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Think of the prestige. Think of the respect. No, no, no. Think of the Tony. Hello, all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history unt legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And this is one of our Tony Award episodes before the 2025 Tony Awards. And oh, boy, what a 48 Hours it has been. We won't talk about it too much because there's not much that I can talk about. It's all online. All the discourse is there. If you want a crazy read, there are plenty of chat rooms you can read. And if you want to just sort of talk to your friends and touch grass and get perspective on things that also can help, I will say, despite the events the last 48 hours, the music cues we will be using for our commercial breaks will remain the same. That's not out of solidarity to anything other than my own laziness and because at this point, Billie, I beg to diff with you, is just a catchphrase all on its own. So, yeah, moving right along. Welcome to this episode. So next week will be a sort of final Tony prediction episode. And I didn't really want to do a lot of Tony prediction episodes throughout the month of May into early June, just because there wasn't really much one could say. And we'll talk about this more as we get into the actual episode, but I figured it was best to sort of just sort of spread things out. Right? So we had our reaction episode, we had the London episode, we had the rankings of the whole season episode, and now we're having this sort of retrospective, sort of a specific lens. And then we'll have our predictions and then we'll have our responses. Reaction to the Tony Awards telecast. Before we get into any of that, though, surprise, surprise, we have a little bit of housekeeping to do, so stay seated, please. We have some flowers we gotta give out. So we have three reviews we're gonna read. Please cue the light and the piazza Overture music. Five stars. The best kind of critic. I so appreciate Matt's care and attentiveness to express his opinions as he really means. Done with two asterisks. Them. He really means them. Does that mean he might take a while to work it out on Mike from time to time? Sure. But that's the magic here. Sorry, sorry. He lets us in on the process of proper, nuanced critique. Will I always agree with his opinions? Of course not. But that's also the magic of affair and careful critic. And he does it all with charm and humor to boot. What can I say? I have a new POD Crush smiley face stars inside his face. And that is written by Raisins liaisons. Way to go. Sorry, that made me laugh. Moving on. Breaking down Broadway like a pro from theater newbie. 5 stars. As someone new to the theater, to the world of theater, I found this podcast incredibly helpful and fun. Matt does such a great job explaining what works in a show and what doesn't in a way that's easy to understand without being overly technical. Are there shows I still like just because I had a good time? Absolutely. But I love how Matt helps me see how they could have been better. His full season recap was my favorite episode and I seriously look forward to his yearly rankings. Highly recommend for anyone who loves theater. And last but not least, this guy knows his stuff. Five stars from and Dollar Percentage. I've been a Broadway fan for decades, but only just discovered this podcast. I've been listening to it almost non stop ever since, reliving shows I've seen in the past, as well as learning about new shows I haven't seen yet. Matt's analysis and commentary is spot on. He often surprises me with insights that had never occurred to me, even as to shows I've seen many times. Bravo, Matt. Keep em coming. Thank you very much, sir. That's very kind of you. Yay. Yeah, I'm always happy when you guys write these reviews. They're always so good and sometimes they drag me just a little bit. But sometimes we need to be dragged, drugged, dragged. Dragon. You know what I mean? It's the only way we can get perspectives on ourselves, right, is to hear other people's unvarnished takes on us. And you know, you guys keep me humble, you keep me honest, as does everyone else in my life, to be perfectly frank. But that's a story for another day. So what I want to do today with this episode is, and if you are on the Broadway Breakdown Discord Channel, you know that this was coming because I asked people on the Discord Channel to provide some examples that they feel are relevant. I want to talk about, as you go forward, predicting the Tonys and having conversations about it, talking about what I would consider Tony myths and Tony trends. Now we bring this up because these are things that are talked about all the time with, you know, all awards bodies, right? But this is the Rahway podcast. So this is about the Tonys. And I sort of want to, I did a moment to kind of look through history and trends and whatnot, just to sort of see if what people say are actually, is actually true about Tony Awards and about the history of the Tony Awards and past winners and things to look for. So these are both myths and they are also trends, sort of linked hand in hand and figuring out just how much is accurate. Now, I think it goes without saying that the Tony Awards every year is never quite the same crop of people nominating or voting. Nominators get to vote, but. But nominators. The nominating committee itself, which is about 50 people, give or take, depending on who has to recuse themselves every season. It's never the same 50 people every year because the Tony Nominating Committee has overlapping members. When you're a nominator, you get three years to be a nominator and doesn't have to necessarily be three years in a row. Sometimes you take a year off because you might be in a project or five, things like that. And the nominating committee is made up of actors, writers, directors, producers. You can go on the Tony Awards website and see who's an active member of the Tony Nominating Committee right now. Tony winner and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson is one, I believe, Deborah Monk is one, and Adam Chandler Berat and Victoria Clarke and many, many, many others. And they all get to vote as well. And the voters, I believe when you're a voter, you're a voter for ever. But it averages to about 800 plus voters in the voting pool. And some people end up leaving the Tony voting body and some people enter. So it's like it's never the same exact body every year. And a nominating committee does not necessarily represent the tastes of the voting body. We see this all the time. We with the Tony Awards, with drama desks, with the Oscars. And I want to sort of bring up the Oscars every now and then as we go through these. But so when people talk about like, oh well, the Tonys love to do this, it's important to remember that there is no 1 Mr. Or Mrs. Tony Award that does all the voting. And even if there were, people change over time, we assume. So it's not as if like the Tony Award person that voted in 1975 is the same person that would be voting in 1920, 25. I'm currently reading a book called Oscar wars and it's all about the history of the Oscars. And in fact, it's sort of a detailed account of the history of Hollywood and America as well, through the prism of the Oscars. And something that always is interesting is that the. To quote Seth, you know, the young who are at the gates eventually become the old guard, and those who were revolutionaries in their youth become a lot more. Not stodgy. Well, some become stodgy, but become set in their ways because of, you know, what they did, set a certain path of progress, and thus, in their minds, that is how it should be done. And they compare the present to their past. And so you always have these kind of buttings of heads with all sorts of people from different generations. And just because the Tonys voted one way in the 70s and then again in the 90s does not necessarily mean it's the same now. So as we're doing these myths and trends, I kind of tried to keep it to the last 35 years with a specific focus on the 21st century from the year 2000 to present day. But I would expand up to 1990 just for poops and giggles. And then if it really mattered, I would sort of do an overview all the way back to the origins of the Tony Awards. So let's just sort of jump in, shall we? I don't know how long this episode's gonna be. Could be 40 minutes. Could be 5,000 hours. An easy myth to debunk just based off of recent events. The idea that nominating celebrities would get viewers for the Tony Awards and people and thus the nominating committee would nominate those celebrities. This was a myth that was going around as we were preparing for Tony nominations this year. I know. I thought that Kit Connor was going to get nominated for Romeo and Juliet. I didn't think that was going to be because. Because of viewership. I just thought he did a lovely job. But we also had Robert Downey Jr. Making his Broadway debut, George Clooney making his Broadway debut. Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, co leading Othello. Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin. So there was definitely. There's a lot of star power on Broadway this season. And while not everyone did, in my opinion, phenomenal work, and I think it's safe to say many people didn't feel that way. There was belief that in years past, because the Tony Awards, the viewership of the Tony Awards keeps sinking. There is a feeling that nominators will nominate movie stars and TV stars in the hopes that they will come to the ceremony. They can be promoted on cbs, and everyone's happy. Now, the nominating committee does not represent cbs, which absolutely is Doing everything in their power to make the Tony Awards become the MTV Movie awards or the VMAs. It's kind of stupid. The Tony Awards are for theater nerds. Cater it to theater nerds. They will be locked in forever. You'll never have 20 million viewers, but you can always count on a consistent 5 to 6 million. If you do your job correctly and you cater to them. Cater to the nerds. Point is, this year has proven a lot of people wrong, but that's also proven people wrong in the past. This year, Kitt was not nominated. Denzel Washington was not nominated. Jake Gyllenhaal, Kieran Culkin, none of them nominated. George Clooney was. But I would argue that was more. Less star fuckery and a little more prestige. Goodnight and Good Luck actually did solidly with Tony nominations this year. They didn't get a Best Play nomination, rightfully so, but, you know, it was not critically drubbed. The New York Times gave it a critics pick, which means nothing, of course, but Good Night and Good Luck has a little bit more prestige on it than something like Othello. Othello is pretty much universally hated this season. And so nominating Denzel Washington or Jake Gyllenhaal honestly would have felt a bit like a cop out. And there's also a bit of a. How would I describe this? There's definitely a bit of a our territory mentality with a lot of Broadway folk. When it comes to movie stars and TV stars coming to Broadway, it feels a bit gentrification y almost, which I don't know if that's problematic to say, but it's sort of how I feel like a lot of people feel about it. You remember when, like, Hunter Foster, Jen Cody made this whole, like, written tangent online about all the movie stars coming to Broadway and taking all the Broadway people's jobs? That feeling never really goes away with a lot of theater folk. They maybe don't write it down on Facebook, but they. They feel it. They absolutely feel it. And people love the jobs. People love a show making its money back. But theater folks definitely don't like the idea of Hollywood people coming to Broadway and sort of fetishizing the prestige of being on Broadway for a very short period of time and never doing quite the heavy load that a lot of Broadway actors have to do eight times a week for a year and a half just to make rent. So, yes, I would say that's a myth that's debunked. But also, we've seen this happen in the past. Never Forget Julia Roberts has done Broadway. And some of you might have forgotten because she was not nominated for a Tony Award for it. Plenty of celebrities have come to Broadway and not gotten nominated for their performances. Jennifer Hudson in the Color Purple, that's another one. Steve Carell last year in Uncle Vanya as well as Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan two years ago in the Sign and Cindy Brustein's window. Gaten maltarazzo for Sweeney Todd. Yes, he started off as a Broadway boy, but then he went off to do so Stranger Things and became very well known for that. Jim Parsons in literally everything he's done on Broadway except for Mother Play, which is crazy to me. Kerry Washington in American Son. Uma Thurman in the Parisian Woman. Bruce Willis in Misery. The Tonys don't always feel the pressure to nominate celebs, despite what we may think. So I think that's a myth that we can say is debunked. Another myth that we have. Oh, so this isn't a myth, but someone