TONYS 2024: REACHING FOR A LIFE JACKET

In a spring season where almost nothing is selling as well as it should, can Tony nominations save some of Broadway's big-budget shows?

The Tony nominations come out today, and by most people’s reckoning it’s a radically wide open field, with no clear front runners in most categories.

I wonder if this year’s nominations and awards aren’t also among the most important in recent memory. Over the weekend TKTS, which was created to support struggling shows by selling unsold seats at a discount, had tickets on sale for every single new musical on Broadway, and many of the new plays, too. (With the exception of Stereophonic, the only plays not on TKTS were populated by film and TV stars.)

With the staggering number of new shows that have opened on Broadway in the last 6 weeks—I count 16, and there may be more—it’s no surprise that a number of them might be eating one another’s lunch. But the idea that even Times’ Critic Picks like Water for Elephants or shows with strong built-in fan bases like The Notebook are on TKTS just weeks after opening is deeply concerning.