Tony Awards broadcast can go ahead after striking writers’ union agrees

This year’s Tony Awards ceremony, which has been in doubt since Hollywood’s screenwriters went on strike earlier this month, will go ahead as scheduled in an altered format after the writers’ union said Monday night it would not pick up the show.

“As they have stood by us, we stand with our colleagues on Broadway who have been impacted by our strike,” the Writers Guild of America, which represents screenwriters, said in a statement late Monday.

The union made it clear that the broadcast, scheduled to air on CBS on June 11, would be different from previous ceremonies. But the union hasn’t made it clear what those differences would be, and Tony Awards administrators weren’t immediately commenting. The broadcast is still expected to feature awards honoring the best plays and musicals of the 2022-23 Broadway season, but it’s not clear how the musical numbers, which are a major marketing opportunity for many shows, will be affected.

“Tony Awards Productions (a joint venture of the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing) has communicated with us that they are modifying this year’s show to meet specific requests from the WGA, and therefore the WGA will not be taking the show. ” The union reports this in a statement. “The responsibility for having to make changes to the format of the 2023 Tony Awards rests entirely on Paramount/CBS and their allies. They continue to refuse to negotiate a fair contract for the writers represented by the WGA.

While the Tony Awards don’t generate huge ratings compared to other awards shows, the televised awards represent a critical marketing opportunity for the theater industry, which continues to pull well below prepandemic numbers.