on the Discord just wanted to say shows from previous seasons cannot win Tonys. This is true. I'm assuming that they wrote this down because people on TikTok do not understand how the Tony Awards work and how eligibility works for the Tony Awards, how a season works for the Tonys, because unlike the Oscars, it's not a calendar year. It's more like the Emmys, where it goes from one month to another month. So for the Tony Awards, it goes June to June. Or actually, I would say May to May. Like May 1st to May 1st is the season of a Tony Award. It's changed in the past. It used to be the summer, then it was March, and then it was May. And now the Tonys take place in June every year, and cutoff usually is April 28th or, you know, April 30th. That's around the time that that happens. So just. Yeah. No. No shows from a previous season can be nominated again for a Tony Award. Although there was a time I don't think it's the case anymore. But performances at the Oliviers that were replacements used to be eligible. I don't know if that's still the case, but I know that Ms. Joanna Riding won her second Olivier for playing Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady After Maureen McCutcheon already won her Tony. So, you know, these things do happen. Next myth. Oh, the idea that the Tonys in general love specific performers and will always nominate so and so, once again, there is no nominating body of the Tony Awards. That is consistent every year. Nobody who is on the Nominating Committee this year was on the nominating committee in 2019, let alone 2015, let alone 2010 or 2000. They try to diversify the group and I know that in the last decade or so they've worked very hard to diversify both in terms of age, in terms of gender, racial identity as well as professions in the community. But yeah, there's no such thing as like a group just having a bias against for a specific performer. Although I am convinced that Paula Alexander Nolan has spat in the face of every single person who's ever been a Tony nominator. Because at this point it's getting fucking absurd that that man does not have a single nomination to his name. That said, there are also performers who I think just generally are well liked in the community, consistently do really strong work and make really interesting artistic choices. And I think that a lot of people in the community really admire that. And that's something that's just sort of evergreen. So yeah, someone like an Audra McDonald gets nominated quite frequently. Audra is a once in a generation talent. Audra does a lot of really fascinating projects, a lot of things that sort of push her and push our expectation of her. That doesn't mean she always gets nominated, though. She was famously not nominated for Shuffle Along. She was not nominated for Henry IV on Lincoln Center Theater. Audra does not always get nominated, but she frequently gets nominated. I'm pretty sure those are the only two Broadway credits she has where she wasn't. Rather I should say only two credits where she opened a show and didn't get nominated. Because Audra Ann MacDonald famously made her Broadway debut in the Secret Garden. She was the closing ayah of the in the Secret Garden after doing it on the road. You're welcome everybody for that tidbit. But even people like Laurie Metcalfe, who has won two Tonys and has been nominated frequently, was not nominated for Gray House just last season. Nathan Lane, Danny Burstein, both of them very prominent Tony nominees in the Broadway community. Nathan Lane has three wins. Danny Burstein won his in the COVID gas leak year for Moulin Rouge, but neither of them were nominated for pictures from Home. Kenny Leonard, frequently nominated, has a Tony for directing Raisin and the sun a second time. He's 0 for 3 this year. Wasn't nominated for Home, wasn't nominated for Our Town, was not nominated for Othello. His production of Our Town was nominated, but Kenny himself was not. Laura Linney. We love ourselves some Laura Linney. Has yet to win a Tony Award and was not nominated for summer 1976. Her co star Jessica Hecht was. And Jessica Hecht, you could say, is is someone that the Tonys do really enjoy nominating. Except for that time she was in Assembled Parties. More on that in a second. Bart Sher used to be a perennial nominee for the Tony Awards. Was not nominated for Bridges of Addison County, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, was not nominated this year for McNeil or last year or sorry, two years ago for Camelot. So, you know, there's no person who's just sort of always going to be nominated no matter what. People felt that Idina was going to get nominated for Redwood simply because she was nominated for if Then. And that just didn't end up happening. The more shows you do on Broadway that are eligible, the more likely it is that you're going to get not nominated for one of them. Right. It's just that's sort of the way it works. I don't even think Julie Harris has been nominated for every single show she has done. Maybe she has. I was in my research. I didn't. I couldn't fully connect the dots on that. Maybe I'll check at the next commercial break. But yeah, I think that's a myth that we can also debunk that there's no one person that the Tonys just always love to nominate. Sutton Foster, some might argue, is one who the Tonys really love. But she was not nominated this year for Once Upon a Mattress. She was not nominated for Young Frankenstein, never forget. But, you know, has been nominated for plenty of other things as well. Yeah, there's no guarantee almost ever in terms of who or what. I will say there are shows that seem to get nominated all the time, every time they get revived in certain parts that seem to always get nominated. I feel like we talked about this in the nomination prediction episodes, but I said with Gypsy, Gypsy always gets nominated for revival. It wasn't nominated for revival with Angela Lansbury because that category didn't exist yet. But they were nominated for Director Arthur Lawrence and Angela was nominated and won. And Zan Charisse was nominated for Louise. And with that continuing, Rose and Louise are two roles that have been nominated every time Gypsy has been on Broadway. Same thing with Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Every time Sweeney Todd has been on Broadway, those two roles have always been nominated for Tony Awards. Phyllis and Follies, always nominated. I feel like there are other ones. I feel like Anna Lee Owens has been nominated almost every time. There might have been. There were like five revivals of the King and I in the 70s and 80s that I can't keep track of. And I don't know what their Tony eligibilities were at the time. But I mean, we have three women who've won for playing Annaleigh, Kelli o', Hara, Donna Murphy and Gertrude Lawrence. And I feel like there's at least one other person who's been nominated. But yeah, weirdly enough, Maria in West side Story, every time west side Story has been Tony eligible, which this last Eva Van Hoffe revival was not. But all three other times it was eligible. The Marias have been nominated. So just some roles just kind of always attract it. And the success of the performance may vary, but the strongness of the role carries through at the end of the day. All right, let's go a little further up here. Okay. Oh, here's a big one. And then we'll take a quick break. The myth of the road vote. Now, I was doing some research on this because obviously there is one show in particular that this myth centers around. And what this myth is ultimately, when people talk about best musical nominees and what could possibly win, there's a lot of talk of this show is going to tour well and the voters who are road presenters will vote for it. There are, I would say, almost 100 Tony voters who are road presenters, meaning that they work at all of the touring houses throughout the country, that these Broadway tours come in and play for a week or a month or three months, depending. That is just about 10% of the voting pool. It's not nearly enough to overwhelmingly sway a best musical vote. And from my research, what I got, what I could gather was the first time I could see in actual writing the discussion of a best musical nominee having an advantage because it was going to Torwell is in 1984 when it was La Cage aux Fall versus Sunday in the park with George. And ultimately what that came down to was between Sunday and La Cage, La Cage was the better sell on the road. It was glitzy, it was such a spectacle. It was feel good, it had hummable show tunes. But more importantly, La Cage aux Fall had been playing for almost a year by the time the 1984 Tony Awards came around. La Cage opened in August of 83 and despite sort of a mediocre review from Frank Rich and the Times, got extremely strong reviews everywhere else. Came into Broadway after a dynamite out of town tryout in Boston and was just a huge phenomenon. That season was like the hit of 1984 and so it already had that momentum behind it of being the big commercial hit. It also had an air of importance about it. It was the first commercial spectacle musical centered around two homosexual characters, specifically a romantic homosexual pairing. And so there was an air of significance about the show that also had the aesthetic and feeling of a chocolate eclair. And all of that sort of combined to La Cage Auxia Fall's win. So not only was it the La Cage aux Fall would be a better sell on the road because it was already a hit because it was such a splashy musical, but also La Cage needed the win in order to further guarantee its road success. This is a narrative that Kinky Boots also kind of tried to pull when they were campaigning for the Tonys and in fact got a lot of backlash when they did confirm their national tour by going on a lower tiered contract for Equity. I know a lot of Equity actors boycotted those initial auditions because they felt that the producers were trying to nickel and dime the talent under the guise of, well, we don't know how this is actually going to sell on the Road because there are a lot of red states and, you know, this is a very queer musical with drag and blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is 2013, very different time. And a lot of Equity folks basically felt like that was bullshit. It's like your show is selling out nightly. You just won a bunch of Tony Awards. It's feel good. You've got some Cyndi Lauper on the marquee. This, it's gonna be fine. And the truth is that Kinky Boots ended up being fine on the road in the same way that La Cage ended up being fine. That's the beginning of the origins that I could find of the road vote, quote unquote, being a factor in voting. Where it all came to a head was in 2004 when it was Avenue Q versus Wicked. Wicked was similar to La Cage, really the big hit of the season, unexpectedly. So because Wicked did not come in on a wave of good press from out of town, it did not get amazing reviews. There's the urban legend is that Wicked got trashed by the reviews and ended up becoming a word of mouth hit. That's not exactly true. Wicked was more sort of like a Vita in 1979 in the Sense. Like the critics dismissed it, but they didn't trash it. This was not a Lempicka Paradise Square situation. The critics are basically like, ah, it's expensive and Chenoweth is great. But like, I don't know, this is sort of Forgettable. