Student Blog: A Loss of Access

Well, it's been nearly a year now since the 74th Tony Awards should have taken place, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the show will not be taking place until September of 2021. Nominees were announced back in October of 2020 to a variety of reactions (I, for one, was mostly amused at the fact that Aaron Tveit will finally be getting his Tony Award by default for being the only one nominated in his category). Of course, there was quite a bit of controversy at the nomination announcement, but when is there not some drama in the theatre community? The Tony Awards had the goal of having their show later in 2020, but up until a few weeks ago, theatre fans had been waiting with no news from the American Theatre Wing.

After months of waiting, the time finally came. On May 26th, CBS and the Tony Award Productions announced that the Tony Awards would be returning on September 26th with a special - The Tony Awards Present: Broadway's Back! Before you start jumping for joy, however, this little special isn't the Tony Awards that we all know and love. Instead, the concert event on CBS will simply be Broadway celebrities performing famous songs for two hours. Only three actual awards will be given during the performance - Best Play, Best Revival of a Play, and Best Musical. The rest of the awards will be announced before the special begins.

But Kat, you might be asking yourself, why the sad and dramatic title? What will fans be losing with the 74th Tony Awards? Well let me start with a quick question - How many of you actually have Paramount+? I, personally, don't know a single person who is subscribed to the streaming service. If you're not subscribed to the service, you might have some difficulty in seeing who wins most of the awards. The actual Tony Awards show, not the special, will only be available on Paramount+, not on CBS. So if you're not willing to pay money to see a show that used to be free to everyone with television access, tough luck.

What were the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing thinking? In fact, what have they been thinking over the past year and a half? Throughout the pandemic, many theatre companies outside of Broadway have become more accessible to the world, offering livestreams and other online opportunities for theatre goers to still be able to see performances while quarantining. Broadway didn't do much, with the only highlight being the release of Hamilton on Disney+ in July of 2020 (again, making fans pay for a streaming service to view a performance).

Broadway failed to accept the incredible opportunities that digital theatre have provided and instead plan on discarding the medium as soon as live theatre in New York can go back to a relative normal. Almost all of the performances I watched over the past year and half were from London, a theatre community that embraced digital theatre and gave people around the world free opportunities to watch fantastic productions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Broadway itself did not do much to encourage digital theatre - Instead, it was the other communities in New York that used the Internet to their advantage, creating new shows and publishing recordings of ones that had been previously performed. Broadway is still, unfortunately, an elite theatre community focused on making money, not being accommodating to the average theatre fan. The idea that "nothing can compare to live theatre" may be a phrase commonly used by Broadway, but those in power fail to notice just how great the digital theatre community has become and how it can continue in the future.

If the American Theatre Wing truly cared about accessibility for all, then they would make the Tony Awards live, not something that people have to pay for. Sure, there are a few performances that will be live, but isn't the point of the Awards to acknowledge the hard work of those in the industry? I'm sure that ratings for the paid actual award show will be much lower than the free performance special, which will only involve three of the twenty-six categories that currently exist (don't get me started on the lack of ensemble representation, that's an entirely different article). The 74th Tony Awards are on a tragic path that continues the Great White Way's tradition of excluding those who are unable to pay high prices for content, failing to catch up with the digital world around them.