Despite the odds against it, the 76th Annual Tony Awards still managed to go ahead on Sunday night, albeit with some changes. Due to an ongoing writers’ strike, the show was staged in the United Palace in Washington Heights, far from its usual venue of Radio City Music Hall. Additionally, there were no professionally written lines, so the usual skits and banter that make award shows entertaining were absent, save for a cringe-worthy moment when host Ariana DeBose attempted to mimic Ellen DeGeneres’ celebrity selfie bit from the Oscars.
However, the real problem was the lackluster shows that made up the 2022-23 Broadway season. Many of the productions were niche and pretentious, with performances that did not live up to the grandeur of the 3,300-seat theater. Despite winning Best Musical, Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a 16-year-old girl with a rare aging disease, was deemed a tough sell. The other musical nominees, like the jukebox musical “& Juliet,” struggled to make a lasting impression on viewers.
The big-cast “Sweeney Todd,” starring Josh Groban, and the Neil Diamond show “A Beautiful Noise” were among the few musicals that received positive feedback and could potentially see a box office bump from the broadcast. Meanwhile, most of the winning plays have already closed or are about to, such as Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which won Best Play just as it’s ending its run at the Longacre Theatre in July.
Despite the mediocre shows, the Tony Awards did honor some legends of the industry, like John Kander and Joel Grey, both of whom were recognized with lifetime achievement Tony Awards. As Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick presented the award for Best Actor in a Play, the audience was reminded of their dynamic performance in “The Producers,” which was a hit back in 2001.
Overall, the Tony Awards demonstrated that even without a script, the show must go on. However, it also showed that the quality of Broadway productions needs to improve to keep audiences coming back for more.
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