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's, it's fine, it's whatever. And sort of everyone sort of washed their hands of it after that and Wicked kind of immediately took off. So Wicked was not necessarily respected by the community, but it was appreciated for how big of a hit it was and it was sort of too undeniable to not nominate. And I think there was expectation it was going to win because it was such a financial success and was also permeating the pop culture in a way that a lot of Broadway musicals hadn't, probably not since Rent. Really. There had been other hits on Broadway since Rent, Producers was one, Hairspray was another. But Wicked had songs that were crossing over into high schools in the Midwest and so many of those songs have now become such canon and as we now see with the movie, it's popular popularity, hahaha is so widespread and this is sort of the beginning of that. So it was a very exciting time for that show and I think people just expected that to be the case. And then of course Avenue Q comes in and wins score book and musical. And there was a big article, maybe not the next day but two days later sort of going what happened? Why did Wicked lose and how did Avenue Q pull it off? And in the article it talked about how the producers of Avenue Q had been pitching the idea of a national tour to all of these road presenters under the guise of like it would really help us sell theaters on the road if we had that best musical stamp. Now that could be true, but that was one of many things that Avenue Q did in their campaigning in addition to their whole original song of vote with your heart, which ended up working. And then of course once Avenue Q won the Tony, they sort of did a reverse and said actually we are going to do a sit down production in Vegas because pissing off a lot of the road voters who voted for them. Now road voters can help maybe tilt the scale. If it's a really tight race, if it's between two shows or even among three shows and no one's really sure who the frontrunner is, the voters from Road Houses could tilt the scale into one show's particular favor. That's where talking about what my tour well can help you with your predictions. So for example, if we're looking at this Tony season with best musical, we have Operation Mincemeat, Dead Outlaw, Buena Vista Social Club, Death becomes her and maybe happy ending of those five, I would say death becomes her is probably the most likely to tour well, it's a big splashy musical. It's based on IP that a lot of people know. It's not maybe internationally iconic ip, but it is solid enough IP that enough people would recognize the title. A lot of the material has been going viral on social media. It's a big funny show. It's not necessarily a family friendly show, but still it's in a lot of ways like La Cage. It is a weird subject matter for a lot of people done in a, in an aesthetic and a style that they can understand and absorb. So in a lot of ways that could be in Death becomes her favor that all these road presenters are like, oh, I know I can sell this. But where this becomes a bit of a myth is that honestly I would argue starting with nine in 1981 and then sort of really kind of culminating with Avenue Q and then A Gentleman's Guide, A Spring Awakening and Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the Tonys have often in the last like 30ish years started to value and support the. The smaller musicals, the Jewel Box musicals, the musicals that are more creatively fulfilling, championing it for the craft in hopes that producers will support those kind of works in the future while also using that best musical stamp of approval to help sell it on the road. In a lot of voters minds they might think Death becomes or doesn't need the best musical win to sell on the road. That show will sell just fine. But something like maybe Happy Ending probably does. Dead Outlaw absolutely does. So we see things like Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the Band's Visit, Fun Home, Kimberly Akimbo, a Strange Loop, shows that absolutely would need that seal of approval. And then there are other shows that kind of have the best of both worlds in the last 30 years that are in a lot of ways the artistic risk but also have the critical approval and thus the artistic cachet, I guess you could say that also happen to be selling well and catching on with audiences. So they're also heavily commercial. This would be a Hamilton. This would be Arendt, a Dear Evan Hansen, a Hadestown even. It's very rare when a show that is considered less good than its competition but ultimately is so popular and, you know, worthy of selling on the road wins. The only two I can clock in. No, I'm sorry, I would say the only three I can really clock in this century. In the 21st century. Shows that objectively got weaker reviews than their competition but and maybe were maybe not considered like as artistically fulfilling but ultimately were too popular to deny in this century. Or at the very least, like too sellable would be Jersey Boys, Spamalot and Thoroughly Modern Millie. And Thoroughly Modern Millie wasn't necessarily a huge hit. That was just a very well timed, feel good New York musical. It was right after September 11th and a lot of voters really needed that sort of pick me up. Spamalot, everyone thought, was sort of the heir apparent to the Producers and was definitely considered weaker than the Producers, but ultimately did get the seal of approval from the New York Times, which helped it a lot. The thing about Spamalot is that I think people expected Spamalot to win bigger than it did. They did win musical as well as director and featured actress, but there was expectation that it was going to win book, that they could win a featured actor award, that they might win a couple of design categories, maybe even score. And of the musicals that Spamalot was nominated against, Spelling Bee absolutely had the best reviews of the season. Spamalot probably tied with Lightning the Piazza next in terms of with Spamalot. Critics were like, it's not high art, but I had a really good time. And then Piazza them being like, I didn't really have a great time, but it made this might be high art. And then Dirty Round Scoundrels kind of got the stepchild reviews of like everyone going, this is fun. It's not as fun as the Producers. It's not as fun as Spamalot, which I think is bullshit. I think Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the far better and far funnier musical than Spamalot. Jesse Green, suck every inch of my butt with that fucking critics pick you did last season for the revival. But Jersey Boys was a show that also actually got quite good reviews except for the New York Times. And that was up against the Drowsy Chaperone, which got equally if not better reviews than Jersey Boys. And everyone was really excited about Drowsy because it a was filled to the brim with a lot of Broadway talent that people loved. But also as an original show, an original idea. There was so much hype and excitement around it. But Jersey Boys ended up being just too undeniable of a hit. That it even overcame another curse for best musical that we will get to with a later trend. But yeah, I will say the other thing about Wicked versus Avenue Q that I feel should be mentioned as we talk about trends later on. Avenue Q had a very crucial nomination that Wicked did not. That is not ironclad if you want to win best musical, but it's a really, really, really helpful one to have, which is Best Director. Avenue Q's Jason Moore was nominated for best Director. Joe Mantello was not nominated for Wicked. Joe Mantello was no. And won for his revival of Assassins, which ultimately won Revival. That's another thing we'll talk about in a second. But Wicked's chances, I don't think, were quite as strong as people like to assume. It ultimately was down to Wicked and Avenue Q for Best Musical Caroline or Change was just too weird and too complicated for voters at the time. And the Boy From Oz was a bullshit nomination. That was again, like a very successful star vehicle for Hugh Jackman. That was the Funny Girl nomination, where everyone was like, this book is no good. This show is not very good. But my God, is huu amazing, and my God, is it selling like hotcakes. So it was down to Avenue Q and Wicked, and ultimately Avenue Q had the director nomination, which I think shows that people were higher on the artistic quality of Avenue Q than of Wicked. And also kind of felt, Wicked's got their money. They don't really need us. In the same way that Wicked didn't really do great at the Golden Globes or the Oscars last year. I mean, Wicked got what got two, three wins this past season at the Oscars, which is perfectly fine. But same thing with Barbie. The year before Oscars going Barbie had $1.4 billion at the box office. They can take their one song Oscar and go home, feel great. So that's sort of the myth of the road vote, guys, is it's not. It is real. There are voters who represent those houses. That is not ultimately what gets the win. It has tipped the scales maybe three or four times in the past. Maybe. But I'd argue the shows that won over maybe that more artistic show didn't win because of the road voters. They won because they were already such a big hit in New York that the community couldn't deny them. That's the thing about the Tonys that the Oscars don't always catch on is that if a show is doing well in New York, there's an energy around it that gets people excited, especially voters. And it feels good to be voting for the winning ticket. Not just like, oh, this is the popular thing, but like, this is the popular thing that people are excited about. We want to crown the exciting thing. The Oscars used to do that back in, like the 50s and 40s. It was often like the most popular movie of the year tended to win. And that started to shift around the 60s, and that's definitely shifted for the Tonys. It's not always the most popular. I would say last season was an interesting one with the outsiders winning, which didn't really have the reviews and didn't really have the cachet. But it was starting to take off in popularity by the time the Tony Awards came around. And there was a newness about it that I think some of those other nominees did not really have, and a few fun energy around it that voters were excited by. You could argue that that might have been a musical the voters were eager to vote for because it could sell on the Road more so than maybe something like a Suffs or a Water for Elephants. And it's entirely possible that voters felt that Hell's Kitchen was going to be fine on its own without a Tony win for Best Musical. It's also possible that they just didn't like Hell's Kitchen. I know that I spoke to three different voters who were trying to figure out how to vote for Best Musical to make their vote count because they weren't sure if Hell's Kitchen was going to do well or not. And they didn't like it. And they're like, I can't throw my vote at Illinois, even though I liked it the most because it's not going to win. They're like, so what could possibly beat Hell's Kitchen? And I think a lot of people decided that that was the Outsiders and that's how we got her. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we will come back with some more myths. So let's take a break. Billy, I'd beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top? Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of rev. And we're back. Okay, so next up in our myths and our trends, here's a good one. They won't give the Tony to a person two years in a row. Now, I was looking this up. There are a couple of times where people have won Tonys two years in a row, but rarely in the same category. Gwen Verdon won two times in a row. The first time she tied with Thelma Ritter, her co star in New Girl in Town. That might be the only time that two co stars tied for the Tony Award. Also, Ms. Judith Light won two years in a row for Other Desert Cities and Assembled Parties. Steven Spinella won two years in a row for Angels in America. But he was in featured the first year for Millennium Approaches and then lead for Perestroika. Laurie Metcalfe won two years in a row, but again won in lead and then in Featured. One of the reasons why we don't often see people winning two years in a row is that it's actually not that common. From my research, what I've gathered, it's not that common for actors to be nominated multiple years in a row. We're often in the last 40 years. Honestly, throughout the whole run of the Tonys, people actors will get nominated like every other year. Maybe they'll get like two years in a row and then like have a year off. But it's very rare that you get actors sort of nominated consistently in a row. Someone like a Carrie Young is actually quite rare. I think Laurie Metcalf is one of the only other Broadway performers to have a similar string of nominations that frequent. But this is also brought up because a people go, well, Kara Young could win for featured actors and Purpose, even though she just won last year for Pearly Victorious. She could. More on that in a second then also people going, oh, well, Jonathan Groff could win two years in a row this year for Just In Time. I was looking this up for leading actor in a musical. From what I could tell, there have only been five men who've had nominations for leading actor in a musical two years in a row, not counting Grafsas. The first one I could find was Gregory hines in the 1980s and he lost both times. He would win on his third nomination for Jelly's Last Jam in the 90s. Next up is George Hearn, who won his second Tony for La Cage aux Fall. His first, from what I could see, was for A doll's life in 1983 again. And I was just looking sort of per category. So if some of these people were nominated multiple years in a row in different categories, forgive me, but I'm looking specifically in this category. Yeah. So Gregory Hines was first, Then George Hearn with two years in a row, and he won the second time. Next up, I found Patrick Wilson nominated back to back for the Full Monty in Oklahoma. He lost both times. Then Michael Serveris nominated back to back for Sweeney Todd. Then I believe, love music. Yeah. And then after that is Brian d' Arcy James, who was nominated back to back for into the woods and Days of Wine and Roses. And none of these men won Tony's two years in a row. In fact, of these men, George Turner is the only one who won a Tony for the Back to back nominations. Gregory Hines, from what I gathered, he was nominated opposite Kevin Kline for Pirates of Pentheans. Let me confirm this for a second. But, yes, I believe that's who he was up against. Sorry. His first nomination was up