Breaking News: Tonys Change Rules for Revival Authors, Erases 2 Creative Categories...

[broadwaydevil]

This reminds me of when the Drama Desk Awards eliminated the Best Orchestrations category a couple years back and reinstated them a few days later after an uproar. I hope the same happens with the sound design categories.

I was talking with some friends over drinks about the changes to revival authors and we came up with an interesting dilemma. What about shows that are certainly classics and have been in the popular culture for decades but have never appeared on Broadway? Would Rodgers & Hammerstein have been eligible for posthumous Tony awards more than 40/50 years after their deaths last year for Cinderella? Would George Haimsohn, Robin Miller, and Jim Wise be eligible if Dames at Sea made it to Broadway 60 years after they wrote it?

Some interesting questions to answer and I assume they'll just make it up as they go along like they usually do in terms of what is and isn't eligible.

[ljay889]

Wow, that petition is getting signatures like crazy.

[hundredsofhats]

Half of the experience is visual, half is sound, dropping the sound category makes no sense. D:

[NYadgal]

Jason Danieley posted this on Facebook:

"This is BULLSHIT!!! They only just started this category recently. Why can't they honor the sound designers?!? It's no skin off their back. They don't let any creatives accept their awards on air anyway. And I'm sure these hard working magicians would like to be recognized for the hours and hours of painstaking work they put into making a production work. Directors, orchestrators, actors, musicians and most of all the PRODUCERS need the skills and abilities of the sound designer to make their productions fly. In this day and age no one projects their lines or sings to the back of the house the way Ethel Merman or Ethel Barrymore did back in the day. Our collective sensibility has changed... and that's fine. We want to hear intimate interpretations of lines and sung text. We need the sound designers to make that possible in a large, or not so large house to be heard over an amplified orchestra which is the accepted norm in theatre today. GIVE SOUND DESIGNERS THE RIGHTFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THEIR ART AND CRAFT! (end of sermon)"


Amen, Jason. Amen.

[jnb9872]

And again with the "Classics" rule... I honestly don't understand how someone thinks that the arbitrary real estate definitions of Broadway hold sway over the completely different requirements behind mounting a new work vs. mounting an already-established work. THE RULE AS IT STANDS IS COMMON SENSE. What about a show that had been at what is now the New Victory Theatre way back in the 20s, when it was considered a Broadway theatre, and now is considered off-Broadway? Has that show ever been on Broadway? Does it matter that the theatre was a Broadway theatre before the Tonys began in 1949 but already was defunct before the Tonys? The Classics Rule is an obvious, common sense, simple concept.

[broadwaydevil]

I don't take issue with the classics rule on its face. I think it's a very good rule, actually. Still, something seems strange to me in allowing Rodgers and Hammerstein and others to potentially be nominated for/win awards for material written 50 or more years ago. That was my question.

[emg_sound]

As a sound designer, I am mad as hell about this. The problem is between the opinions on various message boards (much more ATC than here), and even an analysis of previous winners, a lack of understanding of what we do (at least in plays) has been perpetually reinforced, making such an announcement not entirely unsurprising. For the record, I prefer to work much more in Plays rather than musicals, so the following rant comes from a very specific place!

More than any other design element, a separation of the category between plays and musicals is needed due to the remarkably different nature of the job, musicals tending to be more reinforcement, while sound design for plays tends to be creating of soundscapes and aural environments to reinforce the action on stage. One of the biggest problems over the past two years (The Nance and Lady Day), is the Tony voters gave the Best Sound Design of a Play Tony to productions which were the closest thing to being musicals without being musicals, so they were able to at least were able to understand WHAT they were giving the award to* (I just imagine them crowing... "I could hear every word as they sung, crystal clear!")... But compare that with the layers upon layers of atmospheres which kept you trapped in Machinal, or creeped out in the Alan Cumming Macbeth (The productions which I felt were the best sound designs of the past two seasons). Or think of the first winner of this tony category... The 39 Steps, or Peter and the Starcatcher... How many locations were evoked not by sets or props but simply by sound? This is lost because the sonic environment can fill a gap in our mind which we will inadvertenly attribute to something completely unrelated (ooohhh, those two pools of light are two different locations [but not acknowledging that as the actor walks from one to the other the sound goes from a jungle to an office])...

*This rant isn't to deride the excellent work of Leon Rothenberg and Steve Canyon Kennedy, but to hopefully shed some light on the fact that we are often trying to compare apples to bacon.

