How American Playwrights Saved the Tony Awards

Martyna Majok, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was revising her musical adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” after a long day at a development workshop when she heard the news: The union representing striking screenwriters would not grant an exemption for the Tony Awards, jeopardizing this year’s broadcast.

So at three in the morning she put aside her script to join a group of playwrights who frantically wrote emails and made phone calls to leaders of the Writers Guild of America, urging the union to pandemic-stricken theater industry not to cause collateral damage in a Hollywood dispute. “I had to try it,” she said.

Surprising even themselves, the army of artists succeeded. The screenwriters’ union agreed to a compromise: it said it wouldn’t put up with the ceremony as long as the show didn’t rely on a written script.

“Theatre is having a very hard time recovering from the devastating effects of the pandemic — shows are struggling and non-profit theaters are having a really hard time,” said Tony Kushner, who is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest living playwrights, and is, like many of his colleagues, also a screenwriter. “Ethically and morally, this felt like an acknowledgment of the particular fragility of the theater industry. It is the right thing to do and it costs us nothing.”

Best known for the Pulitzer-winning play “Angels in America,” Kushner is an ardent supporter of the strike who freely denounces the “undesirable greed” of studio bosses and appeared on a picket line as soon as it began. But he spent a weekend calling and writing to union leaders in both New York and Los Angeles, urging them to find a way to make the Tony Awards happen, arguing that canceling them would have been much more damaging for theater performers than for CBS, which broadcasts the event.

He was among a number of acclaimed playwrights—including David Henry Hwang and Jeremy O. Harris—who spent a weekend calling and emailing labor leaders. At least half a dozen Pulitzer winners joined the cause, including Lynn Nottage (“Sweat” and “Ruined”), Quiara Alegría Hudes (“Water by the Spoonful”), David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole”), Donald Margulies (“Dinner with Friends”) and Majok (“Cost of Living”).

Majok, who herself is a first-time Tony nominee for ‘Cost of Living’ this year, said: ‘I approached them with respect and gratitude for everything they’ve done for me,’ she said, ‘but this decision had such a lot of impact from my colleagues and friends deep down, in an industry that is still struggling financially.

Writers are never the star attraction at the Tony Awards. The annual ceremony revolves around musical theatre, hoping that dazzling song and dance numbers will inspire viewers to get off their couches and hit Broadway. The broadcast often struggles to portray serious drama.

But playwrights say they cherish the Tonys because the ceremony introduces new audiences to theatre. “Somehow it’s all connected,” Kushner said.

And for once, playwrights really had the power, because in recent years, as the number of scripted series exploded on television and streaming services, many of them have also taken jobs in film and television, which pay much better than the theater industry. Many of the playwrights concerned about the Tony Awards were also Writers Guild members – some quite successful, such as Kushner, who wrote the scripts for Steven Spielberg’s ‘Munich’, ‘Lincoln’, ‘West Side Story’ and ‘The Fablemans’. and Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote “The Waverly Gallery” for the stage and “Manchester by the Sea” for the screen.

“Most playwrights are WGA members, because they have to earn a living and get health insurance,” said Ralph Sevush, executive director of business affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America, a trade association of theater writers. “And yes, many of them lobbied the WGA a lot to find a way to get the broadcast going.”

The screenwriters’ union was torn over whether or not to support the Tony Awards, with its eastern branch, filled with playwrights more sympathetic than its affiliated western branch, which is more Hollywood-focused. It has not gone unnoticed that many theater workers have vocally supported the writers’ strike, including Kate Shindle, the president of the Actors’ Equity Association, who has brought members of her union to the picket lines and spoken to the heads of both. branches of the screenwriters guild.

“There was no master strategy involved — we just stood up for the writers,” said Shindle. “But I’m happy with the way it seems like a decision has been made: writers talking to each other and debating what feels like the right thing to do.”

The Tony’s probably seem to be a rare exception. In the days following the greenlight of the theatrical awards, this year’s Peabody Awards, a tribute to storytelling in electronic media, were presented. cancelledand the Daytime Emmy Awards, which honor work in television postponed.

Asked about the decision, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vice president of the screenwriters guild’s eastern branch, offered an emailed statement saying in part, “We recognize the devastating impact the absence of a Tonys would have on our theater community in New York. Here in WGA East, we have a lot of members who are playwrights, and we’re deeply entwined with our sister unions whose members work in theater.

Playwrights weren’t actually the first choice of Broadway boosters who devised strategies to save the Tonys – at first, industry leaders thought they might look to prominent politicians and famous actors to make their case. But they soon realized that playwrights, because of their ties to the WGA, were better placed to influence the discussion. Harris, who wrote “Slave Play,” and Gina Gionfriddo (“Rapture, Blister, Burn”) gathered writers for the cause, along with agent Joe Machota, head of theater for Creative Artists Agency.

This year, they argued, would be a particularly unfortunate time to cut the Tony Awards.

Broadway attendance and overall grosses remain well below prepandemic levels, and new musicals are struggling — four of the five nominated shows lose money most weeks.

Unlike the Oscars, which generally take place after the theatrical screenings of nominated films, the Tonys take place early in the run of most nominated musicals so they can translate into ticket sales. The Tonys matter to plays in another way: nominations and wins have a huge impact on how often those works are performed, read and taught.

“People who don’t work in playwriting don’t always have a real understanding of how important Broadway is to Off Broadway and to regional theater – they really are a beacon to the community as a whole, and even if you don’t care about the glitz and glamour, if they start losing money, it affects the whole country,” said Tanya Barfield, a playwright and television writer who co-directs the playwriting program at Juilliard.

After learning that her union had denied an exemption to the Tony Awards, a “heartbroken” Barfield joined a picket line with a homemade “I ❤️ the Tony Awards” sticker on her WGA sign. And she wrote union leaders. “We wanted to make sure theaters didn’t fall victim,” she said.

Another concern: This year’s Tony Awards have an unusually diverse group of nominees, reflecting the increasingly diverse array of shows staged on Broadway since 2020. Five of this year’s nominated new plays and revivals are by black writers; four of the five Best Actor in a Play nominees are black; the top-scoring category includes an Asian-American female for the first time; and the acting nominees include two performers who don’t conform to gender and a woman who has a double amputation.

“We need to show what we’ve seen with the diverse talent and rich stories over the years,” said Majok.

The Tonys will be different this year. The event will take place as scheduled at the United Palace in Upper Manhattan, with a live audience, live performances of musical numbers from nominated shows, and the presentation and acceptance of awards. But there will be no script material (a draft script was submitted, but it will not be used) and no script opening number (Lin-Manuel Miranda planned to write one). Ariana DeBose, the Oscar-winning actress who has been named host for the second year in a row, is still expected to participate, but it is not clear what role she will play.

A new element expected at this year’s ceremony? Shout-outs to the standout screenwriters. Hwang, a WGA member who called and emailed union leaders asking them to reconsider their position on the Tonys, said: “I expect there will be a lot of speeches on Tony night expressing our appreciation and support for the guild. “