They don’t have to see them when they open; they just have to see them by the time they meet to determine nominations the last week of APRIL.
I have two friends on the committee, one of whom didn’t see 2 of the opened productions before lockdown, and the other 3. Echoing what’s been said here, one of them said they didn’t see there being a point to doing a ceremony before Broadway reopened, let alone how it was possible. The consensus was that many of the awards would not be competitive, and that people like Laura Linney, Danny Burstein and Adrienne Warren would obviously win almost “by default”, due to them being the biggest names in the splashiest shows in a season with no real competition that had opened yet, and that some productions like West Side Story would AUTOMATICALLY win since they literally had no competition yet.
There have been strange ceremonies and odd choices in the past- but I’m glad work will be recognized (no doubt because some of these shows grow less likely to reopen with every passing week).
At the same time I feel bad that there will always be an asterisk next to this year’s ceremonies, and each of this year’s winners, probably more so than any awards ever given in any media. |
