The Tony nominations were announced today! Don’t you just love how the Broadway awards season sneaks up on you? One minute you’re reading about the new show opening and the next the Tony nominations have descended on you. ANyways, here are the Tony nominations with a few thoughts on specific races. Best Musical “The Band’s
So much is discussed in this ep including but not limited to Hamilton and the history of game changing musicals, the premieres of Empire and Scream Queens, and get you primed for Oscar season. //html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/3825996/height/360/width/640/theme/legacy/direction/no/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/
So something kind of wonderful happened on last night’s Tony Award telecast. Amidst the wonderful opening number and raucous atmosphere, history was made: two women (Pam MacKinnon and Dianne Paulus) won the directing prizes, Cyndi Lauper became the first woman to win for Best Original Score without a writing partner, and four out of the eight acting winners were African American. Wait, what? Yes, the Tonys became the anti-Oscars, with women and minorities just winning every damn where. It was a wonder to behold not only for the sheer weight of the occasion, but because it didn’t feel out of place or momentous, just felt like the right people won. After doing the latest Awards Circuit podcast where in the subject of race came up and spurned on by a colleague’s great analysis of sexism within the Academy, I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think Hollywood is severely behind in terms of equality.
So something kind of wonderful happened on last night’s Tony Award telecast. Amidst the wonderful opening number and raucous atmosphere, history was made: two women (Pam MacKinnon and Dianne Paulus) won the directing prizes, Cyndi Lauper became the first woman to win for Best Original Score without a writing partner, and four out of the eight acting winners were African American. Wait, what? Yes, the Tonys became the anti-Oscars, with women and minorities just winning every damn where. It was a wonder to behold not only for the sheer weight of the occasion, but because it didn’t feel out of place or momentous, just felt like the right people won. After doing the latest Awards Circuit podcast where in the subject of race came up and spurned on by a colleague’s great analysis of sexism within the Academy, I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think Hollywood is severely behind in terms of equality.
One of the best things about the advent of this here internet is that it opens the airwaves for dialog and opinions of people you would never have heard of without it. It’s how I ended up writing for Awards Circuit and also how I discovered the Operation Kino podcast. For those of you un familiar with OpKino, it’s a podcast that features four film writers, Da7E from Latino-Review, David Ehrlich from Film.com, Katey Rich from Cinema Blend, and Matt Patches of Hollywood.com. On a recent Tuesday episode, they spoke about scarcity in art and it’s merits. It was a fascinating discussion, a topic I’ve often thought about and it seemed like an interesting place to start a discussion.