Welcome to the Musicals Thread, the Avocado’s space for anything and everything related to musical theatre! Every month I’ll post a discussion prompt, but please feel free to comment on other topics, from new discoveries to old favorites. If you have ideas for future prompts or would like to write a feature for the thread, let me know!
The Tonys were this past Sunday. I had a busy weekend and missed the broadcast but have been having fun watching the performances on YouTube.
In looking up the winners on Wikipedia I also found a list of award categories past and present, the former of which were not as specific/outlandish as I had hoped. Half of them – Best Costume Design, Best Revival, Best Director, etc. – were simply doubled into the “Play” and “Musical” categories still in use today. Surely, I thought, back in the so-called Golden Age of Broadway they would have honored everything from Best Love Duet to Best Tap Dance to Best Use of Sequins, but no. At the risk of pulling one piece of a work of art out of its intended context, I’m kind of surprised there still isn’t and never has been even a plain ol’ Best Song award.
Between that and the discussion earlier in the year over the continued use of the gendered acting categories (no official change at this point – congratulations to Alex Newell and J. Harrison Ghee, though!), now I’m wondering: If you could create a new category for the Tony Awards, what would it be? Both realistic and joke suggestions are welcome.