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Pour out a tiny glass of Champagne for the fate of the glitzy awards show in the coronavirus pandemic.
TheGrammys, usually held in January, were delayed until this weekend.
The Oscars wonthappen till April.
The Emmys were one bigvideo calland the Golden Globes were anespecially glitchy one.
But in terms of sheer confusion, the Tony Awards have everyone beat.
This Tonys was supposed to happen last June.
Voters are being asked to remember work they saw as much as a year and a half ago.
Luckily there isnt aGodotrevival in contention; that would be too on the nose.
Another, Best Actor in a Musical, has a single nominee.
(Congrats in advance to Aaron Tveit.)
Tonys voting ends March 15.
And then who knows?
There have been no official announcements about whether the event will be televised either.
Others described the ways in which productions have had to campaign for the awards without traditional events or gatherings.
We got to move an inch further to ending that group chat when the nominations came out.
I wish theyd give us a date so we can all prepare to shut the book.
The fact that these awards are being positioned the way they are says a lot about Broadways priorities.
Broadway is generally a show-must-go-on, eight-shows-a-week operation.
Casts and crewsmade a hasty exit from New Yorks musty, poorly ventilated theaters, expecting a monthlong break.
At that moment, an awards show was nobodys first priority.
The end of the year came and went.
Only in late January did the Tonys announcevoting would take place in March.
A lot of people didnt seeJagged Little Pillyet, Feldman said.
If they cant vote, does that helpJagged Little Pill?
You would need aNo Fear Shakespearestyle guide to make sense of the list of nominees.
In recent years,30 to 40 new showshave opened on Broadway.
This time around, only 18 were eligible.
(Shes nominated for Best Actress in a Musical.)
But there are also many categories that feel outright odd.
(No comment, said Tony Award Productions.)
Even in an off year, the awards remain snobby.
(Again,theTimesliked it; Vulture critic Helen Shaw compared some scenes to anSNLsketch about adrama-club showcase.)
But the show had remarkable staying power, making Harris into a star in his own right.
It has that advantage of being of its time.
But planning that kind of event means negotiating around what the web connection wants.
This all might suggest that the awards are about everything but the people who could win them.
As for the nominees themselves?
A show designed to be most helpful to the industry isnt really about prioritizing them.
If nothing else, though, an actual Tonys ceremony would allow nominees to close out their group chats.
But if thats not how it shakes out, Im fine with that.
This article has been updated to reflect the possible timing and focus of an upcoming Tonys broadcast on CBS.
