The 2010 Tony Awards brought another season on Broadway to rest. It was a fun evening that although there weren't many surprises, the evening was a wonderful celebration of the season.
I'm beginning to realize that every year when I write my picks, I'm usually depending too much on what I want to win and not about what is going to win. This year, in regards to musicals, I did very well in the design area, pretty well in the performance categories, but missed on the top prize for the second year in a row (last year I picked Next to Normal). For the second time, the voter's interests outweighed the artistic achievement of Fela and even American Idiot. This doesn't mean that I though Memphis was a bad show. It means that it's familiar plot and music made the production safe for voters to get behind. Without the critics being allowed to vote, a piece like Fela could not gain enough votes to grab the top prize. Either way, I think Fela and American Idiot received a lot of good advertising that night to hopefully have a nice run through the beginning of next year.
The biggest criticism I hear from the community is that the Tony Awards "went Hollywood" this year. Actors like Hunter Foster have started a Facebook group to "Give the Tonys Back to Broadway" to echo this sentiment. They spout this negativity because they feel that "theater actors" are not as represented as they used to and that the voters are mobilizing to give awards to stars so they'll be more inclined to come back to Broadway. I cannot disagree more. Whenever producers and casting directors start their process, they have a list of prospective actors they would want to play each role. Can you blame these people if both Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman say yes to doing A Steady Rain? This new American play would have never seen the Great White Way without these two stars agreeing to do it. Do you really think the powers that be would say, "I know these big stars would be ok in the roles, but these other actors would be better in the roles so lets just use them?" That's crazy. The truth is that many film actors (a lot who had their start in theater) love to take time to do plays because it gives them a chance to play characters that are different from the type they play on the screen.
A great example is Scarlett Johansson, a wonderful screen actress who because she is gorgeous, has been typed to play gorgeous people. She was bold and took on an opposite character, Catherine in A View From the Bridge and knocked it out of the park. It didn't matter that she was a star. She was a professional actress who kept up with Liev Schrieber and Jessica Hecht eight shows a week. I reject the notion of people looking down on producers for being bold, getting people with names to do a Broadway production, and creating a successful production. The definition of success on Broadway today is wide open, and the community needs to embrace this type of casting and realize it is good for the future of Broadway.
Lastly, I find it extremely ironic that in a year where everyone is chatting about the "Hollywoodization" of Broadway, that Memphis, a musical that had developmental production after developmental production and has as many above the title producers as a small third world country, won the top prize!
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