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    How to Improve the Oscars? We Asked Five Culture Journalists

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonNetflix’s First Winner?Our Best Movie PicksNew Diversity RulesOscar-Winning DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderHow to Improve the Oscars? We Asked Five Culture JournalistsYes, even in a year when the show will be held during a pandemic, the question is predictable. But these answers aren’t.The Academy Awards, which will be held on April 25, could do more to be fan-friendly.Credit…Matt Petit/Getty ImagesJan. 31, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The New York Times’s Culture desk recently looked at how the 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled for April 25, will take shape during the pandemic. One article features five Hollywood insiders talking about ways the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could make the Oscars more entertaining. Below, five of the journalists on the desk offer their thoughts on the same topic — well, four of them do.Live from … New Orleans?I’m in the camp that believes the Oscars would benefit from brevity, or at least finishing on time. (We on the East Coast have tight deadlines and work in the morning!) But aside from that, my dream is for the academy to host the ceremony in a different location each year, like the Super Bowl. The film industry has expanded in Atlanta, New Orleans and Austin, Texas — it could be another economic boon for those cities. Hollywood is often criticized for being out of touch with regular people. What better way to combat that notion? And fans would get a kick out of it. — Maira Garcia, digital news editorTime to retuneRethink the musical numbers. Songs in movies are written to help tell stories, not to be bellowed, devoid of context, by off-key pop stars backed by phalanxes of chorines. The orchestral arrangements and attempts at dance are too often informed by a generic idea of Hollywood spectacle — or, on the other hand, of pop spirituality. Get more specific! And since the Oscars take place in a theater, get a theater choreographer to stage them. — Jesse Green, chief theater critic‘I’d like to start my puzzling tangent immediately’After nominations have been announced, all finalists would have to submit to the academy the names of agents, managers, publicists, assistants and any other professional colleagues that they would have otherwise thanked in their acceptance speeches; these names would then be posted on the academy’s website or displayed alongside the eventual winner during the Oscars broadcast. Winners would thus have to focus their acceptance speeches on inspirational lessons gleaned from the making of their movie; ribald needling of rival nominees in their category; endorsement of fringe political beliefs that they are trying to articulate for the first time; and heartfelt expressions of gratitude to parents, mentors and school-age children watching at home. (Any violations of these rules would be enforced by catapult.) — Dave Itzkoff, culture reporterBest (loved) pictureAt a time when Hollywood has lamented the loss of moviegoing (I sorely miss it, too), wouldn’t it be nice if the Academy Awards celebrated moviegoers? One way to do that would be to let audiences nationwide vote on their favorite film and award a new Oscar to the winner. This wouldn’t be the same as the academy’s proposed prize for “achievement in popular film.” That short-lived, much maligned idea would have left the decision up to the organization’s members. This would give fans a voice. And who knows? Their favorite could match up with best picture. A win all around. — Stephanie Goodman, film editorLet Oscar be OscarI’m not sure the Oscars need to be, or can be, “improved,” at least as a TV show. (Whether they really measure the best work in movies is another question.) They will always be a mixed bag on average. They inevitably have to serve a casual audience along with a smaller audience of movie buffs. You can hire good producers and cast good talent and make room for spontaneous moments, but beyond that, it’s a matter of chance and whether lightning strikes. It’s easier to make an awards show bad — with ill-conceived stunts, e.g. — than to make one good. But I also don’t think there was any golden age when awards shows were better than they are now. This may be a terrible thing for a TV critic to say. But, just watch them or don’t! If you’re dissatisfied with the Oscars, you may just not be a person who likes awards shows very much, and that’s fine. — James Poniewozik, chief television criticAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Groundhog Day Movies

