This year, get ready for the Tonys to honor even more of the best of Broadway.
The 24-member Tony Awards Administration Committee—that elite crew comprised of producers, theater owners and artists who determine the rules, regulations and category placements for the annual awards—have decided that there’s room for more to love on Broadway this year.
In a big move, the group—which seems to issue at least one major change to their rule book each season—will now allow as many as seven nominees in the acting categories (up from the current max of five). With the instatement of the new rules, if there’s a two- or three-way tie for the final slot on the ballot, both or all three of those actors or actresses will land the honor of being named a nominee. In a related ruling, if there are at least seven eligible candidates in a year for Best Direction of a Play or Musical and Best Choreography, respectively, the current standard of four nominees in each of those categories will increase to five apiece. As the threshold of that magic minimum number is usually met, expect to see those lists expand for the first time this spring.
These changes didn’t exactly fall from the heights of the theater heavens overnight. When 2013-14 season nominations were announced last May, word around 42nd Street was that the Committee’s annual top-secret, day-long meeting to determine the finalists was rife with heated debate, as a number of the acting categories apparently resulted in ties for the fifth nomination spots. This led to run-off rounds of voting to whittle down the lists, leaving an undisclosed number of passionately supported performances without recognition from the theater world’s top honor.
For instance, had this change in nominating rules gone into effect a year ago, a season-best performance such as Steven Pasquale’s roof-raising, rafter-shaking turn as Robert in The Bridges of Madison County might not have been so egregiously left off the Best Actor in a Musical list—which, in the grand scheme of the season, was a true musical theater mystery. Personally, I haven’t ever been so moved by a guy’s grandiose turn while sitting in the Schoenfeld—or any big Broadway house for that matter—as I was his. Being that Robert is the fictional equivalent of the perfect man (is there even a real-life version to draw inspiration from?), Steven’s grounded work in his Broadway debut (you might recognize him from his TV roles on Rescue Me and, currently, The Good Wife) perfectly strutted the fine line between schmaltz and sentimentality to great emotional affect. His absence was the season’s biggest snub, for sure.
In fact, if you haven’t heard Steven’s stunning rendition of his 11 o’clock number, It All Fades Away, from Jason Robert Brown’s beautifully lush, Tony-winning score, do yourself a favor and click here to experience all the feels. Note, however, that this is a potentially NSFW situation, as your boss might frown upon crying onto your keyboard mid-day. Just a friendly heads up from one theater lover to another.
But a new year is here, so we’ll let go of what wasn’t and look forward to what could be come June: one of the most inclusive, exciting Tony Awards nights in recent memory. And with Steven having just done a reading of the rumored Kiss of the Spider Woman revival opposite history-making Tony goddess Audra McDonald and Alan Cumming under the expert direction of John Tiffany (helmer of the eight-time Tony-winning Once), he may just get his shot at the short list after all in 2016… that is, if the rules don’t change again by then.
Nominations for the 2015 Tony Awards will be announced on April 28th during a live webcast on TonyAwards.com.