Hey, why haven’t the Tonys just gone on with their awards show even though the theaters are dark? Broadway had already staged enough productions before the pandemic broke out (18) for the Tonys to issue a list of nominees. Why not wrap things up by doling out the trophies just like the Emmys and other showbiz awards have done?
“The Tonys should’ve followed the same rules that the New York Drama Critics Circle, the Drama Desk and the many other organizations did,” insists Brian Lipton (Cititour), who’s an active member of many of those groups.
“They all just gave out their awards in a timely fashion,” adds David Sheward (Cultural Weekly), who also belongs to those groups “and what it highlighted was that we’re here just to highlight was is the best and not just to be a commercial and a marketing tool.”
“I think you made the smart moves and just did it and got it over with and now I feel like the Tonys: what’s the point?” adds Matt Windman (amNY).
Andy Humm (GayUSA) feels cynical empathy for the contenders still wondering: hey, what about me? “The nominees can’t take all this tension all the time!” he cries.
“I think the whole thing is falling on the fact that we’re not going to have our new Broadway shows till the fall of 2021 or until the spring of 2022 and it’s not fair to include these 18 shows then, because they’ll be way, way too forgotten,” Lipton adds. “But the Tonys have always been, for better or worse, a big commercial for Broadway as much as they are about dramas and plays. The ceremonies are to attract attention to these shows to the rest of the world.”
Now David predicts, “They’re just going to wait to get as close as to when the theaters will be open again as possible to get the asses in the seats.”
But, hey, wait a minute. Didn’t we already acknowledge that the list of Tony nominees is already out? That means we Derbyites must do our pundits’ duty and make our predictions pronto.
Check out all of our predictions in every category here and compare them to the current picks made by the 24 Tony fans who achieved the highest prediction accuracy score at Gold Derby last year. Watch our video slugfest above. Or you can listen to the audio podcast version below.Or listen at iTunes, Spotify, Libsyn, Google Play or Stitcher where you can subscribe to our channel.
