In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several shows that ran just one performance received nominations. Not to mention, over several decades, a number of other shows that ran less than two weeks and some that ran less than one week. And, of course, there are the wins of Dolores Gray for Carnival in Flanders (a win that, admittedly, would almost certainly not have happened had the Tonys followed the official Broadway seasons, because she then would have been in competition with Zizi Jeanmaire and Shirley Booth) and Zoe Caldwell for Slapstick Tragedy, which, respectively, ran 6 and 7 performances. And Caldwell had strong competition.
I feel it's really unfortunate that shows cannot even be nominated now unless they run long enough to invite all the voters. Of course, I get that if not for the rule it would mean that some people would surely be voting in categories in which they had not seen all the nominees, but back when there were fewer voters, that wasn't such a bad thing because with a smaller group of voters, it was clear that most of the voters had seen everything or nearly everything.
So I will admit that it's a bit of a conundrum. All the more reason not to take awards too seriously. Obviously, the deck is almost always stacked in favor of works that were widely seen, widely read, got favorable critical attention, etc. |
