Tony Award Nominations 2009

In what is becoming an annual rite of self-destruction, Broadway has once again chosen to snub many of the big-name stars who have put their film careers on hold to trudge onto the boards eight times a week, take a significant pay cut, and run the risk of being ridiculed for being unable to cut the mustard as a theatre actor (As Alan Swan famously said before having to appear on live television in “My Favorite Year”: ‘I’m not an actor, damn you, I’m a movie star!’). This week’s announcement of nominees for Broadway’s top prize, the Tony Award, was more newsworthy for the names left off the list than for the relatively unfamiliar names singled out for the honor.

Nathan Lane and John Goodman are selling tickets hand over fist for their revival of “Waiting for Godot” but neither received the honor of a nomination. Same with David Hyde Pierce, Frank Langella, Mary Louise Parker and Matthew Broderick.

It was no surprise that Jeremy Piven was included out of the Best Actor category after his famous sushi defense for missing performances in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow,” but not honoring John Lithgow’s brilliant turn in “All My Sons” in the same category is a crime against humanity! It ranks up there with the snub of Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the 1984 revival of “Death of a Salesman.” Brian Dennehy was honored with the Best Actor award when he did Willy Loman in 2000, but that goodwill did not anoint him worthy of a nomination this year for his turn in “Desire Under the Elms.”

Add to the list of the egregiously overlooked: Diane Wiest, Kristin Scott Thomas, Daniel Radcliffe, Tovah Feldshuh, Joan Allen, Jeremy Irons, Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersol, Patrick Wilson, Susan Sarandon and Katie Holmes.

As an industry, Broadway seems to take an odd pride in the moniker “The Fabulous Invalid” and I have lamented this mindset on these pages before. Broadway’s ability to eat its young and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory has become legendary and not a little bit annoying.

Here we are at the end of a season where the biggest headline was about how horrible things are on Broadway and how every show is closing and how there are nothing but empty theatres, and right when the industry has a chance to turn that story around and promote the fact that not only has every theatre been occupied but incredibly high-wattage stars have come out to perform live in intimate, beautiful theatres, they turn around and kill their own lead.

Wouldn’t it have been great to have a nationally televised theatre awards show with ratings better than an NHL playoff game?

Now, I understand the argument that everyone can’t be nominated, and I recognize that some pretty big names were honored like Jeff Daniels, Geoffery Rush, Marcia Gay Harden, Jane Fonda, Stockard Channing, John Glover and Angela Lansbury. But, really, if the industry is in the trouble they say it’s in, and you have a chance to showcase Daniel Radcliffe, Katie Holmes (and maybe Mr. Holmes?) and Rupert Everett on national television as honored performers from the prior season, shouldn’t you figure out a way to do it?

Here’s a modest proposal: Expand the acting categories! Where is it written in stone that there should only be five nominees for each category? In some pretty thin years in the not-too-distant past they have nominated LESS than five in some categories. (I know that the doom-sayers on Broadway all think that this is the worst it’s ever been, but seriously, in 1989 the THREE nominees for Best Musical were “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway”, “Black and Blue” and “Starmites”!). So in a crappy year, they change the rules and only nominate three, but in a year packed with stars, they hold to the arbitrary five nominee rule and the story becomes “Who Got Snubbed”. It makes no sense at all.

I know that none of this seems to follow a “Right versus Left” storyline that many of you may be used to here at Big Hollywood, but hang in there with me for a few more thoughts. The fact is, the left on Broadway (meaning the vast majority of actors, designers and staffers in the production offices) relish the fact that they give a big “up yours” to the Hollywood types who dare to come to Broadway. In this context, the Hollywood actors are “rich” and the New York theatre people are the poor, starving artists giving up riches for their craft. They want to see the Hollywood star fail. It’s classic class warfare, just like it is played out in the political world of America.

The same mentality that celebrates the increased taxes on “The Rich” and rails against “Big Pharma” and “Big Oil” yet fails to recognize the damage done to our society when these productive members of our economy are punished by ever-burdensome taxes and regulations is at play when they watch in bitchy glee as Hollywood movie stars are snubbed in favor of a “real” actor from their ranks. But they fail to realize that those Hollywood hacks are the ones who are selling the tickets and keeping the “Theatre Community” employed. If Hollywood actors ever get the message and stop risking rejection and embarrassment by performing on Broadway, it will just mean more unemployment for the theatre purists.

But, that’s OK, they’ll just blame Middle America for not being smart or cultured enough to truly appreciate Thomas Sadoski in “Reasons to be Pretty” instead of wanting to see Tom Cruise’s wife or that guy from “3rd Rock From the Sun.”

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