against Jim Dale for Barnum, and that was a major, major star turn that he was just not gonna beat. Gregory Hines was in the musical Comet Uptown where he played Scrooge, so I'm assuming this was a version of A Christmas Carol. His next year, he was in Sophisticated Ladies where he was probably the lead performer of what was an ensemble jazz dance piece, but he was opposite Kevin Kline and George Rose for the Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Klein winning. Those were just two gigantic turns that, you know, no one was gonna beat. Not anybody. Next one, we have George Hearn, who lost for A Doll's Life. He lost to Tommy Tune in My One and Only. This is a year where, you know, I won't say that Tommy Tune In My One and Only was an undeniable performance, so much as that he personally turned around a shipwreck out of town and made it a hit on Broadway and was very delightful in the leading role. And George Herndon at Doll's Life was in one of the biggest flops of the season. Him being nominated was kind of a miracle, if you ask me. But he did win the following year for La Cage, where he was nominated alongside his co star, Jean Barry. More on that later. Next up, I believe I said, was Patrick Wilson. Yes, Patrick Wilson, nominated in 2001 for the full Monty. He lost to Nathan Lane in the Producers. Nobody was beating that. This is actually a good category now that I'm looking at it. It's Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick for the Producers, Kevin Chamberlain for Seussical, Tom Hewitt for the Rocky Horror show, and Patrick Wilson for the Full Monty. Honestly, if I were to vote for anyone to beat Nathan Lane here, it would be Tom Hewitt. Tom Hewitt in Rocky Horror Show. Listen to that cast recording. The 2000 Broadway cast recording of Rocky Horror Show. It's so fucking good. The score has never sounded better, but, like, Patrick Wilson was the lead of what was the first musical hit that season with Flamonte, because that came out, I want to say, like October of 2000, and then producers came in that March just fucking dick swinging and Nathan Lane winning his second Tony for that. So, yeah, that wasn't. Nothing was going to come from that. The next year, Patrick Olson was nominated for Oklahoma, and he could have one here. This revival of Oklahoma was Kind was mostly considered a letdown. It came from the national three years prior with Hugh Jackman as the lead in London for that. And this production was considered like Carousel 2.0. This was the London Oklahoma. That fucked. And oh my God, they dusted off the cobwebs. It's so sexy, it's so dark, it's so stylish. And Trevor Nunn wanted to bring the entire British cast over. He was denied by Equity, so he only brought over Schuyler Hensley, who's American, and Josefina Gabrielle as Laurie. Everyone else was recast and this was considered a recasting that really diluted the power of that production. Patrick Wilson got off pretty okay and he is a very good curly, but he didn't have the sort of smoldering sexiness that Hugh Jackman had at that time, which is ironic because I would argue that now Patrick Wilson absolutely has that kind of riz. And Hugh Hackman has lost it. But at the time, Patrick Wilson was sort of considered a little more clean cut and washed out curly in Oklahoma. So he lost to John Lithgow in Sweet Smell of Success, which was a flop of a show. But Lithgow was considered the saving grace of it. And the only other real competition either one had was Gavin Creel and Millie, which wasn't going to happen. That was Sutton's show. John McMartin into the Woods, which also wasn't going to happen. And John Column in Urinetown, which could have happened, but ultimately it makes sense that it was Lithgow. And then finally, or sorry, our last two, I should say Michael Cerverus losing for Sweeney Todd. He lost to John Lloyd Young in Jersey Boys. He probably could have won here. This would have been his second Tony and it was pretty soon after his win for Assassins. So John Lloyd Young winning for Jersey Boys, which ended up being our best musical winner, does ultimately make sense. He is the face of the biggest hit of this season. It was a vocally demanding role. There was a lot of to do about how John Lloyd Young was singing in a way that no man had ever sung on Broadway before. And so it ultimately made sense. Sweeney Todd was a show that was very hot for a couple of months when it opened. And then that revival started to lose traction. By the time it got to the Tony Awards, it had just been open, I think, a little too long by that point. And people were finally admitting that they were a little turned off by it. So that probably dug him a bit in a hole. And then the following year, he lost for Love Music to David Hyde Pearson Curtains. And as we all know, that was the Tony that everyone expected to go to. Raoul Esparza. Cerverus was wonderful in Love Music, but Love Music was ultimately considered a disappointment and he had no chance of winning that one. And then after that, we have the Brian d' Arcy James years. We have Brian d' Arcy James nominated back to back for into the woods, which he was never going to win because into the woods had long been closed. That Baker is not really a role you win for. It was sort of considered a huge get that he got nominated for it at all. And that was the year that J. Harrison G was just going to win for Some Like It Hot. And we all knew it. And then the following year, Brian d' Arcy James lost in Days of Wine and Roses to Jonathan Groff in Merrily We Roll Along. My hot take is that I would have voted for Brian d' Arcy James, but Days of Wine and Roses was a polarizing musical. I did not personally like it, but I thought that Kelly and Brian were astounding in it. But the show was polarizing and it had closed. And Graffs was one of the main leads of, again, one of the bigger hits of the season. The story of Merrily now works. And it sort of just felt like his time. Groff had put in the work. This was, I guess, at this point, his fourth Broadway show, which doesn't seem like a lot considering he's been around for 20 years. But, yeah, it just. It was sort of his time. It could be his time again. He is doing a much more star turn in this. This is a production that's all about him. There are other urban legends around. Jonathan Groff playing Bobby Darin in Just In Time that people think goes to his advantage. He is playing a real person and people feel like, oh, the Tony Awards. Really like that when you play a real person. Correction. That's really more the Oscars than that's the Tony Awards, at least for musicals. I was looking up the numbers of the last, let's see, 40 years. And what I have here is in the last 40 years, and I'm talking about specifically, like, playing a person who not only actually existed, but a person that everyone can recognize. It's not like an Ian McKellen and Amadeus where no one knows what Salieri actually sounded or looked like. It's not really an embodiment because you can't tell it's your own version of it, but something like a John Lloyd Young in Frankie Valley where we have a touchstone to come to to measure the likeliness of that performer's interpretation. So of those decades, 11 actors in plays who've played real people have won the Tony. Only five actors in musicals have won the Tony for playing a real person. And on top of that, four actresses in musicals and two actresses in plays. So if you're going to play a real person and win a Tony for it, chances are you better be in a straight play rather than musical. And for this one, I am including both Roy Cohn's and Angels in America because that even though it's Tony Kushner's version of Roy Cohn, it still counts. It still counts. We have that touchstone for it. So that's another myth that we just two myths in one there. The back to back people. Oh, people won't give them the Tony back to back. And also if you play a real person, that really boosts your chances. I think people kind of got on that mind frame after Stephanie J. Block won for the Cher show. Which actually brings us to the quote unquote career Tony. The idea that somebody might not do their best work, the legacy win, some might say might not do their best work. But because of their contributions to the industry as a whole, this is not such egregiously bad work that people feel okay awarding them. Through my research, I really could only find something that really felt like a legacy win. With Mike Nichols. When he won director of a musical for Spamalot and director of a play for the revival of Death of a Salesman, no one really felt that he deserved either Tony. And if you watch his speeches, he doesn't really think he deserves either Tony. But both shows were sort of like a return to the form for him and were very successful. And Spamalot ended up winning musical and salesman won revival of a play. So it all kind of lines up. But those were cases that actually felt like legacy wins. So they do exist. They seem to exist less for performers. The only ones I could find that one could make an argument for would be maybe Kevin Klein in Present Laughter where he beat Jefferson Mays in Oslo. But I think that that win being a legacy win is very debatable. Kevin Klein again was the face of present laughter. He was playing a role that has been awarded in the past. He single handedly made that production a financial success and he got really strong reviews for it. He's a veteran of the stage. I mean, yes, he is an Oscar winning movie star, but he got his start on Broadway. So anytime he comes back to Broadway. It's always considered a return to form and very exciting. And he also hadn't won in a very long time. It had been like, I'd say, what, like 35 years since his last win. So sort of felt like time. Another one that maybe felt like a legacy win was Alan Bates for winning for Fortune's fool, and he died later that year. So it definitely was sort of like a hurry up and give him the Tony. Now he beat Billy Crudup in Elephant man and Jeffrey Wright in Top Dog, Underdog, both of whom could have been very strong contenders at the time. But I think that's one that sort of definitely felt like a legacy win. Other ones that people might have found a bit like a legacy. When Cicely Tyson in Trip to Bountiful, her competition wasn't extraordinarily strong. Her two biggest competition actresses, I would say were Amy Morton in who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, who many people thought should have won for August Osage County. And this was like, oh, maybe she'll finally win for this. But that production really was centered around George in Tracy Letts performance, and then also Christine Nielsen for Vanya and Sonja and Masha and Spike. But again, you can't really deny a legend. So, yeah, with a legacy, when people talk about, oh, it's for their career more than the performance, yes and no. I think you'll sometimes see legacy wins more on the creative side than on the performance side. For something like a Stephanie J. Block in the Cher Show, I think there are a lot of myths that all sort of come to play in that year that don't really apply realistically, but sort of. I can't think of the word, but sort of like, in theory, those. Those myths would apply. So the exact. For example, she's playing a woman who is real, a celebrity. Cher. An icon named Cher. So there is the she's playing a real person element of it. Her competition that year included Kelli o' Hara and Kiss Me Kate, Eva Noblezada in Hadestown, Caitlin Kinnanen and Beth Leavel for the Prom. And some have argued that Beth Leavel and Caitlin Kinnanan split the vote, which allowed Stephanie to win. On top of that, this was Stephanie's third nomination, I believe, and she had been working on Broadway for the better part of 16 years at that point. And people felt like, oh, it was her time, she was due. And even though this isn't her best performance, the career is such that we must award it. All of those things are things, whether they're actual tangible facts is debatable. Yes, she played a real person, but the year prior, Lachanze played Donna Summer and did not win. And while Lachanze did have a Tony award by that point, it had been the better part of 12 years since she last won. So not necessarily, you know, overcrowded with awards at that point of her life. Yes, Stephanie J. Block had a quite long and illustrious career, and it was her third nomination. Lest we forget how many nominations Kelly o' Hara had before she finally won. How many nominations Danny Burstein had to get before he finally won? You know, Jan Maxwell unfortunately passed before she could ever win. And she had five nominations, I think at that point, in just about every category you could get nominated for. I think she got nominated for all four categories. Actress, in a musical and in a play, both leading and featured, and had been working on Broadway since the late 80s and just never won. So even though, yes, Stephanie J. Block had 16 years of Broadway experience and two other Tony nominations and was playing a real person, none of those