June 11, 2008
Many Tony Award Voters Don't Bother Seeing Shows
The Tony Awards are happening Sunday night, people! Who’s excited? Pretty much nobody, right? No surprise there, especially considering that a phenomenal show like Passing Strange has been playing to half-full houses. But what’s really ridiculous is that even the people who are tasked with voting for the Tony winners can’t be bothered to sit through these shows!
As Jeremy Gerard reports on Bloomberg.com, a spectacular number of the 797 voters will cast votes without seeing all the shows in competition, in violation of rules that aren’t enforced. Laurence Fishburne, for instance, is up for a Tony for best performance by a leading actor in Thurgood. But less than 40 percent of the 797 voters have seen the play, according to a member of the show's production team. And that riveting revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming that’s up for a Tony? Less than 400 voters saw it.
These people are supposedly the ones most invested in the state of Broadway: producers, press members and union representatives. But the Broadway League, which co-produces the Tonys, does nothing to stop these voters from casting ballots without seeing all the shows, and most of them freely admit to doing just that.
Of course, nobody’s world view will be irrevocably shattered when the Tony Awards are exposed as little more than a farcically-run advertising campaign. But the really outrageous part of all this is that there are plenty of informed people in the theater community, starting here, who would love nothing more than to see all these shows for free. And if Passing Strange doesn’t win best musical, at least we know who to blame: The voters who didn't see it.
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The lights that burn brightest push deepest and longest down that Great Brown Way.
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I wish Gothamist would stop endorsing Passing Strange every chance it gets. I took my parents to this show when they were visiting based on Gothamist's recommendation, and we left at intermission. The WORST show I have seen on Broadway, and I saw Brooklyn! This was the low point of the visit for our guests. I don't care what kind of crap you may think Broadway has become, but seeing a show, that should be shown in some out of the way black box theater is not my idea of what Broadway should be. It was AWFUL and you are encouraging poor unsuspecting people to waste their time!
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@ cbryan: I'm sorry you didn't like it. Passing Strange is probably not for everyone. But Gothamist is hardly alone in endorsing it; the show's gotten enormous critical acclaim across the board.
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astounding.
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Real New Yorkers don't give a rat's ass about Broadway shows.
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People may be avoiding Passing Strange because it has a terrible title that no one wants to say out loud. That, or they're tired of cliched depictions of Amsterdam as unemployed drug orgy.
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The Lion King and Jersey Boys may be cheesy and of lower quality than Passing Strange, but at least they don't sound like an unpleasant bathroom moment.
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I suspect these low viewing statistics also apply to most if not all of the other awards. Does anyone really think all those busy members of the Academy have time to watch more than a few of the more than one hundred films nominated for various Oscars each year? Especially since they only have a couple of months between nomination and awards ceremony. Even worse for the Emmys. Nobody can watch every episode of every nominated show, so at best, voters might watch what's considered the best episode of a show to note its merits, even if the rest of the episodes that season were terrible.
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Gawd, next thing they'll be saying the Presidential voting system is rigged too. Just ask the locals.
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Passing Strange shouldn't win best musical. That title belongs to In The Heights. (And yes, I did see both of them.)
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"Real New Yorkers don't give a rat's ass about Broadway shows."
WTF?!? Thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Sign me up, ill be a tony voter, I'll take free theatre tickets anytime.
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Isn't theatre a strange anachronism that is only of interest to boring queens and 50-something women? I still have to wonder why people want to see overacted shows by C-level performers for prices that are at least quadruple the cost of a movie. To each their own I guess.
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I understand that Gothamist isn't alone in endorsing the show, but isn't there anything else out there worth endorsing? I've talked to at least 10-15 other people who saw the show and hated it. Sometimes I think critics give something praise just because its different and not actually of high quality.