The 76th Tony Awards are scheduled to have fun the very best work of the 2022-2023 Broadway season on June 11 — however, The Hollywood Reporter has discovered, quite a lot of choices over the subsequent few days will decide if the continuing writers strike will power the ceremony, which is meant to air on CBS and stream on Paramount+, to maneuver ahead in a non-televised format or to be postponed.
In response to a number of high-level sources, a script for the Tony Awards was accomplished earlier than the Writers Guild of America declared a strike towards the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers, of which CBS and Paramount+ are member firms, on Could 2. (The Tony nominations have been introduced simply hours later.) However with out a waiver from the Writers Guild granting particular dispensation for the present, guild members would virtually definitely present as much as picket outdoors the venue: New York’s United Palace theater in Washington Heights. And distinguished members of the Broadway group — akin to Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was on the picket strains this week in New York — have made it clear that they won’t cross a picket line in an effort to attend. (It appears unlikely that Ariana DeBose, who hosted final yr’s present and is scheduled to host this yr’s, would do in any other case, though she has but to touch upon the state of affairs.)
This week, this season’s Tony Awards Management Committee — which contains eight representatives of the Broadway League, together with president Charlotte St. Martin and well-known producers Jordan Roth and Scott Sanders, and eight representatives of the American Theater Wing, together with president Heather Hitchens — formally petitioned the Writers Guild for such a waiver, noting how a lot financially struggling Broadway exhibits depend upon publicity from the Tonys telecast for a box-office bump. (This season, exhibits hanging on within the hopes of a Tonys bounce embrace the front-running musicals Some Like It Sizzling and Kimberly Akimbo and the play Leopoldstadt.)
A solution from the Writers Guild is anticipated earlier than Monday, and nearly no person from the Broadway contingent expects particular dispensation to be granted. So the Administration Committee has set an emergency assembly for Monday morning to find out the very best path ahead.
The 2 alternate programs of motion that the Administration Committee is seemingly weighing are to (a) stick to the date of June 11 and maintain a non-televised presentation of the awards, maybe within the type of an intimate dinner or press convention with nominees and media in attendance; or (b) postpone the ceremony till the strike involves an finish and the present may be televised.
Representatives of the Broadway League, which incorporates many producers and theater homeowners and operators, are extra inclined to assist the primary possibility, as many exhibits might not be capable to survive for months on finish with out the imprimatur of a Tony on their marquees and promotional supplies.
The American Theater Wing, nevertheless, is seemingly extra open to a delay, as that group is seen the guardian of the Tony Awards model, which might not be helped by a non-televised presentation.
The 74th Tonys, honoring the 2019-2020 Broadway season, passed off in Sept. 2021, 15 months after the date for which they have been initially scheduled, partly as a result of the pandemic prevented massive gatherings for a lot of months, but additionally partly to coincide with the reopening of Broadway. Within the meantime, lots of the nominated exhibits had closed.
“We will’t have one other bizarre Tonys,” says one Broadway producer who is part of this season.
Further reporting by Caitlin Huston