    @media (pointer: coarse) { .at-home-nav__outerContainer { overflow-x: scroll; -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; } } .at-home-nav__outerContainer { position: relative; display: flex; align-items: center; /* Fixes IE */ overflow-x: auto; box-shadow: -6px 0 white, 6px 0 white, 1px 3px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); padding: 10px 1.25em 10px; transition: all 250ms; margin-bottom: 20px; -ms-overflow-style: none; /* IE 10+ */ […] More

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    Sonny Fox, Whose ‘Wonderama’ Mixed Fun and Learning, Dies at 95

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose we’ve lostSonny Fox, Whose ‘Wonderama’ Mixed Fun and Learning, Dies at 95He was not a comic or a clown, just a smart and genial TV host who for almost a decade spoke to children, not at them. He died of Covid pneumonia.Sonny Fox in an undated photo. “Wonderama,” the popular New York children’s TV show he hosted from 1959 to 1967, was a dazzling mixture of cartoons, games and many other elements.Credit…BettmannJan. 30, 2021, 5:18 p.m. ETSonny Fox, who as the host of the children’s television show “Wonderama” presided over a four-hour combination of fun and learning on Sunday mornings from 1959 to 1967, died on Jan. 24 in Encino, Calif. He was 95.The cause was Covid pneumonia, his son Dana said.Mr. Fox was a veteran of television when he was hired for “Wonderama” by the New York station WNEW-TV (now WNYW). He had hosted a live local educational program in St. Louis and “Let’s Take a Trip,” on CBS, on which he took two youngsters on a field trip each week.In 1956, CBS named Mr. Fox the M.C. of “The $64,000 Challenge,” but he was fired a few months after accidentally giving a contestant an answer. He was not embroiled in the scandal that emerged two years later when it was discovered that several quiz shows, including “Challenge,” had been rigged by their producers.No such problems existed at “Wonderama,” where Mr. Fox’s mission was to tack away from the silly show it had become under previous hosts. But he was too serious at first, focusing on subjects like space exploration. Ratings began to fall.“I became so ponderously educational that the kids who had been watching turtle races” — under the previous hosts — “had no idea what I was doing,” he said in a Television Academy interview in 2008.The show, which was taped before an audience of about 50 youngsters, soon found its footing. It became a dazzling mixture of cartoons, spelling bees, games like “Simon Says,” joke-telling (by the children), contests, dramatizations of Shakespeare plays and magic. In 1964, the show held a mock Republican convention. Mr. Fox also interviewed newsmakers like Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and opened the floor to questions from the children.“Do you think all the money that we’ve been spending on this nation’s space program should be spent on this or on poverty bills and such?” an earnest boy with glasses asked Senator Kennedy in 1965.“We can make the space effort,” Mr. Kennedy said, adding that both could be done: “If there’s ever an unknown, man will search the unknown.”Mr. Fox was not a comic performer like Chuck McCann, Sandy Becker or Soupy Sales — stars of their own daytime children’s shows on WNEW at the time — and did not wear funny costumes. He was a smart and genial host who wore a suit and tie.He viewed the children in the studio not as passive observers of “Wonderama” but as integral to it, whether they were trying to stump him with a riddle or delivering news segments.Mr. Fox with two members of the “Wonderama” audience in 1961. He viewed the children in the studio not as passive observers of the show but as integral to it, Credit…Wagner International PhotosHe said Mr. Becker and Mr. Sales resented his popularity because he was not a performer.“I did nothing, apparently!” he told the online Observer in 2017. “That’s the contrast: For them, the kids were the audience; for me, the kids were the show.”The popularity of “Wonderama” meant children waited years for tickets to tapings at its studio on East 67th Street in Manhattan. Mr. Fox’s mother, Gertrude (Goldberg) Fox, sent him notes each Monday insisting that tickets be set aside for certain children.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Cicely Tyson Kept It Together So We Didn’t Fall Apart

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAn AppraisalCicely Tyson Kept It Together So We Didn’t Fall ApartA wonder of poise and punch, the actress dared to declare herself a moral progenitor, taking on roles that reflected the dignity of Black women.In “Sounder,” from 1972, Cicely Tyson is often transfixing in her stillness.Credit…20th Century Fox, via Getty ImagesJan. 29, 2021Updated 4:44 p.m. ETHow odd to celebrate someone for not being who we’ve been programmed to expect. But American entertainment worked hard on the mold that Cicely Tyson refused to fit. So, really, what we’ve been saluting all these decades was historic defiance. She died on Thursday, at 96, just after the release of “Just as I Am,” a juicy, honest, passionately Cicely memoir. (“Well, child, I’ll tell you: my mouth fell open like a broken pocketbook.”) And on the opening pages resides the truth about why, as a performer, she was the way she was.