When I was a teenager, I would pace back and forth waiting for the Tony nominations to come out each spring. I’d walk to the gas station on the corner and pick up a copy of The New York Times, sit down on a bench outside the… um… establishment (next to the cranky old lady who sat there every day chain smoking), and immediately tear through the balance of the paper to find that coveted list. I’d begin imagining what type of telecast it would prove to be, asking the question “Will this year’s nominees add up to a decent night of entertainment?”
The Best Musical Tony Award Debate: 1987
In writing about these the Tony-nominated Best Musicals of various seasons and making a judgment as to which nominee deserved to win, I take full ownership of my opinion and realize that many of you will disagree. In fact, I invite the debate and am always interested in hearing your opinions as well. Theatre is obviously subjective, and what appeals to me might invite disdain from you. Contrarily, what I detest might be something you are passionate about. When I write these pieces, I do try to keep by opinions balanced, supported with reasoning, while trying to find that good and the challenging in each musical I dissect. That being said, I often find myself at odds with my own determinations, loving one show more, respecting another, while ultimately conceding that yet another deserved to win. 1987, which featured Les Misérables, Rags, Starlight Express, and Me and My Girl as the Best Musical nominees, is a year that leaves me so divided, as each of them offered something very different and each excelled in very different ways.
The Best Musical Tony Award Debate: 1973
This week’s debate takes us back to 1973, a year were anything was likely to happen and where two musicals (out of four nominees) were really the chief contenders for Best Musical, and two others that had much to offer but would ultimately be outshined. This was, after all, the decade where the team of composer Stephen Sondheim and director Harold Prince would revolutionize musical theatre.
The Best Musical Tony Award Debate: 2004
I find this particular Tony year the most oft-debated on social media. Of course, it was a year with incredibly diverse offerings, and the four nominated Best Musicals each had a great deal to recommend. Most people are either squarely and adamantly behind Wicked, certain that it was robbed by Avenue Q. Just as many are ardently confident that Avenue Q was the rightful victor. Then we have two other shows, Caroline, or Change and The Boy From Oz, both pieces that arguably have equal claim for the Best Musical Tony. Not since The Music Man bested West Side Story at the 1958 Tony Awards has there been a more hotly contested Best Musical category. So, let’s take a look at the nominees individually and then begin the debate.