Photo courtesy of Broadway Direct
The highlight of any Broadway season is the annual Tony Awards. Held at Radio City Music Hall and hosted by a different entertainment icon every year, the Tony Awards allow the theater community to come together and celebrate the shows, actors and actresses that have worked countless hours in order to bring their visions to life. The tension before each winner is announced can be unbearable, but it is what keeps us glued to the edges of our seats. The banter between the host and a few audience members keeps us laughing until we cannot breathe. And of course, the performances given by the nominees for “Best Musical” continue to dazzle audiences year after year.
That all changed with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the bright lights of Broadway dimmed and theater doors closed shut, there was much uncertainty as to whether the 2019-2020 Tony Awards would be held as normal. Originally scheduled for the night of June 7, 2020, the ceremony was replaced with a sing-along version of the hit film “Grease.” No further updates were given until Aug. 21, 2020, when Playbill announced that the 2020 ceremony would be held at an unannounced date in the fall. Due to the restrictions imposed by New York’s COVID-19 guidelines, the ceremony will be held digitally.
Tony Awards are given in 26 regular categories, ranging from Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play to Best Scenic Design of a Musical. Of the 26 regular awards, eight are given to individual performers (Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play/Musical, a Featured Actor in a Play/Musical, a Leading Actress in a Play/Musical and a Featured Actress in a Play/Musical), while the remainder are given to members of a production’s creative team, or in the case of Best Play and Best Musical, the production as a whole.
In order to be eligible for nominations, a production must have been designated as “open” by its producers by a certain date, usually around late April or early May. Because of the COVID-19 shutdown, this year’s deadline for eligibility was pushed back to Feb. 19, 2020, which disqualified shows such as the revival of “West Side Story” and newcomer “Girl From the North Country” from being nominated. With this earlier deadline, only 18 productions are eligible for Tony nominations, almost half as many as the 2018-2019 season.
Eligible musicals, as reported by Playbill, include “Moulin Rouge!,” “The Lightning Thief,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” and “Jagged Little Pill.” Plays include “Sea Wall/A Life,” “The Height of the Storm,” “The Great Society,” “Slave Play,” “Linda Vista,” “The Sound Inside,” “The Inheritance,” “A Christmas Carol,” “My Name is Lucy Barton” and “Grand Horizons.” No revivals of a musical were eligible, and only four play revivals were eligible: “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” “Betrayal,” “The Rose Tattoo” and “A Soldier’s Play.”
Normally, each category has a maximum of four or five nominees and no minimum amount. The four “Best Show” categories (Best Play, Best Musical, Best Revival of a Play and Best Revival of a Musical), however, have a different rule: If there are only four or five eligible shows, the category is given only three nominees. With the drastic decrease in eligible productions, this rule will be applied to all categories, performance and production, reports TimeOut.
The 2020 Tony Awards are sure to be an unprecedented experience. With so few eligible shows and even fewer actors and actresses, nominations are going to be highly contested. This year’s plan, while certainly unorthodox, truly captures the theatre experience: the show must go on.