“My art had to both mirror the times and propel them forward,” she writes. “I was determined to do all I could to alter the narrative about Black people — to change the way Black women in particular were perceived, by reflecting our dignity.” Tyson made this vow in 1972, a few years after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at the dawn of the so-called Blaxploitation filmmaking boom that didn’t fulfill her. No hookers, no servants, no big bad mamas. Which meant that, for a woman dependent on an industry that trained its patrons to overlook a beauty as singular and angular and walnut-brown as hers, she’d essentially declared a hunger strike.Alas, she would not be playing the most daring, out-there characters. And let’s face it: the great parts were always headed to someone whiter anyway. The more audacious move was to declare herself a moral progenitor, to walk with her head high so that Denzel Washington might become a man on fire and Viola Davis could learn how to get away with murder.Tyson had a remarkable physical presence, someone sculpted as much as born. Her body was dancer lithe. She seemed delicate. But only “seemed.” She was delicate the way a ribbon of steel holds up its part of a bridge. The deceptive nature of her fineness was right there in the name. Cicely Tyson. Poise and punch.Her mouth comprised an overbite, protruding front teeth and two full lips. The words she spoke brought with them a little extra breath, which, in turn, gave her an everlasting lightness that made us lean toward her so we wouldn’t miss whatever truth she was about to tell. She didn’t write the scripts, yet she never seemed to waste a word. How? And the way she spoke: with the erudite diction fragrant of both old showbiz and old Harlem. No Black woman had ever performed this reliably with this much elegance and surety. Of course, the mold being what it was, nobody had ever asked a Black woman to do any such thing. (Diahann Carroll appeared to be her sister in dignity.)In a scene from “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” the title character, played by Tyson, fights segregation by drinking from a fountain reserved for white people.Credit…CBS, via Getty ImagesTyson was a peculiar kind of famous. I was never told of her importance. I just knew. Everybody knew. This woman was somebody. She looked sainted, venerated — at 29, 36, 49 and 60. Even in anguish. It’s possible that happens once you’ve played a 110-year-old formerly enslaved woman in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and after you’ve played Kunta Kinte’s mother. Or maybe those roles happen because you radiate venerability.She could act with her entire head yet scarcely move it at all. That’s her in most of “Sounder,” transfixing in her stillness. “Sounder” itself is a quiet, Depression-era movie, from 1972, built around Louisiana sharecroppers named Nathan and Rebecca Morgan, their three children and the family dog, Sounder. It’s foolishly lit. The night scenes are brightened by lanterns, which wouldn’t be my first choice for a movie with this much brown skin. Tyson spends a few scenes under a big straw hat that hides half her face.For lots of actors this would be death, because they’re too vain to stand for it or lack what it takes to overcome that kind of obscurity. For that sort of actor it’s all in the eyes. Over four decades of watching this woman work, I discovered that her technique rarely relied on her eyes, although they could glitter and dance. Tyson was another sort of actor: a life force. She emanated and exuded: hurt, warmth, joy, suspicion, fear, hauteur, love — an ocean of love.“Sounder” is a quiet movie set in Louisiana; from left, Paul Winfield, Yvonne Jarrell, Cicely Tyson, Kevin Hooks and Taj Mahal. Credit…20th Century Fox, via Everett CollectionCICELY TYSON WAS known to all people. But in Black homes, Tyson epitomized “household name.” A fixture even more than a star, either way an illuminant. A natural resource, a wonder, a font, a dream, a beacon. What other actor worked with such clear purpose, vocation and seriousness on the one hand and with a devastating smile on the other? Tyson knew what she represented. An honorary Oscar, three Emmys, a pile of Emmy nominations and a Tony all came her way. Just as fittingly for a woman who willed herself to matter, so did eight N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards.One of those was for playing Marva Collins in “The Marva Collins Story,” a pat yet ultimately astonishing Hallmark Hall of Fame production that CBS aired in 1981. Collins taught at a Chicago public school that the movie turns into a zoo everywhere but inside her classroom. It’s quintessential Tyson. The school system’s bureaucracy and low expectations inspire Collins to open a private school in the upstairs unit of her