Would they have won today?

That's kind of a tough question to answer because those shows are what shaped modern theatre. Or, assuming that you only mean if I were to pick one show out of the golden era and have it be released now...than I think it would depend. Even with Hamilton, something like My Fair Lady would probably win, that's not a fair comparison though, is it? Considering that My Fair Lady is often considered the best musical ever made. However, something like Oklahoma! probably wouldn't... Cabaret's original version might beat Hamilton, but I'm very bias because I adore Cabaret. Then again you could argue that they wouldn't win, i.e. An American in Paris didn't win. By the way, I consider the golden age to be the 1943-1969, I mean with Cabaret, Fiddler, and Dolly, why not? You also have to consider that audiences and critics have changed...

There's a bit of luck involved in winning a Tony for best musical because so much depends on the strength of the competition, or lack thereof. I don't think "Memphis" and "Gentleman's Guide" are up there with "Phantom " or "My Fair Lady," but all four won. "Into the Woods" did not. If its competition had been "Memphis," instead of "Phantom," I suspect the outcome would have been quite different for "ITW".

Audrey

I agree with Audrey. In recent years there have been times when all musicals nominated could have won Best Musical (i.e. 2004 with Avenue Q, Wicked, Caroline or Change, Boy From Oz). I still remember back then everyone assumed Wicked was a sure win but it didn't win! I personally loved all four musicals nominated that year and I think any of them could have won Best Musical in another year that was less competitive.

To me, Tony's is all about timing. Had Allegiance opened in the spring back in March or April rather than in the fall, I bet that musical would have gotten at least a few nominations.

Had Hamilton AND Book of Mormon opened in the same year, now it'll be interesting to see which musical would have won Best Musical!

Honestly, I don't think you can pit a tony award winner up against a good show. Yes, one would hope the Tony winner was/is a good show, but that is only one of the many reasons it wins one. There are lots of politics involved in order to be handed a statue like that.

i think is safe to say that any musical that won the tony may or may not have won it even a year before or a year later. At the end of the day it's a press award....press has to do with popularity and cultural relevancy. WSS wasn't a popular show at the time. Crowds and critics didn't get it right away....it didn't win the tony, but most real theater fans would call it the best show of that year.







the other aspect is that a show like Hamilton could have never happened 30 years ago, the sound wasn't created yet. Plus, most of us weren't there at the original WWS or SOUTH PACIFIC so we romanticize how wonderful the productions were. Truth be told, and John Kander is on record of saying this, modern audiences wouldn't be that impressed...shows are a product of the exact time in which they are created. so having grown up with all the advancements in stage technology and emotional maturity that actors build on throughout generations we wouldn't find them as moving as say Bart Sher's production of South Pacific or Patti Lupone's Gypsy. These two examples are truly sophisticated versions that elevate the material, but it took 40 years of investigating it to get there.

You see it most obviously in the themes or jokes of musical theater books from the past. Lots of them go through what producers call revisals now, where a director and a new writer update or make politically correct changes so they play to a modern audience.

I also think that if any of those classic shows were being written today, the creative teams might have also written them with a more modern sensibility coming from the time in which they were writing (not all, but some). For example, Oscar Hammerstein II was sort of ahead of his time when he was writing in terms of sensibility to some social issues that have since moved far forward compared to where they were in the 1940's and 1950's. So if he were writing those shows today i'm sure given his own sensibility, they might look even more modern.

But regarding the question of whether the shows as written then would do well today - i think some of them would. Carousel is still relevant today, as the main issue that it deals with hasn't gone away (sadly), and the music and lyrics are still incredible by today's standards.