The Broadway season officially came to a close last week. It is now important to look at the Tony rules (including a huge change to the rules this year) and eligibility decisions in preparation for the nominations.
There was only one curious thing in last week’s eligibility decisions: Mary Jane as a new play. Earlier this season, Gutenberg! and Appropriate were both ruled revivals, while Here Lies Love and Harmony were considered new. This followed last season when several plays that could have gone either way were named new with only Ohio State Murders being ruled a “classic.” I’ve written over a dozen stories over the years on the Classics rule and, still, I’ll never quite understand its application.
Some have conjectured: “Well, Mary Jane is younger than Appropriate. Maybe they are using a decade guideline.” But Here Lies Love, Harmony, Kite Runner and more all premiered over a decade ago. Here Lies Love even played New York over a decade ago. Is it that it is almost akin to a transfer of the off-Broadway production with some new cast members and designers? That reasoning could be seen to apply to some prior decisions. But, then, How I Learned to Drive was the off-Broadway production on Broadway and was deemed a revival. Gutenberg! (which, as I previously reported, requested to be considered new) also in many ways felt like its off-Broadway incarnation because it had the same director and same costume designer (argyle sweaters forever). Additionally, a reader emailed me conjecturing that it was because Mary Jane isn’t done at all regionally. But that’s false. I saw a local production. As usual, it’s hard to know why the Tony Awards Administration Committee decides how it does.
As a good example, last season, Thanksgiving Play was a completey new production from off-Broadway, one of the most produced plays in America, and still deemed new. I’m sure it’s a combination of factors, but that doesn’t help guide those outside the process. Don’t get me wrong, I think Amy Herzog deserves to have an eligible new play. (And let’s take a minute to pause and applaud MTC for a Broadway season that featured three possible Best Play nominees. What an unbelievable Broadway season that company put forward.) I just wish there was some discernable pattern or guidelines. Something akin to: “If the show was produced off-Broadway over X years ago, it will presumptively be a revival. That presumption can be overcome…” However, that doesn’t exist.
There were changes to the rules this year, but none of them added clarity to the “Classics” rule. The biggest change is the removal of the requirement that voters need to see all eligible elements to vote in a specific category. A longtime Tony requirement was that, in order to vote in a specific category, you had to see all the nominees in that category.
The Tonys even increased verification methods some years back to ensure complaince. Last year, in February, we were notified of a temporary revision of the “Ballots of Persons Eligible to Vote” requirement. The amended rule read: “For the 2022-2023 season only, a voter will have the ability to vote in each category where the voter has not viewed up to one (1) performance of each production, and up to one (1) creative element which has been nominated for an Award, and up to one (1) performance by each performer who has been nominated for an Award.” I followed up with the Tony spokesperson at the time and I was told the revision was only for last season because “due to circumstances beyond the control of the voter or production” many voters did not see everything. The old rule was expected to return this season. But it has not. This year the requirement that a voter needs to certify “with respect to each category in which the voter has voted, the voter has seen a performance of each production which has been nominated for an Award…” is completely gone. In its place is not the revised rule, but rather nothing. That’s right, there is no longer any rule contained in the official Rules and Regulations that voters actually need to see what they are voting on. (A Tony spokesperson did not respond to emails seeking clarification on the impact of this omission.)
Another big change—gone is the rule that a performer needs to perform on opening night to be eligible. That rule led to the bizarre Into the Woods post hoc opening night change last season so Brian d’Arcy James could be eligible. The new rule states: “The actor or actress who is on contract to perform the role, as of the opening date, will be the actor or actress who is eligible.” In other words, if a performer is out of the show opening night, that person can still be eligible (as long as other requirements are met).
Voters also now need to go through “Unconscious Bias Training” and there is an added rule with the details of that. Other rule changes are more minor. Tony rule people will remember that prior to the 2005-2006 season, you could send nominators or voters anything. Then, during that season, there were restrictions placed on what you could send. Those restrictions were suspended during the 2014-2015 season and eventually eliminated. Now, restrictions are back, but only in terms of what you can send nominators. Voters still can get big swag. Nominators can only get: “(1) a souvenir book; (2) a script; (3) an audio and/or video cast recording that replicates the on-stage performance of the eligible production in whole or substantial part, including commercials or snippets; (Commercially available recordings that may separately contain additional materials are acceptable) and (4) one set of selected reviews regarding the eligible production. A cast album or sampler may be sent separately, unless available at the time of distribution of item(s) above.”
There are a couple of other interesting changes. Producers now need to offer a lot more performances to Tony voters if they open before April 15. It used to be (technically) that authors who substantially re-worked a play or musical eligible in a Best Revival category would be eligible alongside producers regardless of whether they were alive or dead, now that person needs to be alive at the time of the determination. The Special Tony Award used to be able to only go to a production or element of a production, but now can also go to “an individual or an organization of the current season.” And the rule regarding the Lifetime Achieve in the Theatre Tony has been changed to say the Administration Committee may only give it to “an individual,” as opposed to the old rule of “to one or more individuals.”
And with that: “Happy Tony Award Nomination day tomorrow, to all those who celebrate.”
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