Actors Push for Two New Tony Awards: Ensembles and Choruses

[edjames]

Actors Push for Two New Tony Awards: Ensembles and Choruses

By MICHAEL PAULSONAPRIL 11, 2018

Jane Krakowski and Christopher Jackson, at the 2017 Tony nominations announcement. The theater performers’ union is proposing new categories starting in the next theater season.

 

The union representing theater performers said on Wednesday that it was beginning a national campaign to persuade the Tony Awards to create annual prizes for ensembles and choruses.

The Tonys, which each year recognize work in plays and musicals on Broadway, currently honor performances only by actors in leading and supporting roles. But many regional theater contests honor the work of the rest of the cast — for example, the Jeff Awards in Chicago have an annual prize for the best ensemble.

 

“We feel like everybody onstage needs to be able to compete to receive recognition for their performance,” said Mary McColl, executive director of the union, Actors’ Equity, which represents more than 51,000 actors and stage managers. “There has been this wide swath of actors that have not had the opportunity to be rewarded that way, and for multiple reasons this seems like a very good time for us to make this request and have this conversation.”

 

Equity said it had already informed the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, which oversee the Tony Awards, of its request, and that it would now press its case with an online petition. The union said it was hoping to see the categories added in the next theater season. (It is too late to add categories for this season, which ends in a few weeks.)

 

Equity is proposing two awards, one for the best ensemble — which it defined as the entire cast — in a musical or play, and one for the best chorus — which it defined as a group that sings or dances, or both — in a musical or play.

 

This season’s Tony Awards ceremony will be held on June 10 at Radio City Music Hall, and broadcast on CBS. Among the categories this year: best sound design, in a play and in a musical — categories that had previously been eliminated and have now been reinstated.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I've always felt that a TONY for a lead replacement actor would be great.

 

There have been many performances by replacements that were far better than the original cast.

[edjames]

I agree Ben. many actors have been overlooked for their efforts.

[+ nycman]

Great. Now every cater waiter in NYC is going to be a “Tony Winner!”

 

Also know as, “.....and you get a Tony,.....and you get a Tony,....and you get.....”

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Great. Now every cater waiter in NYC is going to be a “Tony Winner!”

 

Also know as, “.....and you get a Tony,.....and you get a Tony,....and you get.....”

 

 

So, you're saying that a chorus member doesn't deserve recognition?

 

On many shows, the chorus are the kids doing the heavy lifting.

[bostonman]

So, you're saying that a chorus member doesn't deserve recognition?

 

On many shows, the chorus are the kids doing the heavy lifting.

 

But this wouldn't be an award for "a chorus member." It would be an award for an entire ensemble - something which may be hard to define, depending on the show. (In fact, it's already clear that the initial proposal makes a huge distinction between an "ensemble", which seems closer to an award for a strong cast dynamic, and the "chorus," which seems to point to just the choral/dancing forces, but NOT how an entire cast works together. I tend to think a lot of shows, especially smaller-scale musicals, will get caught in the middle somewhere. And there aren't many plays that have a singing/dancing "chorus" lol.)

 

The original article cites the "Jeff Awards" - in Boston, we have similar local awards for "best ensemble." I have yet to determine what that has really meant. Most often, I'd say it's really the runner-up prize for a show that didn't get "best play" or "best musical," with a nod to the way the cast "clicks."

 

I'm certainly all for recognizing more of a cast than just 4 of the main performers, as is the case now. But I'm not sure what an "ensemble" award really would be awarded for. If they could better define the parameters (and that's a big "if" IMO), maybe I could change my mind. But right now I think it's a meaningless idea.

[Kenny]

I think participation ribbons would be nice.

[edjames]

More announcements on eligibility, some to elicit its share of controversy:

 

Tony Rulings: ‘1984’ Can Vie for Best Play; Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane Avoid Showdown

By MICHAEL PAULSON. APRIL 12, 2018

Reed Birney, second from right, and Tom Sturridge, kneeling, in the Broadway production of “1984.”

 

The Tony Awards had some doubleplusgood news for the producer Scott Rudin on Thursday.

Five months after having declared last summer’s production of “1984”ineligible for awards consideration because Mr. Rudin had denied a member of the Tony nominating committee access to the show, awards administrators said it was back in contention.

 

They offered no explanation for the change.

 

The play initially was barred from consideration after Mr. Rudin, one of the lead producers, had declined to allow the nominator Jose Antonio Vargas, an immigration rights activist and writer, to see the show, apparently because of concern about Mr. Vargas’s prior writings.

 

But Mr. Vargas has since recused himself from this year’s voting because he missed another show, which appears to explain the decision to allow “1984” back in the race. The play is Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s adaptation of the George Orwell novel.

 

The action on “1984” was the most dramatic move taken by the Tony Awards administration committee at its regularly scheduled meeting, but other rulings are also likely to have an impact on several key contests.

Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn in “Angels in America.”

The committee averted a likely showdown between actors giving blistering performances in the revival of Tony Kushner’s two-part “Angels in America,”deciding that Nathan Lane, as the lawyer Roy Cohn, would be eligible in the featured actor category. Andrew Garfield, as Prior Walter, a gay man with AIDS who is left by his lover, remains in the running for a lead actor nod.

That is a change from 1993, when “Millennium Approaches,” the first part of “Angels,” took the best play Tony. Ron Leibman won for leading actor, as Roy Cohn, and Stephen Spinella won for featured actor as Prior Walter. (The next year, in 1994, Mr. Spinella won for leading actor, playing the same character in “Perestroika,” the second part of “Angels.”)

 

In a season of star-driven revivals, how to treat other ensemble casts was on the docket, too. In “Three Tall Women,” only Glenda Jacksonwill contend for leading actress; Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill will be considered eligible in the featured actress category.

 

But in “Lobby Hero,” all four actors, including the film and television stars Chris Evans and Michael Cera, will be judged featured performers.

 

To be eligible for Tony Awards this season, shows must open by April 26. The slate of nominees will be announced on May 1, with prizes presented on June 10 at Radio City Music Hall.

[+ WilliamM]

Concerning the Request To Add New Tony Awards:

 

Difficult to estimate the value of a Best Actress or Actor in a Musical Tony Award without knowing the value of "The Sound of Music" association. Mary's daughter, Heller, would be in her mid-70s by now. My guess is Larry Hagman's family sold the Tony Award, which is fine.

 

 

"Mary Martin’s ‘Sound Of Music’ Tony Award Sells For $35K At Auction"

Edited April 15, 2018 by WilliamM