I don't think time is an important factor. Because of the nature of theater, Tony voters are always consulting their memory of the performances and responding to whichever performer wowed them in a way that they still remember, even months after the fact. If someone saw 'Tina" when it first opened and thought, "Adrienne Warren, yes, she's my Tony winner", and then nothing else they saw changed their opinion that Adrienne Warren would get their vote, then it doesn't really change things whether they have to wait two months or two years to cast that vote.
And as some of us keep saying, awards are always based upon a whole host of random factors that can affect how they are seen as "legitimate" - just see the thread about whether "Nine" would have beat "Cats" and whether it was legitimate to give T.S. Eliot a Tony aware for a book he didn't write. So this season was cut short, there were still a fair amount of shows that opened. Other seasons have had less shows open in more time. That's just the nature of awards that are based on arbitrary calendars. |
