Thanks. I seem to remember several years when I read that the awards for Best Play (as well as Best Musical) went to the producer, and I know that was well after 1966. But I could certainly be mis-remembering.
At any rate, when you think about it, it's rather odd that currently the award for "Best Play" goes to both the playwright and the producer(s) but the award for Best Musical goes only to the producers (because there are separate awards for book and score). I guess it's just an imperfect way to cut down on the total number of awards. Another option, which would be a radical change, would be to eliminate the separate awards for Best Book and Best Score of a musical and have the Best Musical award go to all of the writers as well as the producer(s). That may sound crazy, but currently the voters can separate the overall quality of production of a musical from the actual writing of it, whereas they can't do that for plays, which is also rather odd.
Maybe the bottom line is that the Tonys, especially nowadays, just care more about musicals than plays because the musicals are the big money-makers. |
