Let’s talk about Broadway’s TONY Oversights and Canaries
Broadway is to NYC is what Hollywood is to LA the TONY Awards are equivalent to the Academy Awards. The TONY Awards for the 2021/22 theatrical season is schedule to air on June 12, 2022. Congratulations to all of the nominees; every worker, onstage and off, is worthy of an extra special TONY recognition for their contributions that continue to make this peculiar institution function and relevant.
Although I understand that a blanket award for everyone is probably not prudent, I am struggling with quite a few omissions. These are the bones I’m picking:
- “Pass Over” — It literally launched the revival of Broadway — deserving, at least, a nomination for Best Set to Wilson Chin, and Best Director to Danya Taymor.
- “Chicken ‘n Biscuits” — Dede Ayite deserved a Best Costume nomination for the bold and bodacious art with which she adorned the cast. This production offered a stark glimpse into the very real lives of many African-Americans. Anyone who thinks it was a tad over the top needs to visit a church service (and ideally a funeral service) in the ‘hood.
- “Trouble in Mind” — Charles Randolph Wright deserved a Best Director nomination. He not only directed the bejesus out of the show, but is largely responsible for it even coming to Broadway after more than 65 years.
- “Trouble in Mind” — Best Revival nomination is FALSE. It was produced off-Broadway in 1955, but was never produced on Broadway so this is not a Broadway revival. Ms. Childress refused to compromise the integrity of her writing by minimizing her spotlight on Broadway’s discrimination against African-Americans. But, I am sure “Trouble in Mind“’s 2022 TONY nomination would make Ms. Childress very proud.
- “Lackawanna Blues” — Ruben Santiago–Hudson should have also received a Best Play nomination in addition to his Best Lead Actor in a Play. His rich slice of Americana takes you on a journey, both fantastic and familiar, in his tour-de-force writing, directing and performance.
- “Lackawanna Blues” — If “Trouble in Mind” is nominated, then “Lackawanna Blues” should also have qualified and been nominated for Best Revival.
- “Skeleton Crew” — Adesola Osakalumi should have been nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his brilliant choreography and dance representing the machines and the workers in an auto plant. The cast was lovely, but, for my taste, Mr. Osakalumi was the most outstanding performer.
- “Skeleton Crew” — Why wasn’t Phylicia Rashad nominated as the Best Lead Actress in a Play — NOT Best Featured Actress in a Play? The role of Faye is the undeniable lead in this brilliant Dominique Morrisseau drama.
- “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf” — Okwui Okpokwasili deserved a nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her poignant performance throughout the production — consistently garnering ovations (sometimes standing) during her performance.
- “Thoughts of a Colored Man” — Both Bryan Terrell Clark and Tristan Mack Wilds each deserved nominations for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Covid-19 dealt a heavy blew to the City’s Tourism and Cultural Institutions
The Covid-19 crisis shut down artistic venues throughout the world beginning in March 2020. New York City gradually began re-opening Broadway theatres in the summer of 2021, even while the pandemic continued to morph into a miscellany of mayhems.
But the business of Broadway is all businesses — all about making money. Hastening business-as-usual needs more than just the actors, writers, directors, designers, and producers. It needs patrons! To lure health conscious audiences out, safety measures needed to be in place to convince the public that it’s okay to swim in the waters again. So vaccinations and/or proof of a recent negative Covid test, and masks inside the theatres were mandated. Also all stage personnel are tested regularly. Yet several productions still temporarily closed, some multiple times, due to positive Covid tests. Then quite a few shows were forced to close early.
Broadway ticket sells generate about $1.5 billion annually. But it is a $12+ billion boost to NYC’s annual economy when you include the restaurants, hotels, transportation (planes, trains, and automobiles, etc.), retail, souvenirs and other subsidiary spending associated with seeing a show. Out-of-town visitors take in museums, concerts, hansom cab tours of Central Park, and historic sites like The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, and Coney Island.
COVID19 closed many businesses permanently
The Pandemic permanently closed many businesses like: The Roosevelt Hotel (after nearly 100 years in operation), Hilton Hotel Times Square, Courtyard Marriott in Herald Square; Neiman Marcus in the Hudson Yards mall, Century 21, Lord & Taylor; the Michelin-starred Benno Restaurant, the 21 Club (after nearly a century), and the iconic Copacabana nightclub, to name just a few. The combined (direct and indirect) revenues of $12+ billion generated by Broadway, approximately equals that which is generated by the film and TV industry for the city every year.
African-Americans and Broadway rookies ruled Broadway stages
This year, more African-Americans and Broadway rookies are onstage than ever before. “Pass Over” by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, directed by Danya Taymor, opened September 12, 2021, at the August Wilson Theatre. It was a Broadway debut for Nwandu, Taymor, and Namir Smallwood (one of the 3-actor cast that included past Tony nominee Jon Michael Hill and Tony Winner Gabriel Ebert). “Pass Over” was followed by an eclectic blend of productions featuring award-winning stage veterans and neophytes alike: “Chicken ‘N Biscuits”, “Thoughts of a Colored Man”, “Skeleton Crew”, “Clyde’s”, “MJ the Musical”, “A Strange Loop”, “Paradise Square”, even “Phantom of the Opera” (Broadway’s longest running production) cast Emilie Kouatchou in her Broadway debut and Broadway’s first African-American Christine Daae, the leading lady.
Are the actors and the audiences canaries?
It seems to be a grand and glorious time to be young, gifted, black, and chosen to grace one of the forty-one theatres that comprise Broadway stages. But, my question, is why the sudden high demand for African-American talents now? Are they an experiment to test that Covid-19 that no longer poses the threat that holds the world hostage? Are African-Americans the metaphorical “canaries in the coal mines” of Broadway?
In 1911, John Scott Haldane, “The father of oxygen therapy,” recommended that canaries be used in coal mines to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. The songbirds need oxygen to both inhale and exhale. It makes them more susceptible to toxins more than other small animals, like mice. If the bird(s) stopped singing or died, the miners would evacuate. Electronic detectors replaced the avian alarms in 1986. But using canaries in the mines remain a popular metaphor for measuring danger.
I liken the pandemic to the deadly odorless mine gases, and the initial show openings to the test canaries. The opportunities for African-Americans in lead roles on Broadway may be greater, but so are the risks. One observer commented, “The majority of patrons on Broadway are still white and that makes them canaries, too.” I countered that with “It does not. The vast majority of shows featuring African-Americans and Broadway newbies were to test the safety of the space and the likelihood of so many unmasked people working together safely in close proximity. Box offices draw far more diverse dollars when casts are largely diversified. Those dollars measure the probable longevity and success of a show. So African-Americans are the canaries both onstage and in the audience, gauging the signs for Broadway’s future.”
That aside, the talent and grace of everyone who continues to perform throughout this pandemic needs a special mention. There are more African-American Tony Award nominees this year because more African-American talents have been featured in all areas (design, writing, directing) than ever before. I propose a special TONY Award for Herculean Resolve. To everyone who — despite the brief, precautionary, health shutdowns — return again and again respiring life into NYC’s economy… BRAVO! BRAVA!