The 76th Tony Awards are scheduled to have fun the very best work of the 2022-23 Broadway season on June 11 — however, The Hollywood Reporter has realized, quite a few selections over the subsequent few days will decide if the continued writers strike will pressure 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 line with a number of high-level sources, a script for the Tony Awards was accomplished earlier than the Writers Guild of America declared a strike in opposition to the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers, of which CBS and Paramount+ are member corporations, on Might 2. (The Tony nominations had been introduced simply hours later.) However with no waiver from the Writers Guild granting particular dispensation for the present, guild members would virtually actually present as much as picket exterior the venue: New York’s United Palace theater in Washington Heights. And outstanding members of the Broadway group — reminiscent of 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 with the intention to attend. (It appears unlikely that Ariana DeBose, who hosted final 12 months’s present and is scheduled to host this 12 months’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 Administration 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 rely upon publicity from the Tonys telecast for a field workplace bump. (This season, exhibits hanging on in hopes of a Tonys bounce embrace the front-running musicals Some Like It Scorching and Kimberly Akimbo and the play Leopoldstadt.)
A solution from the Writers Guild is predicted earlier than Monday, and nearly no one 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 apparently being weighed are: (a) keep on with 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 could be televised.
Representatives of the Broadway League, which incorporates many producers and theater homeowners and operators, are extra inclined to help the primary choice, as many exhibits might not have the ability 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 because the guardian of the Tony Awards model, which might not be helped by a non-televised presentation.
The 74th Tonys, honoring the 2019-20 Broadway season, occurred in September 2021, 15 months after it was initially scheduled — partly as a result of the pandemic prevented giant gatherings for a lot of months, but additionally partly to coincide with the reopening of Broadway. Within the meantime, most of the nominated exhibits had closed.
“We are able to’t have one other bizarre Tonys,” says one Broadway producer who is part of this season.
Further reporting by Caitlin Huston.
