Broadway celebrates rebounding theater with 2023 Tony Awards

May 17, 2023

In most years, the biggest questions surrounding the annual Tony Awards are which shows and actors will win Broadway's top honors. This year, it's more about the awards broadcast itself.

Not long after the nominations were announced in May, the Writers Guild of America went on strike seeking better pay and working conditions. Union leaders initially refused to give the producers of the Tony Awards any kind of waiver to hold the ceremony.

But a few days later, there was a reversal of sorts. The union said its members would not picket the ceremony, which meant it could go forward as long as there is no script, which would normally be written by a WGA member. A week or so later, the union asked its members who are nominated for Tonys not to attend the ceremony. They were asked to either pre-tape an acceptance speech or ask a non-Guild member to accept the award for them.

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It all has the makings of the most unusual awards ceremony, scheduled to air on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. June 11, with some pre-show awards scheduled to be handed out on the streaming service Pluto TV, with free access.

On the one hand, we won't have any inane scripted banter between presenters, but we don't know how many nominees or eventual winners will actually be attending. Broadway artists often give the best acceptance speeches of any awards ceremony by speaking from the heart about the meaning of the art form instead of reading lists of thank you's.

It will be a real test of the skills of those presenting awards or introducing musical numbers from the nominated shows because they will have to wing it on stage. I guess we’ll see how well some actors adapt to working without a script.

According to a report in The New York Times, several playwrights, including Pulitzer Prize winners like Tony Kushner and Martyna Majok (a nominee this year herself and the 2018 winner of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize) pressed the WGA to allow the awards ceremony to continue. Part of their argument was how important the awards are to bring attention to an industry that is still recovering from the COVID pandemic shutdowns.

Attendance is rising on Broadway, but it has not yet reached pre-COVID levels. The Broadway League reported last month that 12.2 million people attended Broadway shows in the 2022-23 season, compared to 14.7 million in 2018-19, the last full season before COVID.

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The Tony Awards is a three-hour commercial for Broadway, primarily the musicals, and, by extension, theater across the country. Even though viewership for the Tonys is a fraction of the declining numbers for the Oscars and Grammys, it's valuable real estate. The Los Angeles Times recently reported on how important the broadcast has become to producers, not necessarily for the Broadway runs but the eventual tours that can follow.

I’m looking forward to seeing numbers from the new musical shows I’ve already seen, including "Kimberly Akimbo" and "Some Like it Hot," and the ones that opened after I was last on Broadway (including "New York, New York," "& Juliet" and "Shucked") and the revivals. This might not be the year for it, but I still hold out hope that one day, producers will figure out how to best represent the nominees for best play and revival of a play.

This was already turning out to be an interesting year for matchups. Four playwrights were nominated for the first time for best play, going up against the likely winner, four-time Tony winner Tom Stoppard for his latest, "Leopoldstadt."

For the first time, two non-binary performers have been nominated for Tonys – J. Harrison Ghee (a possible winner) for best actor in "Some Like it Hot" and Alex Newell as best featured actor in "Shucked." (Newell has come a long way since winning a reality TV show that earned him a spot on "Glee," eventually leading him to Broadway.

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Though I haven't seen all the nominees, I suspect the charming "Kimberly Akimbo" will win for best musical over its much splashier competition, and its star Victoria Clark should win as best actress for a radiant performance as a 16-year-old girl with a condition that makes her age at a rapid rate. Ghee could triumph as best actor in a musical, but he has some formidable competition from Josh Groban in the title role of "Sweeny Todd" and Ben Platt, for "Parade."

We will find out Sunday night how it all plays out.

Here's a look at some of the major nominees.

"& Juliet," book by David West Read, songs by Max Martin

"Kimberly Akimbo," by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori

"New York, New York," book by David Thompson and Sharon Washington, Songs by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Lin-Manuel Miranda

"Shucked," book by Robert Horn, music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally

"Some Like It Hot," book by Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin, songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman

"Ain't No Mo'" by Jordan E. Cooper

"Between Riverside and Crazy" by Stephen Adly Guirgis

"Cost of Living" by Martyna Majok

"Fat Ham" by James Ijames

"Leopoldstadt" by Tom Stoppard

"The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson

"A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Amy Herzog

"Topdog/Underdog" by Suzan-Lori Parks

"The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" by Lorraine Hansberry

"Into the Woods" by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

"Camelot" by Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, adapted by Aaron Sorkin

"Parade" by Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler.

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