Brits have made a good showing in the nominations for the Tony Awards, announced earlier this week with six shows that originated in London (or Chichester) picking up nearly a third of the total number of nominations to take 35 nods (out of the 112 in all). But with thirty more shows produced overall on Broadway in the season that the announcement of the nominations now brings to an end, that actually proves the disproportionate influence and quality of Brit-originated shows and/or personnel, that I previously noted on a Guardian blog here.
In fact, with ten other locally-produced new shows this season entirely snubbed in the nominations, the remaining 77 nominees are spread amongst the remaining 20 non-British born productions, though several of them again go to Brits in them, like Eve Best for The Homecoming and Ben Daniels for Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
But the frontrunners are Broadway’s own.
In the Heights, Passing Strange and South Pacific are the ones to beat on the new musical and revivals front, while August: Osage County leads the charge for plays. It should not therefore come as a big surprise to find few of the British nominations translating into wins in June.
Regardless of the eventual outcome, however, the nominations prove yet again that the seedbed of most of the productions being recognised originated beyond Broadway’s own commercial sector, even amongst local shows, like Passing Strange (7 nods), which began its development at Joe’s Pub, part of the downtown Public Theatre complex. In the Heights (13) was also first produced off-Broadway and Gypsy (7) began as a part of the Encores! concert series at City Center last summer; while August: Osage County (7) came from Chicago’s Steppenwolf.
All but one of the six British productions didn’t come from the West End, either, but are yet another testament to the vitality of our fringe, regional and subsidised sector network. Sunday in the Park with George began at Southwark’s entirely unsubsidised Menier Chocolate Factory, and as Daniel Evans, its Tony-nominated star, said on hearing the news, “We started in London in 2005 at the equivalent of an off-off-off-OFF Broadway venue playing to 150 people, and were paid almost no money and had no resources. Then we transferred to the West End and then crossed the pond to Broadway. So when I see today that we’ve got nine Tony nominations? Just the journey of where we began and where we’ve ended up is an amazing story, and one that means so very much to me.”
Also now on Broadway, The 39 Steps began at Leeds and then went to London’s fringe Tricycle; Macbeth began at Chichester’s studio Minerva Theatre last summer before transferring to the West End; and Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer respectively began at the Royal Court and National’s Cottesloe. And transferring to Broadway, they reached it as tried and already-tested commodities - unlike the trying behemoths of the locally-produced biggest shows of the year, Young Frankenstein and The Little Mermaid, that were all but cut out of the big award races. Broadway is discovering that small can be beautiful - and that London, as usual, can be the place to find it.
And while everyone gears up for the Tony’s, hardly a day seems to go by without one of the other awards ceremonies announcing their nominations - or, in the case of the Theatre World awards that honours those making their New York theatre debuts - the actual winners. Congratulations for these are due to Ben Daniels, Jenna Russell and Mark Rylance, respectively appearing on Broadway in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Sunday in the Park with George and Boeing-Boeing, amongst the winners announced yesterday.
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