things are such obvious standards of which to go by that she would just naturally win. Same thing with the idea of splitting the vote. And we'll talk more about what splitting the vote actually means later on. But yeah, I think because of that win, and then with Adrienne Warren winning during the COVID gas leak year for Tina, there's now become this narrative of, oh, if you play a real person, you're more likely to win. Not. Not totally true. More true if you're an actor in a play, but not. Not super true. Which actually this now leads me to a trend I want to talk about for a quick second. Speaking of Mike Nichols, as well as Joe Mantello and the Wicked versus Avenue Q, I was looking into this, and of all of the best musical winners of all time, there has only been one best musical winner at the Tony Awards that was not nominated for Best Director. That was Titanic in 1997. Titanic did, however, have a nomination in another category that's very important, which is Best Book, which it did win. Titanic was nominated for five Tonys and it won all five. Did a big ol sweep. Otherwise, every other best musical winner when there have been nominees. Because the first couple of years of the Tony Awards, they didn't have nominees, they just announced the winners. But ever since, there's always been a nomination for Best Director for the best musical winner. So that's always a good thing to think about when you're predicting your Tonys of the last 31 years that we've had a split category of Best Musical Revival and Best Play Revival. The Best Musical Revival winner has only had. There have only been two winners for Best musical of a revival that did not also have a corresponding Best Director nomination. One was La Cage of fall in 2005, but in fairness, none of the revivals that season had a director nomination. The other was Annie get yout gun in 1999. Swan Lake was not nominated for Best Revival. I don't think the Tonys really knew what to do with Swan Lake that year, but. But it did win director for Matthew Bourne and you'd're a Good man. Charlie Brown had a nomination for Michael Mayer for Director, which did compete with Annie get you Gun. I think the difference between the two is simply that Annie get you Gun once again was the slightly larger hit, was the more recognizable title and was just a bit more of an event than Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown was really known for launching Kristin Chenoweth's career, but it did not really take off on Broadway in the way that I think they were hoping it to. So Annie get yout Gun winning probably a bit of campaigning from the Weisslers, just having a little bit more financial clout than Charlie Brown, but those are the only two examples. So when we look at revivals of the musical, it helps to see what's nominated for Best Director as well and go from there. It's very rare for a director of a revival to win, but the revival itself to not win. I believe the only time that's happened in the last 31 years was when John Doyle won Best Director for Sweeney Todd, but the Pajama Game won Best Revival. It's possible for a director to win director of a musical and have their show not win Best Musical. That's happened before. Not a lot, but more than the revival stuff. I know Gene Sachs won for I Love My Wife and that lost Best Musical to Annie. Bob Fosse won for Pippin, but A Little Night Music won Best Revival. Sorry, one Best Musical. And then of course, Come from Away wins Director, while dear Evan Hansen wins Best Musical. So I don't think, to put this in perspective for this year, I don't think there's a world in which Jamie Lloyd would win Director and then Gypsy would win revival or Floyd Collins or Pirates. Just saying this is not shade to anybody, but this is just sort of. This is a trend that's happened so often that even though the voting body does shift over time, there are some mentalities that I think a lot of people just can't get past in the same way where I had said earlier and we'll do actual winner predictions next week. But I think I said in either the reaction episode with Rachel and Will or the final prediction episode of nominations, I was like, I don't know how you vote for Audra and not for Gypsy or vote for Sunset and not for Nicole because they're just so, they're just so tied together. But some voters are able to just do just that. So I don't know how a voter would vote for Jamie Lloyd but not for Sunset. But there's a precedence. We we once voted for John Zoil, but not for Sweeney Todd. But also a fun fact. Sweeney Todd has never won best revival ever. Sweeney Todd has won best musical but never revival. It was nominated for revival three times in 1990 or 1991 with Beth Fowler and Bob Gunton, then again in 2006 with Patty and Michael Cerverus, and then two years ago with Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban. And it has never won revival any of those three times. Fun facts in terms of director for plays, this is actually where it gets a little more interesting. So as I said, only one best musical winner has won without a best director nomination, which was Titanic. But also, I want to say there's never been a best musical winner if it was eligible for best Book that wasn't nominated for it as well. So something like a Fosse or an Ain't Misbehaven obviously not nominated. They didn't have books. But Contact was nominated for Best Book and Best Director. They didn't win either, but they were nominated. So I feel like I said this once before, but like when the nominations in 2022 came out and it was MJ and Strangeloop and 6 and 6 did not have a best book nomination. That's how I knew it wasn't going to win Best Musical. That's just how I knew because 6 was eligible. And that's also how I knew Illinois wasn't going to be wasn't going to win because they were eligible for book and director and they weren't nominated for either. Best director of a play has gone to the best play winner for the last six years in a row. There was. And There was another seven year stretch in a row from 2005 to 2012. There have been times when a director of a competing play has won. Well, a different play won. For example, the last time that happened was Rebecca Teichman for Indecent. She won over Bartlett Cherry for Oslo. Actually, I'll say Rebecca Teichman winning for Indecent. That's the last time we had a director winner that didn't also direct the best play or best play revival winner. The last Best play Tony winner to not have a director nomination was all the Way starring Bryan Cranston. Another one that was a performance, an actor playing a real person who won, and that beat CASA Valentina, Act 1 outside Mulangar and Mothers and Sons. So I believe actually none of those play nominees had a director nomination. I think all the directing nominations went to revivals that year. The Goat, or who Is Sylvia? Won best play without a best director nomination. That went to Mary Zimmerman for metamorphosis, Sideman in 1999, Last Night of Ballyhoo in 97, Masterclass 96, I'm Not Rapoport in 1986, Torch Song Trilogy, the River Niger, the Great White Hope, Luther Beckett. It is more likely to win Best play if you don't have a directing nomination than it is for you to win Best Musical without a best directing nomination. So that actually gives a little bit of hope to A Show Called Purpose, which is the only best play nominee this year, to not have a directing Tony nomination. Next myth. This one's actually unfortunately true. If your show is closed, you have a really tough time winning. This is mostly true for musicals. It's not always true for plays. I mean, last season alone, Carrie Young won for Pearly Victorious. Now, Pearly Victorious did not win Revival, but I do think the PBS broadcast helped Carrie Young's chances. It's rare for a Best Play winner to be closed by the time it wins. I believe it has happened once or twice, but usually it's running, or at the very least running till the end of the month when they win Best Play. You can win Best Revival without having a best directing nomination. But similar to Best revival of a Musical, it always helps to have it. I had something else here. Oh, okay, here's a fun one. And then we'll do another commercial break. The idea of precursors. Now, we've talked about this before. We'll talk about it again. What do we mean when we say a precursor? We are talking about other awards bodies that are giving hardware to the same properties that the main voting body giving awards to. For example, if we're talking about the Oscars, the SAG Awards, the Golden Globes, bafta, the PGA and the DGA and the WGA are all precursors. The Tony Awards do not actually have precursors. They have other awards. The outer critics circle, the Drama desk, the Drama League, the Pulitzer, even also the New York Drama Critics Circle. But they're not actually precursors. Some of the people on these voting bodies do vote at the Tonys as well. Not a lot. The Drama Desk Awards, I believe, only have a voting body of like nine. It's definitely like a nominating body of nine. But I think those same nine also vote. Same thing with the Outer Critics Circle. It's not a huge body of voters. Drama League actually is a large body of voters because you can pay to be a member, and if you pay to be a member, you can get a chance to vote for the Drama League Awards. Drama Critics Circle, I think it's about 20 to 30 critics. But also how critics feel is not always the same as how a Tony voter is going to feel. But the reason why the Oscars have legitimate precursors as opposed to the Tonys is because, like I said, all of these awards bodies do not actually overlap with the Tony Awards. And if they do, it's such a minuscule percentage that it doesn't actually make a difference. As the Oscars have expanded their voting bodies to diversify, both in terms of gender as well as ethnicity and background, and age, especially age, as well as any sort of foreign voters, other precursors are now having more of an effect on Oscars and gives you a sense of how people are feeling. Because all of the guilds get to vote at the Oscars. The SAG body, the Screen Actors Guild body gets to vote for acting at the Oscars. So when you see people winning a SAG Award, it gives you a really good idea of who might win at the Oscars. Not always. Last year, Demi Moore won the SAG Award, but Mikey Madison won the Oscar. But if you listen to Oscar Pundit Podcast like I do, there was a lot of talk of when Mikey Madison won the BAFTA Award, which is the British, basically like the British Oscars. When Mikey Madison won the bafta, that was when people started to go, oh, Mikey Madison's probably gonna win the Oscar. Because the Oscars have heavily diversified their voting body with a lot of foreign voters. And those voters all vote at BAFTA exclusively. And when Mikey Madison won, it was a very good indicator for her chances at the Oscars. In the same way that Olivia Colman won the BAFTA for the Favorite. I believe Emma Stone won the BAFTA for Poor Things. And that gave a really strong inclination of where the tide was turning. Dga, that is the Director's Guild, whoever they vote for, has a really good shot at winning the Oscar because those directors vote for the Oscars. Writers Guild, Producers Guild. Again, they're not set in stone. But when we were talking about Oscar chances this year and Anora ended up winning Critics Choice and then won DGA and pga, everyone's like, oh, Honora might be locked and loaded for. For the Oscars. Now, again, we don't have that for the Tonys. And to give you a better idea of this, the Drama League Awards. People look at the Drama League Awards and they go, okay, okay, okay. Who wins and how does that affect anything? Since 1996, the drama leagues have gotten the best musical winner wrong 10 times. Now, you know, that's 29 times that overall. 10 or 28, I guess. 