The Tony Awards — coming this Sunday — are acquiescing to a big public complaint. At first it seemed like they were not going to allow the play with music, “Stereophonic,” to perform on the show.
But after a lot of negative press — including this column — “Stereophonic” will get to play one of their Fleetwood Mac like songs on the Tonys. The Tonys say this was after all the complaints. But a TV insider says this may have all been planned PR to get people’s attention for the Sunday show.
One irony of this year’s Tony awards is that “Stereophonic” is entered as a play, not a musical. So it’s up against “Appropriate,” a hit play with no music. But “Stereophonic” is also up for Best Score nonetheless. The most nominated musical, Alicia Keys’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” is not.
Confused? How can “Hell’s Kitchen” be best musical without the best score? Good question. How can the best score go to a play? And should a play with music be competing with a regular play?
I guess we’ll find out out all these answers on Sunday. I would give best musical to “Suffs,” because it has the best score of all original songs by one composer. But that may be an old fashioned idea!
