What if BANDSTAND opened this awards season? — Page 2

Maybe had there been five Best Musical nominees last year given the amount of contenders (especially since a new rule was established this year with five guaranteed nominees if there were at least nine eligible candidates), Bandstand probably would've taken the fifth slot. Though I will say how truly stunned I was that Andy Blankenbuehler still managed to win Best Choreography because it had been 18 years since a show that wasn't nominated for Best Musical nor Revival won that award. Granted, Swan Lake also opened in a pretty weak season on Broadway, but still.

Updated On: 6/26/18 at 08:48 PM

But CedricOates, what if aliens had abducted Rodgers and Hammerstein the night before they started working on Oklahoma!? Would Billy Elliot still win Best Musical in 2009? Would Paula Deen have stopped using the n-word after 9/11? Would I have taken the role of Marvin in Falsettos in Houston instead of originating a role in an original flop musical in 1997? Would the world have ever acknowledged the hideous ridiculousness of skinny fit clothing? Thoughts.

BANDSTAND certainly would've stayed open longer if it opened this season. The '16-'17 year was one of the strongest ever. They would've gotten way more nominations (Cott, Osnes, Director, Musical, Orchestrations, Score, and Book). Idk if they would've won anymore because The Band's Visit dominated, MAYBE Cott would've won Best Actor over Shalhoub.

But certainly opening in such a strong and crowded year hurt them.

Bandstand was a show that you knew in advance would not be popular with the Manhattan Intelligentsia. None of them are familiar with the utter horrors experienced by the soldiers and Marines on the muddy, disease-ridden islands of Guadalcanal and Okinawa and Tarawa during the Second World War and the similar terrain of South Vietnam. Opposing soldiers preferring death to surrender. Dodging rocket-powered grenades and falling on poison-tipped bamboo sticks hidden in pits under the underbrush. Soldiers under such strain that they murdered their own officers and committed atrocities against civilians who collaborated with the other side.

I volunteered for a year and a half in the mid-90s with a homeless shelter in upscale Port Jefferson, NY. Astonished at the number of Vietnam Vets living on the street. Confirmed substance-abusers, mostly alcoholic. A few even worse cases of once normal American men confined in the awful state mental institutions.

Bandstand was a fine and sincere attempt at disclosing the plight of the damaged soldiers while at the same time depicting the urge of those who made it back to return to "normal" and forget.

No knock on those who think that the show is just finding cheap sentiment in covering something that has been out there for years. Before they post, though, maybe they should take a few seconds to consider whether they have the knowledge to make an intelligent post.

I saw Bandstand three times and each time the audience bought entirely into the second act with their tears and laughs. Perhaps when you were there the audience was indifferent.

It would not have won anything but may have gotten some additional nominations.