It’s been a terrible year for original musicals on Broadway.
“Lost Boys,” “Beaches,” carrying the cake across Central Park, and so on barely hold a candle to last year’s Best Musical, “Maybe Happy Ending.”
“Titanique” and “Schmigadoon” are parody shows, like “Forever Broadway.”
So the Drama Critics Circle, a group of top critics, just dropped Best Musical altogether. The Tony Awards should do the same.
There’s no Best Musical this year. Makes sad sense.
The Drama Critics Circle chose the Scott Rudin produced “Little Bear Ridge Road” as Best Play, which also addresses the paucity in that category.
They gave Best Overall performance in any show to Alden Ehrenreich, who makes “Becky Shaw” so sensational. I’m so thrilled for Alden, who went from one sketchy movie to another in Hollywood. He could easily win the Tony this year.
The Drama Critics also gave Best Ensemble to Rudin’s “Death of a Salesman” revival. Is it deserved? Sure, even though I would have chosen “Becky Shaw.”
These people must really want to have dinner with Scott Rudin, who was canceled four years ago by the Broadway community for severely bad behavior toward his employees, actors in his shows, and people he encountered along the way.
As for the new musicals: something had better be done about the price of producing shows, and the tickets. It’s all gotten way out of control. One major investor told me she couldn’t put money into this year’s shows because it didn’t make sense financially. She was right.
PS “Beaches” will likely close long before the Tony Awards on June 7th,