[John G2]

It has been suggested here that many do not understand what sound designers do, thus it makes sense to abolish the Tony Award sound design categories . As I have designed sound for many plays, I thought I might tell you a little about what we do by describing my work on one recent production. In 2012 I won the Drama Desk for my work on Gore Vidal's The Best Man. That design was a combination of original music I composed for transitions, and found music and sound I assembled. My collaborators and I decided to give the audience the experience of being at a nominating convention in 1960. Thus I had to first design a surround sound system which would serve to envelope the audience, and still be able to provide the subtle amplification needed to have the actors' voices heard over loud projectors and by an audience whose age averaged well over 60. This enormous task is done in collaboration with the set, lighting, and projection designers with whom we must negotiate space and visual aesthetics. In the case of THE BEST MAN, I also put together a huge 1960 looking audio cluster which loomed over the 'convention floor'

When you entered the theatre we wanted to give you the feeling you were entering the convention- so I produced an elaborate collage of sounds/organ music/crowd sounds. We found text from the 1960 Democratic convention that we modified to work in the context of our production, recording several of the actors making speeches, which I then spent many many hours editing and adding crowd reactions to. We found lists of the music played at the 1960 convention on a paramount organ- I recreated this by recording myself playing some pieces and finding other recordings.

If you saw the production, you might remember that there were TV's and video which had live and recorded material. I was responsible for recording the sound for these clips and adding crowd sounds and other effects to the videos, working closely with the video designer.

For scene transitions, I composed original percussion pieces to keep things moving, and these needed to be edited in the theatre as transition times constantly changed. New pieces had to be composed on the spot with a mobile midi studio I have at my tech table, and other cues altered during the course of tech and previews. Many sound effects are gathered and edited before getting into tech, but much of the final product is produced in the space, as we oversee the programming of how sound is played back and delivered to speakers around the room.

THE BEST MAN had various amplification challenges, both aesthetic and practical- we had to recreate the sound of a 60's anchorman presiding over the action in a box house left. We also had many different actors of various ages and vocal ability. I and my team had to work with the vocal coach, and the actors, some on wireless mics, others on area mics, to get a uniform sound from the all and help them feel confident about how much sound they needed to produce.

So in a nutshell I was responsible for the concept of what you heard, and its execution, as well as how the actors sound. We work closely with directors as music and sound consultants, composers, editors, and often performers. We also design sound systems and are responsible for all the sound programming that goes into it all. For me, sound design in a play is as much about content- framing a play properly, keeping its pace moving well, seamlessly rendering transitions- as it is anything else. Any questions?



Reinstate the Sound Tonys

[Joviedamian]

"And again with the "Classics" rule... I honestly don't understand how someone thinks that the arbitrary real estate definitions of Broadway hold sway over the completely different requirements behind mounting a new work vs. mounting an already-established work. THE RULE AS IT STANDS IS COMMON SENSE. What about a show that had been at what is now the New Victory Theatre way back in the 20s, when it was considered a Broadway theatre, and now is considered off-Broadway? Has that show ever been on Broadway? Does it matter that the theatre was a Broadway theatre before the Tonys began in 1949 but already was defunct before the Tonys? The Classics Rule is an obvious, common sense, simple concept."

jnb. I guess I looked at a bit simpler when it comes to the "Classics" rule. But, in the case of Violet, it is very clear that it played off-Broadway more recently and then it's next big production was clearly ON Broadway (the show is not even produced a lot, unlike maybe let's say, LSOH).So from its 17 year journey I can say it's clear enough to see that it never played Broadway once before, to count as a revival. The work itself has simply never been performed on a a most recent/current Broadway stage, period.

" Does it matter that the theatre was a Broadway theatre before the Tonys began in 1949 but already was defunct before the Tonys?"

No it would not matter, because it's whatever happens AFTER the Tonys were invented that the rules take place.

Wouldn't you be a little upset if you had a show that made the rounds...played off-Broadway a lot, maybe regional and even in people's back yard...but then some producer comes over and says "I want to take it to Broadway". You get excited that it has never been on Broadway before......you're nervous about your "baby" playing to a Broadway Audience for the first time...then come Tony Nomination time, your show is nominated... but as a Best Revival nominee...uh?

All I am saying is that to me, if it has simply never played a Broadway House before it was ever mounted again on Broadway, it should never be considered a revival. To the piece itself is NEW to Broadway (may not be new to the world or regional spaces), but a Broadway audience is seeing this for the very first time, period.

[James885]

The elimination of the Sound Design category is an insult to all the sound designers and sound technicians working on Broadway, especially considering that it's a fairly new category.

The argument that the there's a general lack of understanding what sound designers do doesn't hold up. Does the general public have any idea what good orchestrations consist of? If you randomly polled ten people on the street and asked if they could even tell you what orchestrations were, do you think even half would know?

I hope the Tony Administration comes to their senses, and soon.