house. When a white teacher all but calls her uppity, Marva treats her to a death stare and says, “I dress the way I do, Miss Denny, because I happen to believe my children deserve a positive image.” Tyson is loose and charming and sharp; married to a carpenter played by Morgan Freeman; romantic, funny, unflappable and — thank the lord — well lit, the teacher of parents’ dreams, the actor this country needed in more slam-dunk roles just like this.Tyson plays a Chicago public school teacher married to Morgan Freeman’s character in “The Marva Collins Story,” from 1981.Credit…CBS, via Getty ImagesConsider the parts she could have played if the movies were fairer. Consider what we’d be saying now if her standards were lower. How’s that for fairness?I often got the sense that Tyson was hanging on to a little something, perhaps for herself, which, in turn, compelled us to hang on more tightly to her. In “Sounder,” after a judge sentences Nathan to a year of hard labor, the film cuts to Rebecca, seated in the rear of the court surrounded by her children and two friends. Rather than wail, she just looks on in solemn comprehension, a hand supporting her head. Of course, she’s devastated; the marriage is strong. But in that moment, what you see Tyson performing is resolve, strategy. She knows that she now has to do the farming — the sharecropping — on her own. The moment hits you harder for all that Tyson doesn’t do. Poise, punch.She rarely broke down. She never cracked up. She held it together, lest the rest of us fall apart. “Marva Collins” was as close as Tyson ever got to her wits’ end. And even then: she was losing it for her people. There were other exceptions. The scene in “Sounder,” say, in which Nathan, freshly sprung from that labor camp, hobbles up to the road as she runs a 100-yard dash toward him, tears flying from her face, her arms flung open. This is no way to run a dash. Instead, she invented a run powered not by muscles at all but entirely by heart. That sprint goes in the national registry of great American movie shots. And how about when ancient Miss Jane takes that drink at the “white only” fountain? You can show that to a Martian and he’d wipe the water from his mouth.Tyson knew her place. It was in our movie palaces and living rooms, but also at Black families’ kitchen and dining room tables, an emblem of her race, a vessel through whom an entire grotesque entertainment history ceased to pass because she dammed it off; so that — in her loveliness, grace, rectitude and resolve — she could dare to forge an alternative. She walked with her head high, her chest out, her shoulders back as if she were carrying quite a load that never seemed to trouble her because she knew she was carrying us.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    ‘The Poltergeist’ Review: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Madman

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘The Poltergeist’ Review: Portrait of the Artist as a Young MadmanA breakneck performance by Joseph Potter as an embittered former prodigy carries this unnerving monologue from Philip Ridley.Joseph Potter as a once-promising artist in Philip Ridley’s darkly comic play “The Poltergeist.”Credit…Matt MartinJan. 29, 2021The mind of a neurotic artist is a terrifying place to be. Trust me, I know: I’ve had a 30-year residency in one, and it’s no picnic.Still, the artist at the center of “The Poltergeist,” a new solo play by Philip Ridley presented by Tramp and streaming courtesy of London’s Southwark Playhouse, functions on a whole different level. As a teen, Sasha (Joseph Potter) was dubbed a prodigy thanks to his large-scale murals. He was going to be a star, but now, years later, he’s a nobody, self-consciously making smudged watercolors and sketches that he immediately declares worthless.It’s hard to focus on your next masterpiece when you have something permanently stuck in your craw. Sasha prattles through an interior monologue of such unrelenting vitriol about himself, his art and the world around him that he seems hollowed out, a black hole masquerading as a person.When he and his supportive boyfriend, an actor named Chet, go to a niece’s birthday party, Sasha barely manages the smiles and chat and cake. He pops too many painkillers and hardly veils his resentment for his brother and sister-in-law. He trashes the house when no one is looking. He grows more riled up as casual conversations veer closer to the topic of his artistry and the reason he never lived up to his promise. (No spoilers here, but it involves a familial act of betrayal.)Ridley, a screenwriter and playwright (“The Pitchfork Disney,” “Mercury Fur”), regularly trades in a brand of tragicomedy that’s like a blackout on a winter night: acutely dark.