

In the 1976/77 season the Awards were moved to the first Sunday in June to more closely align with the end of the season. Variety still uses teh week ending closes to May 31 as the cut off.

ABC apparently didn't like the awards show being broadcast in June so in 1978 it switched to CBS. The first year the network allotted only 90 minutes and presented several key awards (including Best Book and Best Score) off camera. The 1979 broadcast went to two hours (It ran overtime as Tony shows did until the early 1990s) and included all the awards.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 1:52pm

So we never actually saw Kander and Ebb win in 1967?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 2:18pm

The Variety "season" and the Tony "season" are two different things.

How can the Tony season have ALWAYS been between June 1 and May 31 if the Tony cut-off has always been well before June 1? While the Variety definition of "season" encompasses those dates, the eligibility period for the awards -- the actual "Tony season" -- is certainly not that and never has been.

This season the cut-off for a show to be eligible for this year's Tonys is May 10th and in previous years that date has been even earlier (I remember when it used to be in April and, though it's before my time, obviously back in the days when the ceremony was in March, the cut-off to be considered for that year's awards couldn't have been in June!!!). Typically the cut-off is roughly one month before the date of the ceremony (thereby giving the nominating committee time to vote on and release the nominations and giving voters time to see the nominated shows that they haven't been able to at that point). This means that back when the ceremony was held in March, the official "Tony season" probably ended in February.

Many years (since the awards moved to June) there have been shows that open in late May (Roundabout and MTC has done this sometimes) -- after the Tony cut--off, but before the Variety one -- that are classified as being in one season for Variety purposes, but are considered part of the next year's season for Tony purposes.

For Tony purposes, the season is the period between last year's cut-off date and this year's cut-off date -- not from June 1 to May 31.

Updated On: 4/5/07 at 02:18 PM

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 4:00pm

okay, my question comes because things weren't adding up for me with nominees. for example:

My Fair Lady (opened March 15, 1956)
Happy Hunting (opened Dec. 6 1956)
The Most Happy Fella (opened May 3 1956)
Bells Are Ringing (opened Nov. 29 1956)
Li'l Abner (opened Nov. 15 1956)
Candide (opened Dec. 1 1956)

all of these shows were nominees for the 1957 Tony Awards. So I thought maybe at first a season was a calendar year, with the tonys early the next year? Updated On: 4/5/07 at 04:00 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 4:12pm

The cut-off date for the Tony season is usually about a month before the ceremony itself. The ceremony that year was held April 21, 1957, which means the cut-off date for that season was probably around March 21st (or so), so any show that opened between March 21, 1956 and March 21, 1957 would have been eligible for that year's awards. All the shows you list were within that time period.

Updated On: 4/5/07 at 04:12 PM

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 4:46pm

is there somewhere that lists the ceremonies and on what date they were held?

[mikem]

Posted: 4/5/07 at 5:52pm

Thesbijean, the Oscars were often held in April from the late 1950's unti the 1980's. Before and after that time, the Oscars were usually in March (until the recent change to February). It would be interesting to see whether the Tony shifts in timing have paralleled the Oscar shifts.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 4:24pm

For info on every Tony ceremony in history:

http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/archive/ceremonies/index.html