10 of which they got wrong. That's less than half. But that's not nothing specifically giving it to eligible musicals that were. That lost to, you know, the other show. For example, last year, they went with Hell's Kitchen. Hell's Kitchen lost the Tony to the Outsiders. The year before, they went with Something Hot, which lost to Kimberly Akimbo. They've gotten best play wrong four times. So they actually have a pretty good track record with that. They started doing revival of a musical and revival of a play. They've been doing revival since, I guess, 1998, but they only split it into revival and musical in 2004. They've gotten revival of a play Wrong 10 times and revival of musical Wrong 5 times. They've had 13 distinguished performance winners not win the Tony when they were. Only when they're eligible are the ones I'm counting, by the way, because they have a couple of Off Broadway winners that I'm not counting. They've gone. Yeah. So of the eligible distinguished performance winners for the Tony, 13 did not win the Tony since. But that's. I think that's not overall. I believe that's since 1980. So again, not a huge 1980. Maybe 1990. I can't remember when I put the cutoff date, but it wasn't super long ago. Distinguished performance, for some reason, is the award that you can find going all the way back to, like, the 1920s. But musical and play only go up until 1996, which I don't know if that's when they started those awards or if they just don't reveal older winners for that. But yes, best play again, they've gotten it wrong four times since 1996. Ten times for wrong for best musical, five times for revival of a musical since 2004. Ten times for revival of a play since, like, 1997. From what I can tell, they've only Been doing director of a play and director of a musical for four years now. And in both cases they got it wrong twice. So possibly three. We'll see what happens this year. But two out of three times they've gotten it wrong. The drama desks have not given the best musical winner of the Tony Awards a drama desk for best musical 12 times. I can see sometimes there's overlap because some shows that come to Broadway start off Broadway and are only eligible at the drama desks for their Off Broadway run. Shows like Fun Home and Kimberly Akimbo and the Band's Visit. But there have been 12 best musical winners that were not given the drama desk for best musical. Nine plays that won the Tony for best play. We're not given the drama desk for best play since 1994. 6 best musical revival winners were not given the drama desk. And those drama desks were given to non winners. Famously, their very first split, she Loves Me beat Carousel, which did not go the same way at the Tony Awards. Seven times since 1993 for Best Revival of a play. But all actually, I will say since. Yeah, so since 1993 they've gotten drama desks have gotten revival of a play wrong seven times. Those seven times though were all post 2001. So that's the other thing is that a lot of these numbers I'm talking about, a good chunk of them have been in the last like 10 to 15 years. So even though it's a wide spread of years, a lot of this actually applies to now. Outer Critics Circle has definitely had a couple of bumps, bumpy spots again similar to Drama Desks. A lot of shows that would go on to win best musical on Broadway were eligible for their Off Broadway run and might have won best Off Broadway musical at the time. But sometimes that still didn't happen. Dear Evan Hansen lost to Bright Star and Brightstar famously would go on to lose to Hamilton. And Dear Evan Hansen would go on to win best Musical the following year. The Outer Critics circle did give A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder Best musical which made Fun Home lose. Fun Home would go on to win the following year Come from Away be the Off Broadway production of the Band's Visit. And then on top of all this, the Drama Critics Circle Award since 1990, 19 Best Musical winners did not win the Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical. 19 Tony winning musicals since 1990 in the last 35 years did not win the Drama Critics Circle for best musical. That's slightly over 50%. 15 Tony winning best plays did not win The Drama critics circle since 1990. And I'm including, by the way. Sorry, I'm not. I am not including when the Tonys. When the Drama Critics Circle separated plays from, like, foreign and American, because that's a. They did that a couple of times randomly and it makes no sense and it fucks everything up. But, yeah, this. I hopefully will tell you something a little bit about Precursors. They're not real. What they can do is they can sometimes help give momentum, they can help shift narratives and maybe get people excited around certain performers. But again, I famously was on this podcast at the Drama League Awards and at the Drama desk awards in 2023, watching rooms full of people just go absolutely apeshit over Stephen McKinley Henderson. And me going, oh, that man is going to win his Tony. In a lot of ways, this is a legacy. Tony, he's been around forever. He's super well loved. He is the lead of a critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize winning play that's nominated for best play. And it's a way to acknowledge the show itself as well as him. It's gonna happen. But ultimately, Stephen McKinley Henderson was in a play that had closed. Sean Hayes was playing a real life person and he was an actor in a play. So all things pointed to Sean's win. And I was just too blind at the time to see it. So that actually ties into all the other myths we were just talking about. The playing a real person, the legacy, the being in a closed show, and then, of course, the precursors. So that is the. Sorry, that are those myths and trends. We have a couple left, not many, so don't worry about it. One really big one we're going to talk about in just a second. But, yeah, that's it for that. Let's do a quick break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow caller. You're the top. And we're back. Okay, so we talked about. Oh, the Tonys love so and so. Oh, they will not award someone two years in a row. Oh, there are precursors. Oh, they love it when you play a real person. Oh, they love it when you nominate celebs because that means there'll be higher viewership for the actual awards ceremony. There's the road vote. What was it? Precursors. I talked about the trends of directors correlating that with best musical, best play, best revival of musical, best revival of a play, best book. I talked about that. The legacy win. Here is a very big one that people like to talk about. Split voting. Oh. If two or more actors are nominated for the same show, they will split the vote, and that could allow someone else to win. If you listen to any Oscar podcast again, like I do, they talk about this as well. Split voting isn't real. Not completely. Have there been years where multiple nominees from one property are in a category and don't win? Yes. Does that necessarily mean that those people split the vote? No. It's possible that none of them were necessarily strong enough to win. Split voting. I'm not entirely sure where this myth started from. According to the book I'm reading, Oscar wars, the concept really kind of began from Bette Davis when she and Anne Baxter both were nominated for All About Eve. And Judy Holliday won for Born Yesterday, which actually ties into another myth with the Tonys with Leading Actress, which we'll get to in a second. But the idea was that, oh, Bette Davis should have won. She should have been a sure thing. She was in the Best Picture winner. How did she not win? Oh, Anne Baxter really must have siphoned off too many votes, and that allowed Judy Holiday to win. I want you to think about this for a second. If you've seen All About Eve, Anne Baxter is wonderful. She's giving a big, phenomenal performance. It's not a performance opposite Bette Davis where you would watch it and have a tough time deciding who you would vote for. If you love that movie and you're like, huh, I can't really figure it out. I guess I'll vote for Anne Baxter. And then someone else is like, I guess I'll vote for Bette Davis. It's pretty clear who you're voting for. You're gonna vote for Bette Davis. It ultimately came down to, well, people loved the movie as a whole. There were other performances that were much more central and special to their properties, like a Judy Holiday and Born Yesterday. Plus the whole Star is Born narrative for her that people really gravitated towards. People say this all the time with the Tonys that there's a split vote. I am going to now talk you through all the times that there has been two or more candidates for the same category for the same show, and one of those candidates won. I believe I have this. Did I do this for the entire townies or just for the last couple of years? I think I did. I think this is. This is just up until, I believe, 1980. Yeah, just, just. Just up until 1980. So not including. This is not including the Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter in New Girl in town and stuff like that. Idina Menzel wins for Wicked. Co nominated with Kristin Chenoweth. Faith Prince wins for Guys and Dolls. Co nominated with Josie De Guzman. Chita Rivera wins for the Rink. Co nominated with Liza Minnelli. Jennifer Holliday wins for Dreamgirls. Also nominated Sheryl Lee Ralph. There are other years where there were people nominated in the same category from the same show. Caitlin Kinnan and Beth Leavel for the Prom. Christine ebersolt and Patti LuPone for war paint. Nancy Opel and Jennifer Laura Thompson for Urinetown. Of those other women who did not win, Opal and Thompson were opposite Sutton Foster for Thoroughly Modern Millie. I don't think Nancy Opel and Jennifer Laura Thompson split the vote for that. I don't think Christine ebersole and Patti LuPone split the vote on Warpaint for Bette Midler to win for hello Dolly. Bette Midler was always going to win. People like to claim that Beth Leavel could have won for the prom and that possibly some split voting happened which allowed Stephanie J. Block to win. Listen, of the women in that category, Beth probably would have been my vote. And I was thrilled that Caitlyn got nominated. But similar to Anne Baxter and Beth Bette Davis, you don't watch the prom and have a hard time figuring out between Beth and Caitlyn who you're going to vote for. I think even Caitlyn would tell you you're voting for Beth. So, yeah, that's not really a split. Continuing. Continuing on. Jay Harrison G. And wins in Some Like It Hot over Christian borrell. Leslie Odom Jr. Wins for Hamilton opposite Lin Manuel Miranda. Billy Porter over Stark Sands and Kinky Boots. Douglas Hodge over Kelsey Grammer for La Cage of Fall. Norbert. Leo Butz over John Lithgow for Dirty Around Scoundrels. Nathan Lane over Matthew Broderick for the Producers. Jason Alexander over Somebody Else for Jerome Robbins. Broadway. George Hearn over Jean Barry for La Cage aux Fall. Kevin Klein over George Rose for Pirates of Penzance. And there are far more men who were co nominated and didn't win. Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham for Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. Similar to Anne Baxter and Caitlin Kinnan. I am so glad that Bryce was nominated for Gentleman's Guide. He was wonderful in that show. Jefferson Mays is the role. It's not. It's not that he's better, it's just that what he's doing is more catnip for voters to vote for. But ultimately he lost to Neil Patrick Harris And Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And that just wasn't. It was never gonna go any other way. Danny Burstein and Ron Rains both lost for Follies. I think Danny Burstein could have won if that show had been running at the time. But he ultimately lost to Steve Kazee for Once, which was the best musical winner that year. Andrew Reynolds and Josh Gad both lost in Book of Mormon to Norbert Leo Butz. People attribute this to vote splitting, but Norbert had kind of swept all the awards leading up to this. And again, they're not necessarily precursors, but it shows you the people just didn't care. They were happy to vote for Norbert Leo Butz in what was really a featured role, but he's Norbert Leo Butz. Hank Azaria and Tim Curry both lost in Spamalot 2. Once again, Norbert Leo Butz for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. We also have Peter Friedman and Brian Stokes Mitchell losing in Ragtime to Alan Cumming. That I also don't think was vote splitting. Alan Cumming was a revelation in what was one of the hottest shows that season. Taryn Spann and Colin Wilkinson for Les Mis. Colin Wilkinson losing is kind of crazy. But once again, Robert Lindsay was giving a Star is Born performance that was already critically acclaimed. An Olivier Award winning in London before it came to Broadway. More people who won and didn't vote split the vote. Alex Newell in Shucked over Kevin Cahoon. Andre de Shields with Patrick Page in Hadestown. Daveed Diggs over Jonathan Groff and Christopher Jackson for Hamilton. Gary beach over Roger Bart and Brad Oscar for the Producers. Christian Borrell over Brad Oscar for Something Rotten. Poor Brad Oscar, he can't catch a break. Gregory Jabara over David Bologna for Billy Elliot. Michael Cerverus over Dennis o' Hare for Assassins. Dick Letessa over Corey Reynolds. Is that his name? Sorry, I see. Here's the comp. The co stars I'm actually doing off the top of my head in my own memory. I should have written down the co stars names as well. I just decided in the heat of the moment that I was going to say their names. And I completely forgot Dick Letesa's co star because it was Seaweed who was nominated. It wasn't Matthew Morrison, his co star in Hairspray, who he beat. Yeah, Corey Reynolds. Go me. I love my memory. Chuck Cooper beating Sam Harris for the life hint in Battle beating what's his name? Willie Falk for Miss Saigon. And we also have Bill McCutcheon in Anything Goes. I believe he's beating Anthony Held. Ron Richardson beating a couple of people for Big River. Hidden Battle beating a couple of people for tap Dance Kid Cleavon. Derrick's beating Oba Babatunde for Dreamgirls. To say nothing of all the other people who were nominated in plenty of categories. Keisha Lewis beating