The Tony Awards: Is Broadway back?

last updated 8 January 2015

“Theater is in danger of becoming popular,” said Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times. At the 65th annual Tony Awards this week, host Neil Patrick Harris jokingly proclaimed Broadway “not just for gays anymore” in the opening musical number. And indeed, the season’s record-breaking $1.08 billion in ticket sales suggests that this one-time “poor corner of showbiz” no longer depends on a niche audience of any kind. The Tonys telecast often feels like a plea to average Americans to start caring about live theater; this year, it merely “delivered an ‘Amen’” to an already ebullient season.

The evening “was not exactly brimming with surprises,” said David Cote in the London Guardian. As expected, The Book of Mormon, the critically acclaimed musical by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone, “danced away with nine awards.” Nearly as predictable was that, as in five of the past six years, a show from Britain won Best Play. This year, it was War Horse, a production featuring a fairly maudlin script but “beguiling” equine puppets. The other nominees, Jerusalem, Good People, and The Motherf***er With the Hat, were “equally deserving of plaudits,” but the Tony voters evidently decided to go with spectacle over literary merit.

It’s still not clear whether Broadway can ever again become “fertile territory for independent spirits,” said Clyde Haberman in The New York Times. Despite some fresh standouts, the majority of shows currently playing on Broadway are either “reworkings of material from other media” or nostalgia-fueled “jukebox musicals.” Here’s hoping that The Book of Mormon has established a new template, said Michael Riedel in the New York Post. That musical won the hearts of audiences and critics by combining daring satire with a “cheeky sense of humor and old-fashioned showbiz know-how.” It’s a potent mix that, along with this year’s other original shows, has helped Broadway re-establish itself as a major force in mainstream popular culture.