Why the 2023 Tony Awards are hanging by a thread — and may not happen at all
nypost.com2023 Tony Awards telecast will go on as planned a month from now are slipping away fast, multiple sources told The Post.The complexities of the writers’ strike, which is still in its early days, have made it virtually impossible for the show, Broadway’s biggest promotional push of the year, to air on Sunday, June 11 on CBS.“The Tonys are hanging on by fingernails,” said a source familiar with the turmoil. “It’s a mess.” The American Theatre Wing and Broadway League, two trade organizations that put on the ceremony, are voting Friday to decide how to move forward.The Wing, I’m told, would prefer to postpone the broadcast — which is still set to take place at the United Palace in Washington Heights — until the strike is over.
That option would look something like when the 2020 Tony Awards finally went on in Sept. 2021, after theaters reopened from COVID shutdowns.The last writers strike in 2007-08 lasted a little more than three months.
The wait would be an eternity for struggling musicals and plays, and frankly many wouldn’t make it until then. Multiple productions are bleeding money in the lead-up to the awards show, in hopes the visibility might give them a boost at the box office.
By the fall, a few minutes of TV time won’t matter anymore. The League, meanwhile, is said to want the winners to be announced in some other manner on-schedule, like the Golden Globes did with a press conference due to the writers strike in 2008.
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