Shoshana Bean for hell's kitchen. Patti LuPone beating Jennifer Smard for Company. I disagreed with that one at the time and I still said it to this day. Ali Stroker beating Mary Testa for Oklahoma. Lindsay Mendes beating Renee Fleming for Carousel. Jane Krakowski beating two co stars for nine. Chita Rivera and Mary Stuart Masterson. Karen Ziemba beating Deborah Yates for Contact. Andrea Martin beating Lainey Kazan for My Favorite Year. Daisy Egan beating Alison Fraser for the Secret Garden. Francis Rafael beating Judy Kuhn for Les Mis. Lili Montevecchi beating Anita Morris and Karen Akers for nine. Debbie Gravett beating a couple of other women for Jerome Robbins. Broadway. To say nothing of all the plays. I could go on, but I'm gonna stop us now. Are you guys getting it? Splitting the vote isn't actually real. The year where it kind of felt like it might have been was 2015, when we had Emily Skeggs, Judy Kuhn and Sydney Lucas all nominated for Fun Home and then Victoria Clarke for Gigi and Ruthie Ann Miles for the King and I. And Ruthie Ann Miles pulled what was considered a surprising win for the King and I. Now, in retrospect, it's not that surprising. Ruthie Ann Miles had been in the theater community. I think this was for only her second Broadway show, maybe third, but she'd been working in theater in New York for a while, at that point had a major breakout with Here Lies Love, which still hadn't come to Broadway at that point. This was a major get for her. She had a wonderful turn as Lady Tiang in a revival that was critically acclaimed, was absolutely going to win revival, and had two moments in the show that we could point to as a featured actress, where we went, I remember what she did there, and it stuck with me. One is something wonderful at the end of Act 1. At the top of Act 2 is Western people Funny, a song that many people considered super problematic for a very long time. And Ruthie's portrayal of that song made everyone click with it and understand exactly what that song has always supposed to be. And it all of a sudden worked super incredibly well and was, you know, a wonderful, major support scene stealer without stealing total focus in that show. Her competition that people really thought could have happened were Kunzy for Fun Home and Sydney Lucas for Fun Home. Kunzie would have made a lot of sense. She was coming back to the Broadway stage after being gone for a while. She was at this point a four time Tony nominee. She was giving a heartbreaking performance and like other featured actresses in a musical before her, she had a major moment that we could point to which was days and days. Sidney Lucas arguably was probably more of a co lead with Beth Malone in that show but was deemed featured. She had Ring of Keys, which was like the theme of the show. And a lot of people thought that it was down to Kunzie and Cindy Lucas and that they ultimately split the vote allowing Ruthie and Miles to get in. I think if there's ever been a year where vote splitting was a thing, this would be the year. I'm still not entirely convinced that it happened in the moment when, when that win happened I was like, oh, vote splitting. But that's, that was 10 years ago and I have changed since then. I think that voters are really, really hesitant to give competitive awards to children. They did it for the leading boys of Billy Elliot. The three of them could share. They took the Matilda girls out of competition. We don't really. I can't remember the last time we had a child nominee at the Tony Awards. Like a legit child. Sydney Lucas might be the last one in the last 10 years and could have won. She was phenomenal. But I think people are a little more readily willing to vote for a child 20 years ago, 30 years ago, less so now and less so then. And I think Kunzie, beautiful as she was, wasn't quite a large enough role for people to get behind. They would vote for Michael Cerverus who did win, but when it came to Kunzy, he was like, I'm not sure if I can vote a sixth Tony to Fun Home for that performance, which was lovely. Not when Ruthie Ann Miles, who has more meat to work with and does such wonderful things, did her thing. I don't think that Ruthie had the same number of votes as Kunzie and Sydney Lucas combined and that Sydney Lucas and Kunzie split it and Ruthie Ann Miles got out with like 35% of the vote. I think Ruthie Ann Miles probably had a larger percent than were willing to admit. It just, it doesn't, it's not real. Guys, think about all the times where there were multiple nominees in a category. Can you tell me that you really thought that they had a shot Last year, the two outsider boys you really think they were going to be Daniel Radcliffe? The two Paradise Square guys beating Matt Doyle? Whether I liked his performance or not, Matt Doyle had the song and company and like. Tell me you're gonna vote for one of the Paradise Square guys. Just tell me. Come on. Even they were just sort of thrilled to be nominated. My God. All the ain't too proud guys losing to Andre de Shields. I that's not vote splitting to me. Andrew Reynolds and Brandon Uranowitz losing in Falsettos to Gavin Creel for hello Dolly. I don't think that's vote splitting. Once again, falsettos had closed but that just wasn't gonna happen. Gavin Creel was due for a Tony and he was singing one of the big songs and the big ol revival that we needed at the time. Max Von Essen and Brandon Uranowitz once again for American in Paris losing to Christian Borrell and Brad for Something Rotten. So we can't even claim vote splitting for that because Christian Borrell was co nominated with Brad. Oscar. So Porgy and Bess. Well, that wasn't going to happen. That was always going to be Michael McGrath for nice work if youf Can Get It. The Scottsboro Boys. Boys, Colman, Domingo and I can't remember the other guy, but they were not going to win. Scottsboro Boys had been long closed and sort of came as a blip. The nominations that Scottsboro Boys got was incredible. That was a miracle. But yeah, at the time everyone thought it was going to be Rory o' Malley winning for Book of Mormon and then ended up being John Larroquette for How to Succeed. But either way wasn't a vote split. Chris seber and Michael McGrath versus Spamalot losing to Dan Fogler for Spelling Bee. I don't think that came as a surprise to many people. We have others we have, we have, we have Michael Buress, Michael Maharan and Lee Wilkoff all losing in Kiss Me Kate to Boyd Gaines for Contact. Again, I don't think that's vote splitting. Of those three, Michael Buress had the best shot but I just think Contact was another equal hit alongside Kiss Me Kate and Boyd Gaines had a major acting part in that. So when we talk about vote splitting, really think about it. There have been so many times when two or more performers from the same show are nominated and somebody wins. Those nominations can show an over amount of love for production. But if none of those nominees win, it's because ultimately none of them stood out enough. It wasn't that they each stood out just too much for anyone to make up their mind it was that none of them stood out so much to beat another person. To put into perspective this season, while I have my thoughts on death becomes her, I don't know if voters themselves will watch Jennifer Smart and Megan Hilty and think that either one of them pops enough to beat out a woman from another musical where she is fully the center and popping off sis off that stage. Jasmine, Amy Rogers and Audra McDonald and Nicole Scherzinger, you just. I just don't think it's gonna happen. And that's sort of how people view those kind of categories. So, yeah, vote splitting myth, it doesn't really happen. Think of all the times that it hasn't mattered. Speaking of rewarding, in the discord, people talked about rewarding the ingenue. This is a myth that I also am guilty of spreading, and it is partially true. In the last 35 years, by rewarding the ingenue, we mean mostly in best actress in a Musical, we talk about how the Tonys like to anoint a new star and a young woman who gets a blue chip that she gets to then cash and becomes one of our leading ladies. And this is true. This is ultimately true. It ultimately depends, I think, on how we view young lady. And also, it also. This can work for actors and doesn't have to just be musicals. It can be in plays as well. But I thought about this and I looked at the Numbers, and since 1990, so for the last 35 years, we've had 12 different actresses win best actress in a musical who were under the age of 35, six under the age of 30, met most of these, with the exception, I think of Lea Salonga, most of these in the 21st century. Heather Headley, Sutton Foster, Malaya Choi Moon. So if we're thinking of 35 as sort of like the absolute ceiling of ingenue age these days, we've had 12. If we're thinking under 30, we've had six. So that's not a lot, but it is like a sprinkling. It's given like every, you know, four years is what that's giving. We've had 15 actresses under the age of 35 when featured actress in a musical, five of them under 30. Audra McDonald was under 30 when she. When she won featured actress in a musical twice, once for Carousel, once for Ragtime. So consider that we've had six actresses under the in 35 years be under the age of 35 to win featured actress in a play again. This has happened seven times, though, because Audra and MacDonald won two Tonys before the age of 35 and featured actress in a play. Think about that. I am 35 now. By the time Audra McDonald was my age, she had four Tony Awards. What a. What an icon. Okay, we've had five actresses win best actress in a play under the age of 40 in 35 years. That's not really ingenuit. But when we think about actress in a play, I feel like people think of, like, legends, legacy icons. But we've had five in the last 35 years who were under the age of 40. So you don't always have to be of legendary status to win that one. We've had seven actors win best actor in a musical who are under the age of 35 in the last 35 years. And we've had 10 actors win featured actor in a musical under the age of 35 in the last 35 years. So of all of these, you're actually more like. If you're under the age of 35, you're more likely to win featured actress in a musical. And if you're under the age of 30, you're more likely to win actors actress in a musical. Not by a wide margin, but just more likely. I think we think about the ingenue and always just sort of every year. It's a case by case basis. Right. Sutton Foster winning for Thoroughly Modern Millie. She was under 30 years old, but she was the title role of what would go on to be the best musical winner. And it very much was a Star is Born moment. The understudy's gone on. She's made good. This is a major showcase, and she nailed it. Same thing is true of Heather Headley and Aida. Once again, we're talking about a starring title role in the next big Disney musical, which, you know, was a big financial hit. Lion King was sort of her layup, and then Aida was the spike. I believe Marissa Jarrett Winokur was. Was 30 when she went for hairspray. Maybe she was 31, but Malaya Dremoon, I think she was 21 when she won for Hell's Kitchen. There is a narrative for the ingenue. It's not so consistent that people are. Yeah, Marissa Jarrett Oneaker was 30. It's not so consistent that it's a surefire bet that, like, oh, if you're the. If you're the new entre on the scene, you're gonna win. Because that doesn't always happen. Remember Mikayla diamond being nominated for Parade and losing to Victoria Clark for Kimberly Akimbo? But it can always help. It matters. Narratives really matter. And excitement and energy around a piece really matters. So Adina winning for Wicked. Fun fact. Idina Menzel was 33 when she won for Wicked. So she was. She's one of my under 35 winners here, which is crazy to me. She wasn't necessarily an ingenue on the scene anymore. This was her third Broadway show and her second Tony nomination, but she wasn't really. This is not Christine Ebersolt winning her second Tony for Grey Gardens here. This is not over the hill. She's having a career resurgence early in life and it's why she's maintained relevancy for so long. Or why it feels like it's so long because she started young and kind of kept getting a second window in young phases of her life. Yeah. Trying to think. I think Malaya might be the youngest winner since Lea Salonga. And Patina Miller, I think was 29 when she won for Pippin, which is crazy to me. She always just sort of perpetually looks 40. 26. She was on 26. Oh, I take that back. Patina Miller was 28 when she went for Pippin. 