Tony Awards and Overdue factor

[Will42]

I could be totally wrong but it seems like the Tony voters just like the Emmy voters (hell, Angela Lansbury was nominated 18 and never won, Bill Maher is still 0-for-26) rarely if ever care about how many times an individual was nominated without ever winning. This year, for example, Audra McDonald is all but assured to win her record-tying 5 Tony at the very same moment when Jan Maxwell will become a 5-time Tony loser.

Can you name any examples when to your mind a performer won a Tony mostly due to his overdue status rather than the quality of his/her performance?

And speaking of losers, who holds the record for the most Tony nominations without a single win?

[hermajesty]

I think it's still an honor to be nominated though.

[Will42]

No question about it, 5 Tony nominations is certainly better than none, but I can�t blame people for wanting to finally win. 18+ nominations without a single win is just cruel and insane.

[Jay94]

Chita Rivera, The Rink

[Will42]

Speaking of Rivera, she�s one Tony nomination away from tying Julie Harris� record for the most nominated performer in Tony history with 10 nominations.

[MusicAndPassion]

Not quite as severe, but Kelli O'Hara will be 0-4 when Audra walks away with her deserved trophy on the 10th.

I think should be 2 for 3 at this point (Piazza, Pacific) but, hey, that's just my opinion.

[undercoveractor]

Graciella Danielle has been nominated 10 times and has never won....which is a shame. She has done some really stunning work in her long career.

[chewy5000]

The award is precede by "Best" for a reason. There shouldn't be any sort of sympathy vote.

[Will42]

I agree, but in this particular case Angela Lansbury most certainly deserved to win an Emmy if not for Murder, She Wrote, but for her guest starring turn in Law & Order: SVU in 2005. As for Audra McDonald, I�m sure she is wonderful in Porgy and Bess as reviews suggest, but since I haven�t seen the show I have no say whether she deserves to win or not.

[hermajesty]

There are times when the 'Angela Lansburys' have had all the awards coming. Here in the UK, such as Judi Dench, she has constantly been a favourite getting all the best jobs when there are thousands of others could do the same. Once 'flavour of the month' there's no stopping them, then even progressing to a Dame hood. They get cast in everything until one becomes fed up of seeing the same face.
It's lazy casting...let's use the same face, we know it's reliable etc

[Brian07663NJ]

Chewy5000...totally agree with you. It is an award for the Best that season. I also do not agree with an "overdue factor" - you either are or you are not "the best". You don't earn credits that carry forward because you lost a previous year. I do unfortunately think that there is (of course) favoritism towards particular performers but so is life. This happens with everything.

[Will42]

I can�t really tell if you are joking or being serious.

[henrikegerman]

Rosemary Harris, had she been nominated for Road to Mecca, would have tied Julie Harris's record 9 nominations for best actress in a play (Harris has an additional nomination for best actress in a musical, for Skyscraper; she lost to Lansbury in Mame).

I think Kelli O'Hara might well have won for South Pacific if Lupone's second win (for Gypsy) hadn't been so long overdue, and O'Hara would have very likely won if Lupone had gotten a recently well deserved win for Sweeney Todd (which she did not). I agree that Peters might well have won for Sunday if Rivera's win for The Rink hadn't been, in part, an award for her consistently wonderful work over the years (not to diminish Rivera's performance in The Rink).

I think the question is generally hard to answer because of the converse: the alchemy of who wins is often flavored by a deserving nominee having won recently.

In general, thought, I think the "it's about time" effect may be less significant than it is with the oscars; but let's face it, if the "it's about time" effect were that dispositive in the oscars, Garbo, Finney, O'Toole, Ritter, and Kerr (big time consistent oscar also rans and screen legends) would have gotten competitive oscars.

[givesmevoice]

Maybe I'm wrong, but even if LuPone had won Tonys for Anything Goes and Sweeney Todd, there's no way Kelli O'Hara's performance in South Pacific (which was vocally excellent but otherwise just good) would've earned her a Tony over LuPone's performance as Rose. The only nominee in that category I missed was Faith Prince, and I still think that after LuPone, the best performance was by Jenna Russell.

That being said, hasn't it been suggested by some here that LaChanze won more because the committee thought there was less of a chance of her coming back to Broadway in a major musical?

[Kad]

The Tonys don't typically reward because the performer is overdue as often as the Academy Awards does.

[henrikegerman]

Givesmevoice, it goes without saying that it's not a question of being right or wrong, but of taste and opinion. I loved O'Hara's Nellie, every single minute of it, and I recognize that, as with just about everything else in the world, others feel differently.

Then again, you probably meanT "maybe I'm wrong," in terms of the underlying theoretical question about that tony competition and how it might have been influenced by Lupone not having won since EVITA.

[mschwager]

I am hoping Cristin Milioti upsets them both. It was by far the best performance of the year.

[MusicAndPassion]

In response to LaChanze (who I thought was superb) it was the only win for The Color Purple.

Sometimes the Tonys must ask "How can we recognize this show?" and give honors away to the show/role rather than who was actually "the best." That's my theory, as I know the awards are somewhat based in politic$...

The film version of The Color Purple received 11 Oscar nominations and did not win any, tying the record for the most nominations without a win. The musical received 11 Tony nominations as well. How could the Tony voters repeat history with unlucky number 11?

Did LaChanze deserve to win? Perhaps not. Did the musical deserve to walk away empty handed? In the words of the show, "Hell no!"

[qolbinau]

The voters are all not sitting in a room talking about it in this way, are they?

Aren't they all voting independently?

If so, I find it hard to believe the "Tonys" can ask as a collective organisation "How can we recognise the show" or "who is overdue", the voters might independently think this though..

[broadwaydevil]

^Exactly Qolbinau. However, the same cannot be said for the nominating committee. The nominating committee does ultimately vote as well but it's a very small group and everyone knows the other members. They also have regular meetings throughout the season. Thus, it makes it very possible, in fact I'm almost positive, that there is discussion among the members about a performer being "overdue" for a nomination or strategic shutting out of certain shows/categories in the very political process.

However, aren't there thousands of voters? They never meet and while some may converse, there isn't some giant network of individuals all agreeing on how to vote. I think it's quite ludicrous to imagine the Tony voters bloc acting with a single conscience and motivation. The same cannot be said for the nominating committee.

[GlindatheGood22]

I was very surprised and disappointed when Greg Jbara won over Will Swenson for an absolutely forgettable performance in Billy Elliot. Was it because the old work horse was finally getting awarded? Who knows.

After seeing Porgy and Bess today, I can assert that Audra's performance was leagues better than Jan Maxwell's. It must be disappointing to get nominated so many times and never win, but that's the way things are, I guess. Hell, all the times I've tried lottery and never won, sometimes it makes me feel like screaming.

[Playbilly]

Not only should the performers be glad to get nominated, but glad to have gotten the gig in the first place! Awards are subjective and good for the ego and bank account, but not much else. As for Lansbury and Murder, She Wrote...her nominations were more of a gift than the losses were a snub.

[MrFerriero]

Douglas Carter Beane! This is his 4th nomination as Book Writer! His stuff is hilarious!

[bdn223]

DCB is going to get his Tony for Cinderella next year. I do think he is somewhat of a modern Arthur Laurents, in that the musicals he writes become DCB's Xanadu, Sister Act, Lysistrata Jones, rather than the composer's or atleast gets equal billing though that may be because Xanadu his first musical, well his first one on Broadway, was a semijukebox musical, (since it was basically allELO songs which were all written for the move, with a few exceptions).