For obvious reasons, it’s been a weird and shortened Broadway season. Still, the 74th annual Tony Awards are soldiering on, celebrating the work of those productions that were able to put on shows before the March shutdown of New York’s theater district. That includes Jagged Little Pill, the musical based on Alanis Morissette’s iconic album of the same name, which leads the 2020 Tonys with 15 nominations. To be fair, there was a considerably smaller field this year than is typical. Because the pandemic forced Broadway’s shutdown, the cutoff date for Tony-eligible productions was bumped to February 19th, 2020. (Jagged Little Pill officially opened on Broadway in December of last year.) That meant that only 18 plays were eligible for nominations, down from 34 in 2019. There is also one fewer...
The trend at award shows these days as far as the number of nominees in marquee categories is go big or go home. The Emmy Awards bucked 60 years of tradition when they announced the nominees for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards on July 16, 2009. They unveiled seven nominees for each of what are widely seen as their top awards—outstanding comedy series and outstanding drama series. They had usually had five nominees in each of these categories. Six and a half months later, on Feb. 2, 2010, the Oscars took it even further when they announced the nominees for the 82nd annual Academy Awards. They unveiled 10 nominees for their flagship award, best picture, up from the usual five. They announced 10 nominees the following year as well. The Tony Awards have a much smaller field of potential nominee...