28 years old. Fan. Fucking tastic. Yeah, we definitely have some major ingenues when it comes to this leading actress, new musical category. It is not a surefire bet, but it is. It's not nothing. I will say that. Okay, we have, I think, two more that we need to cover and then we're done with this. Okay, so last two we're going to cover and then we'll wrap up these myths and trends for the Tony Awards to help you guys with your Tony voting pool. And both actually have to deal with plays mostly the question of is something important or is it just British? Best play has often gone to something that has an air of importance around it. And if it's harder to find that importance in the play, it usually helps. If that play is an import from the West End, think God of Carnage. Think the History Boys. It of course helped that these plays opened on Broadway at a time when Ben Brantley was the chief theater critic and that man had a hard on for the British theater. I'm an Anglophile. That man puts me to shame. Now, of course, the History Boys does have a lot of meat on the bones. It is actually about something. But when you watch the History Boys, at first, it doesn't feel like a Death of a Salesman. It doesn't feel like a who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It just feels like a very charming, compelling play about Education and memory and sexuality and promise and lack of promise and abuse and all these other things. But in a very digestible way, God of Carnage really just sort of feels like a hundred minute sitcom. That is a wonderful showcase for its, you know, leading players. It also helped that those shows were big hits so there was a buzz around them and again imported from England. So that gave them street cred of importance even if you couldn't find it on first glance. As I said, Best Musical has been going to the smaller shows lately. They don't have to be important. You are actually at a disadvantage if you're British and you're a new musical. The only British import to win best musical in the last 29 years has been Billy Elliot. The only jukebox musicals to win in the last 30 years have been Moulin Rouge and Jersey Boys. Moulin Rouge won in a Covid gas leak year when it had no other options. Jersey Boys won because it was just too undeniable. We are not counting Contact, which is a dance piece. We're not counting Fosse, which is a review in terms of writing a new script based off of pre existing pop songs. It is Moulin Rouge and it is Jersey Boys. That's it. Which I think should help clear the way for some people about something like Buena Vista Social Club. Whether whether Tonys are willing to award a jukebox musical even if it is artistic, even if it is based on a true story. I will also say having a British air about them helps a great deal if you are a revival. We've had eight musical revivals since 1994 when Best Musical that had origins from either London or Australia, starting with Carousel and then going up through the King and I in 1996 and cabaret with Sam Mendes. And then we also have all Meniere Chocolate Factory revivals like the Color Purple, Merrily We Roll Along, La Cage aux Fall nine, the revival of Nine, which originated at the Danmar Warehouse. We've had nine revivals of plays win the Tony for best revival that came from London, maybe 10. I'm not entirely sure if One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest started in London or not or if it transferred there from here. But when it comes to British credence, it's not an overwhelming blanket for all the categories that it has origins and ties to London, that it'll help them for best musical almost not at all. Play usually we've had a lot of British imports win best play. Lehman Trilogy, the Ferryman, technically speaking, the Inheritance, even though it's an American Writer. It did start in. In the West End, or rather this production transferred from the West End warhorse, the History Boys, Leopoldstadt, even something like coast of Utopia, which had a new production here is a British import from Tom Stoppard. So, yes, I would say if you are a British musical, that helps you a great if you're a British play, that helps you a great deal. If we're talking about importance, another thing to discuss with importance is the Pulitzer. The Pulitzer for best drama. There are some who think if a play wins the Pulitzer, that gives it the best shot for best play at the Tony Awards. And I thought about this and I was like, huh? How many times has that actually happened where the Pulitzer for best drama also won the Tony for best play? Now, there are things you have to think about here. The Pulitzer Prize for drama was first awarded in 1918 to Jesse Lynch Williams for why Marry with a Question Mark? The Tony Awards didn't start handing out prizes till 1947. So there are indeed 29 years where there is a Pulitzer winner and not a Tony winner. So we don't count those. But since 1947, there have been seven musicals that have won the Pulitzer that went on to win the Tony for best musical. Three of them. In the last 35 years, we've had 18 plays win the Tony for best play as well as the Pulitzer for drama, seven of which were in the last 35. The seven of which were in the last thirty five years, five of which were in this century. So we've had in this century, the Tony winner for best play that also was the Pulitzer winner for drama. Claiborne park was the last Pulitzer winner to win best play. That was, I think, 13 years ago. August Osage county was 2007. Or was it 2008? It was 2007. No, it was 2008. My bad. Claiborne Park, August, Osage County, Doubt I Am My Own Wife, and Proof. Those are the five Pulitzer winners for drama that have also won the Tony for best play. And those first four, proof I and My own Wife Doubt in August, Osage county were between 2000 and 2008. So Claiborne park in 2012 is the last one. So you don't have to be a Pulitzer winner to win best play. And in fact, here are the winners that lost the Tony for best play. These shows won the Pulitzer for drama and then went on to lose the Tony for best play. Fat Ham, Cost of Living Sweat, Between Riverside and Crazy Disgraced Rabbit Hole, Anna in the Tropics, Top Dog, Underdog, that's all just in this century. Going into the 90s, we have the Kentucky Cycle, the Piano Lesson going to the 80s, we have Glengarry Glen Ross, Night Mother, Crimes of the Heart, Tally's Folly. I think in the 70s we have the Gin Game and Seascape going even further back. A delicate balance that. That matters less. And then here are some runners up for the Pulitzer for drama that won the Tony for either play or musical. The Humans Fun, Home in the Heights, Take Me out the Goat, or who is Sylvia Sideman, the Last Night of Ballyhoo and M. Butterfly. And then we have a couple of winners or runners up that did not get nominated for a Tony Award at all for best play, which is Free man of Color, the Bengal Tiger, the Baghdad Zoo and Conversations with My Father. But those matter less. So the Pulitzer, I would argue, was probably more of an indicator for a nomination than anything else. It winning doesn't necessarily guarantee a Tony for best play. So with purpose, let's maybe not think that it's such a done deal, especially when they don't have a director nomination. Now, that doesn't mean they're out of the running. As we've heard earlier. If you're going to be a Tony winning piece and not have a directing nomination, you better be a play, an original play, because that's your best bet. But I don't know if I think that this actually lines everything up in conjunction for purpose to win. This actually is giving me more faith that Omar might win. Omar has won. Sorry, Omar is the runner up at the Pulitzer, of which we have quite a few runners up that have quite a few won the Tony. They have a best director nominee, which I think helps their chances. That director nominee won the drama league for direction of a play, which, as we said, the drama leagues don't always get it right. But they have had four winners now for best director of a play, they've been right about one, they've been wrong about two. This might be the time that they're right for best director. And this could be the time that they're right about best play because they actually have a better track record for. I believe, yes, they have a better track record for best play winners than they do for best musical winners or best revival of a play winners. So I think that actually, if anything, that gives me more confidence that Omari will win. Just in order to see how things are going to go, we have to look at our past. You know what I mean? And that's ultimately what this episode is about, is Looking at the past to debunk myths, look through trends and figure out exactly what it is that's going on with these, with this ceremony. Because this is a year where there's not a lot of sure things. So we grasp at straws and try to figure it all out. And that's where we're at today for this episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I don't have much else to say other than I actually kind of really enjoyed this. This was an interesting statistic for me and I hope everyone listens to this on the Discord Channel and adds their own statistics that they've been finding. If you want to know how I did all this, how I figured out all of these stats, research, I went on Wikipedia, I went on ibdb, I cross referenced. I looked up past runners of the Pulitzer, past runners of the Drama League, I cross referenced. I have my own Tony Awards coffee table book, which didn't really help really at all. But I did look through it a little bit. Sometimes I have people, and I don't mean like listeners. I have like people friends in the industry who will ask me questions about Tony stats because they assume that I know. And sometimes I do, but other times I'm like, why don't you just look it up yourself? It'll take you five minutes to like scan through something. But people get lazy and they just want to ask the freak, which is me, the Rain man of Broadway. If you guys have any questions, please join the Discord Channel. I will put the link in the description box. If that's not working, you can DM me at Matt Koplik on Instagram, usual spelling. If you like the podc, please give us a nice five star rating or review. Every little bit helps. We're about to submit for the Broadway League to be an official member of the press. We're currently at 319 ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts. I would love to get that to a nice round number before the actual Tony awards. Whether that's 320 or 330, that's up to you. I don't remember what our number is on Spotify. I think it's like 1:30, something like that. We're almost at 300 members on the Discord Channel. I think we're currently at like 293members on the Discord Channel. It's growing all the time. It's so much fun. We've been having a lot of conversations about the Tony Awards, about Broadway, what's going on in the theater scene. A whole lot of discussions about the chess announcement, which is fun. And there was the announcement for art, the revival of art, which. Okay, we'll see how that goes. Talk about Montego Glover. People are promoting shows that they're working on, offering ticketing advice. I remember talking about how a bunch of members met up at Floyd Collins and that was really fun. So it's just a really great community and there's no judgment. People, you know, listen, we all can be a little snarky on there sometimes, but it's all in good faith. And if you have a question or you're confused about something, by all means, get on there and ask away. People are very kind on there. We've been really, we've been absolutely leading with respect and kindness and not shaming anybody for not knowing anything. We're all eager to learn because you may know something that somebody else doesn't. And it's always fun to offer someone information that you have. Right? So you always want to treat someone who doesn't know something with respect because your number is going to come where you don't know something and you're going to want them to treat you with respect. So that's where we're at. Okay, so I'm trying to think of a diva we're going to close out with before we go into our final predictions episode next week before the goddamn Tony Woods. I know I did Barbara Harris and I did something else. I don't remember who I did for the London one. I could do Joe writing, but maybe not. Let's see. How about for a diva we could do. I could do someone we've been speaking about on this episode. I could be doing, you know. Okay, this is a bit of a. Okay, this is a bit of a deep cut, but I am going to close us out with Alex Kelly from the Royal National Theater's production of Candide. Because after Barbara Cook, she's actually my favorite Cunegonde. Chenoweth is absolutely an army tank when it comes to singing Cunegonda. But Alex Kelly is very British and very funny and I really, really like it. So we're gonna close out with her because, I don't know, I like teaching y' all about these things. That's it for now. Once again, five star rating or review on the podcast. If you like it, I'd really appreciate it. Follow me on Instagram Oplik Usual spelling. Join the Discord Channel and I will see you guys in a week. Take it away, Alex. Bye. My name. And yet, of course, these trinkets are endearing. I'm also glad my sapphire is a star. I rather like a 20 carrot earring if I'm not for your Elise. My dear sir. Enough. I'll take their diamond necklace and show my noble stars baby here.