| Hands off the Tonys | Screenwriters are striking at the heart of Broadway | |
| Posted by: TheBroadwayMaven (DavidBenkof@gmail.com) 07:05 am EDT 06/01/23 | |
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| From today's Broadway Maven Weekly Blast: The Tony Awards broadcast is Broadway’s annual opportunity to shine well beyond New York City. Tourists buy tickets to see shows that won — or had great musical performances. Theatergoers who never visit New York learn from the Tonys which shows to see on tour. And the entire Broadway world has one night to celebrate what makes the art form special. But at this year’s broadcast on CBS June 11, the talented Tonys team won’t be able to do its best work. That’s because the Writers Guild of America (whose members pen much of the witty banter in awards shows) is on strike and twice refused to grant the Tonys a waiver. It was openly prepared to demonstrate in front of the Tonys, knowing that the heavily unionized Broadway community would not cross a picket line. Please note that the WGA isn’t a Broadway union. Its members write for screens, not stages. To be fair, screenwriters have good reason to be upset, with streaming and other rapid changes in the industry making the life of the scribe ever harder – all while the threat of AI displacement looms. But that is not a Broadway controversy. The WGA is a Hollywood-oriented union that chose to make a splash in its labor struggle by essentially holding Broadway hostage. Now, several leading Broadway playwrights including Tony Kushner and Jeremy O. Harris have been celebrated for “saving” the Tonys with a “compromise” between the award show and the WGA (which includes many playwrights who also write for screens): • There will be no picket line; • Most Broadway people will be able to participate in the Tonys, which will be televised; • WGA members will stay home, instead accepting their awards via pre-taped video or by proxy; • Lin-Manuel Miranda will not write his planned opening number; • The previously written script has been scrapped; and • Instead, expect unadorned award announcements, improvisation, and plenty of shoutouts to the WGA. Such a solution undercuts the professionalism – and the fun – of the Tonys and benefits only the relatively small number of Broadway people who also belong to the film and TV writers union (including Kushner and Harris and company). Truly saving the Tonys would have involved... (read the rest at the link below) |
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