[FireFingers]

Yes it is bloody ridiculous to remove the sound design Tonys. The Oliviers in the UK only has one category, but this year they gave an award to both a play and a musical. The UK also has the Association of Sound Designers who do a very good job of explaining what a sound designer does.

http://www.associationofsounddesigners.com/whatis

[best12bars]

A seriously stupid move to get rid of the sound design awards.

All it does is show me that the people who are supposed to be in charge of honoring artistic merit don't understand artistic merit.

[WhizzerMarvin TrinaJasonMendel]

John G2, Thank you for your post; I loved the sound design of The Best Man and vividly remember all the campaign speeches and "convention noises" that filled the theater. It did create a marvelous ambiance for the play.

I found the Tony committee wakes up this morning, apologizes and reinstates the category.

[tazber]

It's silly to get rid of any categories.

They don't even announce it on the broadcast so it's not like it's making the show run long.

It seems rather random. Did they even give a reason why?

[Kad]

I don't see what the issue with the tweaking of the Revival categories is. It doesn't redefine what a revival is. It just says that the writers of the winning revival ALSO receive a statue.

So now Shakespeare could potentially win a Tony for Pericles.

[ddenoff2]

Thank you emg_sound for acknowledging 39 Steps (which was my first show as co-producer and which I'm bringing back to NYC shortly) - which is a perfect example. We even had a 'cast album' of the wonderful music cues but I can't imagine not acknowledging Mic Pool and his Tony-winning work on the show - the train whistle, chugging and music cue takes us to the chase on the train even before the scene changes.

Sound design is as much a part of the theatrical experience as lighting, costumes and makeup. Plenty of shows are un-miked for a variety of reasons (and personally I wish we didn't need to mic any show for amplification purposes), but the magic of SOUND DESIGN takes us to a different time and place and THAT is the ART that I agree should continue to be recognized. Sound design in films is recognized equally as cinematography and music, and on stage the sound designer is usually also responsible for the score of a play.

So perhaps in this argument, let's refrain from emphasizing the micing and amplification (as vital and challenging as it may be to accomplish) and instead emphasize the aural artistry of the theatrical experience.

[jnb9872]

I just want to chime in here and thank the professionals who have chimed in and discussed their work or the work of the SDs on their shows. I only wish there was more discussion of technical craft like this in public forums more often. The more I learn about SD, the more I hope to be able to appreciate the finer details of greatness in the field.

[tazber]

Yes, I too appreciate the explanations.

I just don't see what the purpose of all this is (the canceling of the awards I mean, not the sound design).

What are they trying to accomplish?

[PJPan]

I work part time as the sound manager for an Off-Bway house and I have to say that I am pissed about this ruling. There is a lot of intricacies in the development of sound for a show and it really is a slap in the face to all those hardworking technicians who will no longer be recognized.

[SonofRobbieJ]

I, too, want to thank the sound designers not only for chiming in here with their knowledge, but also for all the work done to make theater an immersive, palpable experience. As an actor, one of my favorite times in tech (which is always just dreadful) is the addition of the sound. I worked on a production of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE that had such unsettling sound effects that we could watch the audience become more and more queasy as the forced film sequence went on.

During the last revival of Follies, I was excited by all the sounds before the show even started: the giggles of chorus girls, the taps of a routine being practiced, the wind blowing through the theater. For me, sound design is the most thrilling aspect of design because it viscerally transports me someplace new as both an actor and audience member. So, let's make sure the Tony committee regrets this decision and reverse themselves.

[Mister Matt]

I did sound design for several productions in Houston and it was one of my favorite jobs. People don't realize how much thought goes into the smallest of details. I'll never forget the sound design for Tommy. The opening of the second act was thrilling.

[Brick]

Please sign that petition. This is horrible.

As a director, I rely on the tremendous contributions of my Sound Designers and the highest honor in our field beginning to recognize it in 2008 was a huge step in the right direction. It may only be symbolic, but this is dreadful step in the wrong direction.

[GilmoreGirlO2]

Nominators/voters not understanding a category is no reason for it to be discarded. If that is what sparked this change, then I think the change should be within the nominators and voters themselves and not the category; they should educate themselves on what they are voting on or they shouldn’t be voting.

It’s just a shame that a decision has been made to take away recognition for a field consisting of hardworking, talented individuals. Glad to see that petition garnering so many signatures.

[brettarnett]

In regards to the Revival works being considered for Book and Score Tonys, does the rule about a score needing to be written for the Theatre still apply?

[Mister Matt]

No, because that is not the case. The book and score authors and composers will receive the statue for the Best Revival category for productions nominated under the classics rule.

[orangeskittles]

The revival author change is good. It sucks with situations like Hedwig or The Normal Heart or Assassins, but it's better than doing away with the classics rule completely and having Shakespeare compete against Christopher Durang.