“The Poltergeist” is airtight, if not claustrophobic. It almost entirely happens at that one birthday party, with Sasha re-enacting every conversation he has with other guests, rapidly interjecting his own thoughts. The playwright meticulously unwraps his psychology, interrupting the churlish commentary with lush and tender descriptions of color, like the “magenta, crimson lake, viridian, burnt sienna, cinnabar green” he’s putting to use in a painting.All this makes Potter’s job, alone on a bare stage for 75 minutes, tough. He is riveting to watch, full of breakneck energy and Olympian-level verbal agility, especially when he pingpongs from one character to another.This perfectly captures the manic mechanics of Sasha’s brain, but “The Poltergeist” sometimes moves so quickly that things become a garble. Part of the issue is Wiebke Green’s direction, which paces the show like an emotional roller coaster that rises and falls in predictable intervals, without surprise.It goes like this: a barrage of gripes and observations from Sasha, followed by long pauses when he lets deeper feelings finally catch up to him. Some pearls of comedy in the script get left by the wayside, though the emotional conclusion is rich and gratifying.Despite its occasional muddle, “The Poltergeist” is gripping from start to finish, one of the most visceral immersions inside a disturbed character’s mind I’ve ever seen. I’ll happily Airbnb there, especially if Ridley is my host. But I’m giving back the keys when it’s over.The PoltergeistThrough Feb. 28; southwarkplayhouse.co.ukAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    A Broadway Theater Owner Rethinks Post-Pandemic Ticket Selling

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Broadway Theater Owner Rethinks Post-Pandemic Ticket SellingJujamcyn, which operates five of the 41 Broadway houses, said that when theater returns it will use SeatGeek instead of Ticketmaster.In a sign that some theaters are rethinking how they will operate when Broadway reopens, Jujamcyn Theaters is overhauling its ticketing practices.Credit…David S. Allee for The New York TimesMichael Paulson and Jan. 29, 2021As many live performance venues rethink their operations in anticipation of a post-pandemic reopening, one of Broadway’s major theater owners has decided to overhaul its ticketing practices.Jujamcyn Theaters, home to the musicals “Hadestown,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “The Book of Mormon,” said Friday that it had reached an agreement with SeatGeek, a disruptive newcomer to the marketplace, to handle of all its ticketing. It had been using Ticketmaster, the dominant platform for concerts and other live events.The agreement is SeatGeek’s first on Broadway; the company, which is based in New York, works primarily in the sports industry in the United States, but also has theater clients in London’s West End.“We’re always scanning the landscape for what is new and what is possible, but the shutdown really changed what we were looking for,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn, which operates five of the 41 Broadway theaters. “There are capabilities that SeatGeek has built that speak directly to the now, and also, I think, to the future.”Roth would not describe the financial details of the arrangement, but said he had been impressed by the company’s technological flexibility, as well as its use of historical and comparative pricing to help customers assess ticket value. He said that beyond selling tickets, its technology could be used to allow customers to order food and drink, arrange transportation, purchase merchandise and get other information. SeatGeek will also allow tickets for Jujamcyn shows to be resold through its platform.The deal is a coup for SeatGeek, which began in 2009 as an aggregator of listings on the secondary ticketing market but has become a significant competitor to Ticketmaster in selling tickets directly on behalf of theaters and sports teams. SeatGeek sells tickets for the Dallas Cowboys, the Cleveland Cavaliers and a number of Major League Soccer teams.Danielle du Toit, the president of SeatGeek Enterprise, the company’s primary sales platform, said the Jujamcyn deal would showcase innovations like allowing patrons to order a glass of Champagne to be delivered to their seat at intermission.“For the average Joe,” du Toit said, “the idea is that it’s easy, it’s intuitive, it’s fast, it’s enjoyable.”The shutdown of live events during the pandemic has dealt a blow to all venues and ticketing companies. But behind the scenes, it has also sped up some changes that had been bubbling through the business for years, like contactless concessions sales and the transition to mobile, paperless ticketing. Roth said Jujamcyn had not yet determined whether paper tickets would still be used post-pandemic.Some venues and sports teams have also used the pause to rethink their ticketing alliances; in November, for example, two Houston soccer teams, the Dynamo FC and its affiliated women’s club, the Dash, signed with SeatGeek.When events return, many venues and ticket sellers say they expect extensive safety protocols that may even be embedded into the ticketing process. Late last year, Ticketmaster said it was considering implementing plans like confirming a patron’s vaccination status through a third-party smartphone app. A Ticketmaster spokeswoman said this week that the company was still awaiting federal and state guidance about reopening; Ticketmaster said on Friday it had no comment about losing Jujamcyn as a client.Du Toit said that the slowdown of events gave SeatGeek the opportunity to develop the kinds of features that are part of its Jujamcyn deal.