Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

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Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:45pm

With all the hoopla over Mamma Mia, Legally Blonde & Jersey Boys performing, I started to wonder again why plays get such a short end of the stick at the Tony Awards. I remember when I looked forward to the performances from plays as much as the musicals but that's all gone now. Why couldn't they use that time to showcase some of the best that Broadway has to offer? Showing Susan Sarandon & Geoffrey Rush in a scene is sure to sell tickets, no? Or Jane Fonda performing part of 33 VARIATIONS will only help boost sales when she performs it either in London or on tour, not to mention what a performance of GOD OF CARNAGE could do. It doesn't make any sense to me why musicals get all the glory when recently they've collectively been the WORST of what's on the Great White Way. Instead we get a ten second clip that showcases nobody and gives no clue as to what the play is about.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:47pm

I agree they always screw over the plays

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself"

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:51pm

Sometimes it's very difficult to give justice to a small snippet of play.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:52pm

It didn't stop them for years picking a scene to highlight to show. The same could be said that picking one song from a musical doesn't give it justice. Doesn't stop them from trying, though.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:52pm

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Bottom line.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 4:54pm

Wasn't "Angels in America" performed at the Tony Awards? I heard that it was.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 5:04pm

If the Oscars can pick a two minute clip for best picture nominees, the Tony's could do the same.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 5:07pm

Maybe if they had better quality clips to show. I thought the clips on the Tonys were horrid both in quality and content.

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 5:16pm

The year of King Headley II they were. I believe that was the last year.

#10

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 5:18pm

No, I'm not talking about showing a clip. I'm talking about coming back from a commercial and Neil Patrick Harris saying "And now, a scene from this year's Tony Nominee for Best Play, God of Carnage" - Pan the camera to the left to the stage where we see a sofa, a love seat, a coffee table and four stars who are going to get people watching in Oklahoma actually interested in the show they're performing 8 nights a week.

#11

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 5:25pm

Viola Davis got to perform that heart-wrenching monologue from KING HEDLEY II the year she won the Tony, I thought it was a great performance, it represented the play well, and everybody got why she won the award. I wish they did that again.

"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

#12

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 7:23pm

I felt that the clips that were shown this year for the nominated plays were actually more insulting than not having any footage shown at all.

Updated On: 6/9/09 at 07:23 PM

#13

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 7:33pm

Seriously. It was basically ten seconds and out. I certainly think that at least the new plays should be given the chance to screw up live on national television like the musicals. :)

Twice as many good plays as musicals opened this season. I'm not saying that to denigrate musicals, but to say that the play scene on Broadway right now is pretty great, and if one purpose of the Tonys is to celebrate Broadway theater, they should have reflected that. Plays are smaller and they don't become 10-year phenomenons, but the theater district can't live on 10-year phenomenons alone. The smaller profits that plays turn are still profits.

Updated On: 6/9/09 at 07:33 PM

#14

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 7:36pm

This year was worse than ever. The was (I believe) CBS' call to scrap the play clips for the touring companies. I don't get it at all. Not at all.

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

#15

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 7:38pm

I agree. The clips this year were disgraceful. And the lack of representation for the play revivals was also shameful- but we all know how the Tony producers feel about that category anyway..

However, I think it is a much harder thing to represent a play on the Tony awards like a musical. With musicals, you are guaranteed to have a 4 minute thing to perform. It's just inherent with musicals. With plays, you're not guaranteed to have a perfect monologue to perform, or a scene that is short enough and actually is representative of the material.

Also, I think that there is a grave issue of time. Assuming ALL nominees (all 16 possible shows, for revivals and new) are open, and each does 4 minutes, you're already over an hour- and no awards have been given, no tributes, etc.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

#16

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 8:36pm

I've been wondering that. I certainly wouldn't mind them performing scenes or something.

#17

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 8:51pm

Well, to be honest, I wasn't crazy about the tribute to Wendy Wasserstein and someone else in 2006.
Cynthia Nixon and someone else did two monologues and they were both really flat and boring.

So it think to do a scene from a play, it has to be done "in the spirt" of the actual play and not just a monologue in an evening gown.

But I have to say that I wished that they would have done it last year. "August: Osage County" would have been great to see on the stage!

#18

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 9:09pm

MTVMANN, a few less than stellar performances can't be the reason to not represent more than HALF of what these awards are supposedly honoring and showcasting. I mean, let's start counting the boring, crap-tastic performances from Musicals, just these past few years. That's certainly not going to stop anyone for clamoring to get to perform.

It's no secret that musicals, honestly, just aren't very good anymore as a whole. This year we had a very few that were any good. The rest, well, that's why we have PBS concert versions to look forward to. But you can't tell me that if you were to put a scene between Janet McTeer & Hariet Walter on TV, the electricity from those two would not only be enough to power the TV set it was being watched on but it would drive sales up immediately. Brilliant new plays like REASONS TO BE PRETTY which now have to close could have had a fair shot at promoting themselves and having a longer life. If it's all about the ratings and money than why not advertise "Live Performances by Jane Fonda, Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Nathan Lane, John Goodman, etc".

It's insulting to everyone who works their asses off to put these shows on every night (in most cases nowadays to more people than see a musical) only to be all but completely ignored on the one night they should be honored.

#19

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/9/09 at 10:05pm

Mentioned this before. In the Tony Award telecasts for a few years in the late '80s, they did perform actual scenes from the plays, in costume and with a semblance of set. And more often than not, the scenes worked quite well - I still remember the scenes performed by Linda Lavin and Jonathan Silverman from Broadway Bound, B.D. Wong and John Lithgow in M. Butterfly, Courtney Vance and James Earl Jones in Fences, Mary Louise Parker, Barnard Hughes and Timothy Hutton in Prelude to a Kiss, Annette Bening and Tim Daly in Coastal Disturbances and especially Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack in Lettice and Lovage.

I think it's just that the plays are being considered a formality, instead of a part of the landscape. Someone somewhere down the line decided "play segments don't work" as a way to ignore them and throw all of the attention toward the musicals, where the real money gets made.

It would take a revolution from within the producer ranks of the Broadway League for anything to actually happen. I can't believe that producers of plays are satisfied with how they are treated by the broadcast, but no one seems to want to say or do anything about it.

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

Updated On: 6/9/09 at 10:05 PM

#20

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/10/09 at 3:20pm

I just saw On Stage on NY1 and they were complaining about the same thing. Hopefully people will take note and start to change this around.

#21

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/10/09 at 9:40pm

It was Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson, with James Earl Jones doing the Wilson monologue that you're talking about MTVMANN.

And I became so disinterested due to the lack of straight play representation that I stopped watching this year. Its a fvckin snooze.

Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. -John Patrick Shanley

#22

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/10/09 at 9:49pm

>>>"Its a fvckin snooze"<<<

Oh, the images this comment conjures are priceless.

"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

#23

re: Why Aren't Plays More Represented At The Tonys?

Posted: 6/10/09 at 10:01pm

In years past, they used to do scenes from the plays. But it always seemed so odd. Even the best scene from the best play seems so wrong when taken out of context. Granted those 10-second clips are no better...I would rather see several still images from the plays. Just my thoughts....

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