Why were there six nominees for Best Musical in 2022

[Alzarian]

Posted: 9/17/22 at 11:46pm

In looking through the list of Tony nominated musicals, I noticed that the 2021-2022 season holds the record for most nominated musicals - six! There have been a few seasons previous with five nominated musicals, but four has been the norm. Six best musical nominees is something historic, is it not?

I was just curious as to why this is. Was this most recent season an unusually strong one compared to years past? Was it an after effect of making up for lost time as I also saw that there were only three shows nominated in 2020 and none in 2021.

I'm also just a bit surprised that with so many nominated musicals from last season, only two have thus far come out on CD, although a third (Strange Loop) is apparently on its way. Still no sign of a release date for the Broadway cast recordings for Mr Staurday Night, Paradise Square or Six.

Also, would we expect next year to settle back down to the usual four nominees?

[JBroadway]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 12:02am

IIRC, it used to be a hard 4 nominees, but then the sometime in the past few years they changed the rules as such: 

ii) There shall be no more than four nominees in each category; provided;

(A) If there are at least nine eligible candidates for nomination in any of the 26 established competitive categories, then there shall be five nominees in that category.

(B) In the event that there is a two-way or three-way tie for the last slot of nominations in any of the 26 established competitive categories, both or all three of those candidates shall be nominated.

 

Updated On: 9/18/22 at 12:02 AM

[angoradebs]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 12:08am

The recordings for A Strange Loop and Six (not a studio recording, but a live audio capture on opening night) have been out for a while now. Unless you literally mean physical CDs, but I don't see why not having one these days would surprise anyone. And Paradise Square notoriously had/has financial/legal issues that are most certainly the cause for the delay of the album release

[Alzarian]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 10:21am

OK, so if I am understanding the rules correctly, there must have been at least nine eligible musicals that came out during the 2021-22 season resulting in the nomination list being bumped up to five. The fact that there were six nominees would imply that there was a tie between the two lowest-rated candidates. Unless there were less than nine eligible le musicals last season, in which case there would have been four nominees, with the fourth tying with two other shows, bumping the grand total to six.

I further presume that it would theoretically be possible for there to be seven nominees if there was a three-way tie for fifth place.

It does beg the question that if a nominated musical ranks so low and ties with others if maybe the better solution would have been to just drop those lower rated musicals. Six or seven nominees seems excessive to me, but that is my own personal opinion.

As for CD releases, of course that is what I want. I prefer physical media over a digital copy for many reasons, and if it costs a bit more, so be it. However, I truly hope this sort of delay in releasing physical CDs for Tony nominated shows isn't going to become the norm.

[pethian]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 10:38am

JBroadway said: "

(A) If there are at least nine eligible candidates for nomination in any of the 26 established competitive categories, then there shall be five nominees in that category.
"

Well then, we seem to be on track for something similar this season what with six musicals opening in  the Fall alone and more than three being mentioned for the Spring.

 

[angoradebs]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 10:44am

Yes, there were 9 - the 6 nominees, plus Diana, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Flying Over Sunset.

I'm really not understanding what being Tony nominated has to do with having a CD? CDs cost money to make. Fewer and fewer people are buying them these days. Getting a Tony nomination doesn't mean they all of a sudden have the money to spend on something that will certainly result in a loss. It's not just a "delay in releasing physical CDs for Tony nominated shows."

[Alzarian]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 11:01am

I can only speak for myself, but getting nominated for Best Musical makes me add the CD to my collection. That isn't to say I don't buy CDs of non-nomjnated musicals, but it certainly guarantees the purchase. Again, only speaking for myself. 

Given that the rules are changing to increase the number of nominees, it would seem that there is some value in being nominated. The flip side is that if a majority of shows get nominated, doesn't it sort of devalue the award? 

Updated On: 9/18/22 at 11:01 AM

[JBroadway]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 12:27pm

@Alzarian

Yes, your assessment of the rules is correct. It was an automatic 5 due to the number of eligible shows, plus a tie. And yes it’s possible to have 7 nominees: in fact there were 7 nominees for Best Actor in a play just this year, due to this same rule. 

As for whether it dilutes the award: If there are 6-7 genuinely excellent shows that all deserve recognition, then it’s great. But that’s usually not the case, especially in the musical categories. And in general, I do think the meaning of a Tony nomination has already been incredibly diluted.

The mere fact that there’s an automatic 5 nominees regardless of the quality of contenders is so frustrating to me. At least with the Oscars, you can pretty much guarantee there will be at least 10 worthy movies, because there are hundreds and hundreds of eligible movies (whether the 10 best movies actually get nominated is a totally different question, but at least it makes sense in theory). But automatically picking 5-6 nominees from a pool of 9? At a time when the quality of musical theatre on Broadway is already spotty at best? It’s a miracle that the Tonys are still taken seriously. 

I keep saying they should implement a system whereby each nominator goes down the list of eligible contenders in each category, and gives each one a binary yea or nay for whether they feel it deserves a nomination (maybe with a cap of 4 or 5 yeas, but no minimum), and the only contenders that get nominations are the ones that reach a certain minimum percentage of yea votes among the total ballots cast - rather than going by the default top 5. 

[MrJNLong]

Posted: 9/18/22 at 5:43pm

Additionally, because so many members of the nominating committee had to recuse themselves this year (because of not seeing everything because of COVID cancellations and other factors), the pool of nominators was significantly smaller…thus raising the chances that two shows would receive the same number of votes, especially when you’re getting down to 4th and 5th place. I assume this was a big factor that led to so many categories having “extra” nominations this year especially. 
 

in the best musical race, my guess as to which two tied for that last slot is mr Saturday night and paradise square. 

[David10086]

Posted: 9/19/22 at 2:20am

I always thought it was odd that only 2 musicals were nominated in 1995 when Sunset Blvd won. I mean why even bother? No suspense there.