“We’ve used this downtime to dig deeper into our technology,” she said.“The Book of Mormon,” “Hadestown” and “Moulin Rouge!” were all selling strongly before the pandemic and plan to return once theaters can reopen. Two other musicals housed in Jujamcyn theaters, “Frozen” and “Mean Girls,” have announced that they will not resume performances post-pandemic, so the company has two vacant houses to fill.SeatGeek becomes the third major ticketing services provider on Broadway; many theaters use Telecharge, which is owned by Broadway’s biggest landlord, the Shubert Organization; Jujamcyn had used Telecharge until switching to Ticketmaster in 2016. Ticketmaster continues to work with the Nederlander Organization, another major Broadway landlord. Of course, many consumers purchase tickets not through the primary ticket sellers, which handle direct sales online and at the box office, but also through brokers, resellers, or intermediaries like TKTS and TodayTix.The average Broadway ticket cost $121 last season. It remains unclear whether prices will change when Broadway reopens, although many producers expect less premium pricing (those are the highest-priced tickets for the hottest shows; for example, before the pandemic “Hamilton” was regularly selling many of its seats at premium prices of $847 each), at least in the short-term, as the industry seeks to rebuild.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Tonys Voting is Coming Soon. The Awards? We Still Don’t Know.

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTonys Voting is Coming Soon. The Awards? We Still Don’t Know.Organizers of the ceremony have firmed up dates for selecting favorites, but won’t commit to an event until plans for Broadway’s return are set.Elizabeth Stanley, center, in the musical “Jagged Little Pill,” which was nominated for 15 Tony Awards, the most of any show in the abbreviated 2019-20 season.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJan. 29, 2021The question has preoccupied Broadway lovers for months: When are the Tony Awards?On Friday, the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, the two organizations that oversee the awards, took a step toward clarifying their latest thinking.They said two things: One, the much-delayed awards will be scheduled “in coordination with the reopening of Broadway.” And two, the voting will take place from March 1 to March 15.What does that mean? It means, first, that the process is moving forward. The 784 (give or take a few) voters will be soon able to cast ballots for the best work of the season that began in April 2019 and ended, prematurely, in February 2020. (Theaters were open until mid-March, but Tony administrators decided only shows that opened by Feb. 19 would be eligible for awards because too few voters had seen those that opened later.)The voters will be choosing among a group of nominees announced last October. The best musical nominees are “Jagged Little Pill,” “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” and “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical,” and the best play nominees are “Grand Horizons,” “The Inheritance,” “Sea Wall/A Life,” “Slave Play” and “The Sound Inside.”It also makes official what has become increasingly apparent: the ceremony will look forward, toward the 2021-22 season, as much as it looks backward, to the 2019-20 season. The coronavirus pandemic has scuttled a 2020-21 season.The ceremony, which is typically aired on network television, looks likely to promote the return of Broadway, and the presenters are not committing to a date because they don’t know when reopening will happen. Many producers are currently hoping for September, in which case a ceremony could take place in June, but throughout the pandemic many such predictions have come and gone.The Tonys were originally scheduled to take place last June.As was true the last time voting took place, in the spring of 2019, all voting will be electronic, and the voters, who are mostly producers, presenters, and people who work in the theater industry, can only vote in categories in which they have seen all the nominees. A subset of voters are allowed to vote in the categories of best orchestrations and best sound design, because those categories have been deemed too specialized for the full pool of voters to decide.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More