4 Things To Know Ahead Of The 74th Annual Ceremony : NPR

Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr. will host various parts of the Tony Awards broadcast on September 26th: the awards ceremony and the subsequent two-hour celebration of the return of Broadway. Associated press hide caption

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Associated press

Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr. will host various parts of the Tony Awards broadcast on September 26th: the awards ceremony and the subsequent two-hour celebration of the return of Broadway.

Associated press

There is a sigh of relief on Broadway these days – shows are reopening and Times Square bars and restaurants are filling up. And tonight, more than 15 months after its original planning, the 74th annual Tony Awards will be presented. Past winners Leslie Odom Jr. and Audra McDonald will host, with performances by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chita Rivera and Kristin Chenoweth, among others. But these pandemic Tonys are by no means business as usual.

“It’s a strange time because of COVID,” says veteran producer Manny Azenberg, who has nine Tony Awards on his shelf, including one for Lifetime Achievement. “It is wrong to put the old values ​​on these Tonys or this season or even the next season.”

It’s been 2 years since some of the nominees were last seen

When Broadway closed in March 2020, 20 shows were open and 16 more were to follow. But after it became clear that Broadway was going to stay dark, the nominations committee for Tony decided to go ahead with what they had. Since two shows opened after the February deadline (Girl from the North Country and West Side Story), they were deemed ineligible.

That means some of the winners tonight were last seen two years ago, Azenberg says. “It’s not that timely and a bit of an afterthought,” he explains. “On the flip side, the nominated kids – and there are a lot of nominated kids – are the highlight of their time. They didn’t do anything to cheat. They worked hard and the shows didn’t have a year and half of any recognition, commercials or anything . “

So it’s a strange year. All nominated best pieces are closed, a reopening is not planned. The two front runners are Jeremy O. Harris’ provocative slave game, which brings three multiracial couples into an RPG therapy session exploring the master-slave dynamic, and The Inheritance, Matthew López’s two-part exploration of contemporary gay life inspired by EM Forsters Howards End. Slave Play has 12 nominations, while The Inheritance has 11.

None of the nominees for the best musical has an original score

The biggest award at the Tonys is always for the best musical. But this year, none of the three nominated shows have original music – there’s Jagged Little Pill, a contemporary family / high school drama that uses Alanis Morrissette’s songs (15 nominations), Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, a Behind the Music Dude Biography of the singer (12 nominations) and Moulin Rouge! The musical, based on the Baz Luhrman film, with more than 70 songs.

“We’ve all known the songs from these three musicals for 20 years,” says New York Magazine theater critic Helen Shaw, who looked forward to shows with new music. “Yeah, I mean it’s strange.”

Only one musical that opened in Fall 2019 had original music – an adaptation of The Lightning Thief, based on one of Percy Jackson’s novels. It received a critical headline, was closed before the end of its limited edition, and ignored by the nomination committee. Usually the best score goes to musicals like Hamilton or Hadestown; This year the nominees wrote or adapted all incidental music for plays such as A Christmas Carol.

The category “Best Actor in a Musical” has only 1 nomination

But perhaps the strangest category this year is Best Actor in a Musical. Aaron Tveit, star of Moulin Rouge !, is the only nominee. “I didn’t know if the whole category would be deleted. Right? ”He says. “You know, there has never been a situation where there was only one nominee in an acting category, I’m pretty sure of that. And you just laugh and shake your head in recognition of my work and the work of our show. “He can win his category if he gets 60% of the vote.

Moulin Rouge resumed performing on Friday, and tonight Tveit and the cast will perform live at the Tonys. Shaw, who is also a Tony voter, says the recognition that comes from nominations and wins has an impact on the real world. “These are not laurels that are passed on here from Olympus,” she explains. “This is an industry award given by members of the industry to other members of the industry, and of course the purpose of the awards is to celebrate them. But it will have a significant impact on their future contractual inquiries.”

And a Tony win can mean big box office, Azenberg explains: “The Tonys are very useful as hype for selling tickets for any show that is nominated or sure to win, it certainly always has an impact. The musical winner always has an impact on the business. “.”

The ceremony is divided in half

And the show itself is an advertisement for Broadway. Emmy Award winner Ricky Kirshner produced the split ceremony – two hours on the Paramount + streaming service, which is where most of the awards are given, and a two-hour concert called “Broadway’s Back!” on CBS, where the best musical, game and revival are announced. “We have a little bit of everything,” says Kirshner, “and the three nominated musicals will do a full production number so you can see what their shows really look like.”

Kirshner also believes the ceremony will be even more emotional than usual. “I think there will be moments during the four hours on Sunday when someone goes out who hasn’t been in front of an audience for 18 months and is just emotionally overwhelmed. You can tell that for these people this is their life.” “Live entertainment and they were without.”

Shaw thinks it’s after the long silence caused by the pandemic and the losses the theater community has suffered (such as those who died from COVID, including playwright Terrence McNally, songwriter Adam Schlesinger, and actor Nick Cordero), appropriately, the Tonys now. “It does everything an awards season should do,” she explains. “It celebrates, it elevates, it reminds, it promotes. But it also ends. It ends something. It says that this is over. Now we’re doing this new thing.”