The 2023 Tony Awards were nearly canceled. Here’s how to watch the ceremony
The 2023 Tony Awards will celebrate the 2022-23 Broadway season, the first full season after the COVID-19 pandemic darkened stages for 18 months. For a period of 72 hours last month, there was an industrywide worry that it wouldn’t even happen at all.
With great relief to theatermakers and supporters, Broadway’s biggest night will take place as scheduled on Sunday, June 11. It will be broadcast live for the first time from United Palace, a historic venue located in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. A first round of honors — including the presentation of this year’s Regional Theatre Tony Award to the Pasadena Playhouse — will be awarded during a 90-minute preshow presentation, streaming for free on Pluto TV beginning at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time and hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin.
Pasadena Playhouse wins the Tony Award for regional theater excellence, becoming only the second Los Angeles institution to earn the honor and continuing its triumphant streak after years of turbulence.
This will be followed by the main ceremony, airing on CBS and Paramount+, starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Led by Ariana DeBose, the three-hour telecast will feature musical performances by this year’s nominated productions — “Camelot,†“Into the Woods,†“& Juliet,†“Kimberly Akimbo,†“New York, New York,†“Parade,†“Shucked,†“Some Like It Hot†and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street†— as well as performances by Tony winner Joaquina Kalukango, the casts of “A Beautiful Noise†and “Funny Girl.†There will also be a performance honoring this year’s recipients of the Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre: Joel Grey and John Kander.
The 76th Tony Awards is the first major awards show to be affected by Hollywood’s ongoing writers’ strike. The Tony Awards Management Committee and CBS initially canceled the telecast after the Writers Guild of America denied a request for a waiver that would have allowed the show’s producers to stage a live show without striking writers protesting outside the venue. After further negotiations, the WGA agreed to allow an altered version of the event to proceed without the threat of a picket line and air on CBS, which is part of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group with which the WGA has been at an impasse since May 2.
This year’s Tony nominations are led by the stage adaptation of “Some Like It Hot’’ with 13 nods, followed by the new musicals “& Juliet,†“Shucked†and “New York, New York,†each with nine nominations, and the critically lauded “Kimberly Akimbo†with eight. Additionally, J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell made history as the first nonbinary-identifying actors to be nominated for Tonys.
Among the Hollywood names who received nominations were Jessica Chastain, Ben Platt, Jodie Comer, Josh Groban, Samuel L. Jackson, Corey Hawkins, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sara Bareilles, Wendell Pierce and Sean Hayes.
The threat to this year’s Tonys underscored their sway over the industry. Some say making them the ‘be-all, end-all’ of shows’ survival is risky business.
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