Tony

Tony Award
Designed by Herman Rosse, 1949
Awarded for	Excellence in theatre
Presented by	American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers
Country	United States
First awarded	1947
Official website

The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and performances, as well as discretionary non-competitive Special Tony Awards and the Regional Theatre Tony Award, and the Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre.^[1]

The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document "Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards", which applies for each season only.^[2]

History of the Tony Award

Former logo

Awarded by a panel of approximately 700 judges from various areas of the entertainment industry and press, the Tony Award is generally regarded as the theatre's equivalent to the Oscars, for excellence in film; the Grammys for the music industry, and the Emmys for excellence in television. The award was founded by the American Theatre Wing in 1947 at the suggestion of a committee of theatrical producers headed by Brock Pemberton, but it was not until the third awards ceremony in 1949 that the first Tony medallion was actually given to award winners. The award is named for Antoinette Perry, an actress, director, producer, and the wartime leader of the American Theatre Wing who had recently passed away. The first awards ceremony was held on April 6 1947, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.

Since 1967, the award ceremony has been broadcast on U.S. national television and includes songs from the nominated musicals, as well as video clips of, or presentations about, nominated plays. The American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers jointly present and administer the awards. Audience size for the telecast is generally well below that of other awards shows, but the program reaches an affluent audience, which is prized by advertisers.^[3]

Details of the Tony Awards

Note: all information except the rules for a new play are from: Tony Rules and Regulations

Rules for a "new" play or musical

For the purposes of the award, a "new" play or musical is one that has not previously been produced on Broadway and is not part of the "historical or popular repertoire." This phrase has been the subject of some controversy, as some shows have been ruled ineligible for the "new" categories, meaning that their authors did not have a chance to win the marquee awards of Best Play or Best Musical (or Best Score or Best Book for musicals). On the other hand, some people feel that allowing plays and musicals which are commonly produced to be eligible as new gives them an unfair advantage, because they will have benefited from additional development time as well as additional familiarity with the Tony voters. Shows recently transferred from Off-Broadway or the West End are eligible as new, as are productions based closely on movies.

Committees

The Administration Committee has 24 members: 10 designated by the American Wing, 10 by the League of American Theatres and Producers, and one each by the Dramatists Guild, Actors' Equity Association, United Scenic Artists, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. This committee, among other duties, determines eligibility for nominations in all awards categories. The Administration Committee for 2006-07: Tony Awards site

The Nominating Committee makes the nominations for the various categories. This rotating group of up to 30 theatre professionals is selected by the Tony Awards Administration Committee. Nominators serve three-year terms and are asked to see every new Broadway production. Nominators for 2007-2008 are listed at playbill article, August 13, 2007.

There are approximately 750 eligible voters, a number that changes slightly from year to year. These include the board of directors and designated members of the advisory committee of the American Theatre Wing; members of the governing boards of Actors' Equity Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, United Scenic Artists, and the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers; those persons whose names appear on the first night press list; members of the Theatrical Council of the Casting Society of America; and voting members of the League of American Theatres and Producers.

Eligibility date ("Season")

To be eligible for Tony Award consideration, a production must have officially opened by the "eligibility date" that the Management Committee establishes each year. The cut-off date for eligibility for the 2006-07 season was May 9, 2007. The "Season" for Tony Award eligibility is defined in the Rules and Regulations.

"Broadway" theatre

A Broadway theatre is defined as having 500 or more seats, among other requirements. While the Rules define a "Broadway" theatre in terms of its size, not its geographical location, the list of "Broadway" theatres is determined solely by the Tony Awards Administration Committee, and as of the 2006-2007 season, the list consists solely of theaters located in or around Times Square in New York City. ^[4]

Award Categories

There are presently 27 categories of awards, plus several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years; a complete history of each award category was published in 2005^[5]. The 2007 categories were as follows:

Winners list

A list of the historical winners of the Tony Awards is at infoplease.com. ^[6]

Criticism

While the theatre-going public may consider the Tony Awards to be the Oscars of live theatre, critics have suggested that the Tony Awards are primarily a promotional vehicle for a small number of large production companies and theatre owners in New York City. ^[7] Only shows playing in one of 39 "Broadway" theatres designated by the Tony Awards Management Committee are eligible for the Tony Awards. The 39 "Broadway" theatres are all large venues located between 40th and 66th Streets and 6th and 10th Avenues in New York City, an area surrounding Broadway from Times Square to Lincoln Center. Shows playing in "off-Broadway" or "off-off-Broadway" theatres, or shows playing outside of New York City, are not eligible. Since there are only 39 theatres, only a portion of which will be featuring a "new" production in any given season, and 27 award categories, it's likely that many "new" shows will reap at least one award.

Trivia

^[8]

• The musicals that fared most poorly on Tony night were Chicago (1976) and Steel Pier (1997), both of which received 11 nominations but won no awards. Coincidentally, both shows have scores by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Chicago competed against A Chorus Line, which dominated the musical categories with nine awards. Steel Pier saw several of its nominations lose to the revival of Chicago which, on its second outing, took home six awards.
• While several performers have won Tonys for roles that have involved cross dressing, only two have won for performing in roles in which the character is actually a member of the opposite sex: Mary Martin in the title role of Peter Pan (1955) and Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (2003).
• Only a handful of shows have won the triple crown of design awards; Tony Awards for Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Lighting Design: Follies (1972), The Phantom of the Opera (1988), The Lion King (1998), The Producers (2001), The Light in the Piazza (2005) and The Coast of Utopia (2007)
• The most Tony Awards ever received by a musical was "The Producers" with 12 awards including best musical.
• The most Tony Awards ever received by a non-musical was "The Coast of Utopia" with 7 awards including best play, in 2007. "The History Boys" and the original production of "Death of a Salesman" previouly held the record with 6 each
• Julie Harris has won the most Tony Awards, and been nominated more than any other performer. She has won five awards for her roles in "I Am a Camera" 1952, "The Lark" 1956, "Forty Carats" 1969, "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" 1973, and "The Belle of Amherst" 1977. She has been nominated a total of ten times.
• Only three actresses have been nominated in two acting categories in the same year: Amanda Plummer, Dana Ivey, and Kate Burton.

References

See also

• Drama Desk Awards
• Laurence Olivier Awards
• Obie Awards
• Off-Broadway
• Off-off-Broadway
• The Society of London Theatre

External links

• Official Tony Awards website
• League of American Theatres and Producers
• playbill article "Broadway Theatre", 7/6/07

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