Tony Awards voting starts. What will it look like?
The last Broadway season ended, unexpectedly, nearly a year ago. The next one will begin who-knows-when.
But deep in this winter of our theaterlessness, a dormant tradition is starting to stir: the Tony Awards.
Hundreds of voters, this week and next, are casting ballots for the best shows, and the best performances, of a theater season abruptly cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.
The jukebox shows “Jagged Little Pill,” “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” and “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” are competing for best musical, and they hope to resume performances whenever Broadway reopens. All five of the best play contenders have closed. They are “Grand Horizons,” by Bess Wohl; “The Inheritance,” by Matthew López; “Sea Wall/A Life,” by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne; “Slave Play,” by Jeremy O. Harris; and “The Sound Inside,” by Adam Rapp.
In this strangest-of-all Tony competitions, the voting is disconnected from both the period being assessed, which ran from April 26, 2019, to Feb. 19, 2020, and the ceremony for handing out awards, which has not yet been scheduled.
In other words, we won’t know the results until, well, for a long time. Here’s what we do know:
Who’s going to vote? Not a lot of people. There are 778 Tony voters, but they can only cast ballots in categories in which they’ve seen all the nominees.
Because the pandemic prevented any spring theatergoing, there are fewer qualified voters than usual.
There are 25 prize categories; the Tonys won’t say how many people will actually be able to vote in each category, but producers believe slightly fewer than 400 people will qualify to cast ballots for best musical, and fewer than that for best play.
What’s missing? Parties. The usual Tonys season is all-encompassing. Shows that opened in the fall — and that would have included all three of last season’s nominated musicals — invite voters back to see them again.
Monday nights are jammed with nonprofit galas at which nominees mingle with voters, and those who can sing, do.
So much hugging. So much schmoozing. So many four-hour dinners. Everyone complains. And now they long for it.
“I can’t believe I miss buffets,” said Eva Price, a lead producer of “Jagged Little Pill.”
Is it appropriate to campaign? Yes, but very gingerly. We’re still in the middle of a devastating pandemic and a huge number of people who work in theater are currently unemployed. Also: Money is tight because there are no ticket sales.
“The 2020 shows can’t run a campaign in the usual way, and even if we could, it would feel icky to try,” said Carmen Pavlovic, lead producer of “Moulin Rouge!” “This is not a moment for cocktail parties and gossip.”
So swag is minimal. “Moulin Rouge!” and “Jagged Little Pill” sent voters coffee-table books about their shows, but that’s about it. The main form of campaigning this year is in the form of “For Your Consideration” emails.
The nominated show that is furthest in the rearview mirror — a revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which closed in July 2019 — sent voters a video montage of interviews, including one with its playwright, Terrence McNally, who died eight months later from complications of the coronavirus.
Nominees are sitting for profiles with theater trade publications. And last week, “Tina,” “Jagged Little Pill,” “The Inheritance,” “Slave Play” and “Betrayal” bought daily sponsorships of Broadway Briefing, an emailed industry newsletter whose subscribers include many Tony voters.
What happens when the votes are tallied? An accounting firm sits on the results. The voting period runs through March 15, with votes cast electronically via a password-protected website, and tabulated by Deloitte & Touche. This year the results will just be kept secret for longer than usual.
So when will we know the winners? Stay tuned. It seems clear that the ceremony will only take place after live performance is allowed to resume in New York and tickets to Broadway shows have gone on sale.
That’s because the industry’s priority will be to use the ceremony to remind potential audiences that Broadway is back. American Theater Wing president and CEO Heather Hitchens said the goal “is to be most helpful to the industry.”
Several producers and publicists say they are now thinking the most likely time frame is after Labor Day, a year and a half after Broadway shut down.