The two performances Broadway’s raving about — Glenn Close in “Sunset Boulevard” and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Sunday in the Park With George” — are ineligible for Tony Awards.
For Close, it’s the rule. For Gyllenhaal, it’s the money.
Close won the Tony in the role of faded movie queen Norma Desmond in 1995, and therefore can’t be nominated again. Fair enough. But for the record, while she was terrific in 1995, she’s even more terrifying — and heartbreaking — now. The opening night audience gave her a standing ovation after “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” perhaps the greatest showstopper to come out of the musical theater in the 1990s. At every performance since the reviews appeared last week, people have been standing and cheering after “With One Look” as well.
The only critic I can find who dinged Close’s performance is Jesse Green of New York magazine. Jesse’s a good critic and a friend, but on this one he’s as brain-dead as Norma’s pet monkey.
Close can’t get another Tony, but she’s already being wooed to perform “As If We Never Said Goodbye” on the June 11 telecast on CBS.
If Gyllenhaal were eligible, he’d certainly give Ben Platt, excellent in “Dear Evan Hansen,” and Andy Karl, great fun in “Groundhog Day,” some heated competition. But the producers of “Sunday in the Park With George,” which opens next week at the refurbished Hudson Theatre, have decided to fatten their bank accounts instead.
I don’t blame them. “Sunday” is playing a limited 10-week engagement, painting its last dot April 23. To be eligible for Tony Awards, the producers would have to provide nearly 1,600 free tickets to voters (each gets a pair). That’s nearly $300,000 chucked out the window for the chance to win some awards for a show that will have closed a month before the ceremony.
It just doesn’t make sense to give that many free tickets away
Some voters are irate. One told me: “This is about people’s careers and exposure. You don’t open a brand-new theater, produce a multimillion-dollar musical and then look to save money on Tony tickets. It’s disrespectful to the director, the creative team and, most of all, the actors.”
Well, voters had better get used to it. More and more, I’m hearing that producers of limited-run shows are going to start grabbing the cash instead of the Tony.
“It just doesn’t make sense to give that many free tickets away — all good seats — if you’re only running for three months,” says one producer.
And what of the actors and the creative team? Don’t they want — and deserve — a Tony on their shelves?
Not necessarily. Their paychecks are often tied to the box-office receipts, so they, too, lose money on all those freebie Tony tickets.
Gyllenhaal, sources say, was fine with the decision not to invite voters — he stands to make a nice packet in “Sunday,” since the show, with nearly $7 million in the bank, is almost sold-out.
Close should be pleased with her box office as well. “Sunset” opened with a $6 million advance, and sold another $500,000 worth of tickets the day the reviews came out. She’s already extended her run by four weeks, and there’s talk of another extension through the end of the summer.
What of possible replacements? It would be fun to see Betty Buckley, Elaine Paige and Petula Clark swing by. They all played the part during the original Broadway run. Bernadette Peters, who was at the opening, could do it, too.
But here’s a thought I ran by Close at the opening-night party. Would she be willing to step aside just once so the stage manager can announce, “At this performance, the role of Norma Desmond, normally played by Glenn Close, will be played by . . . Patti LuPone”?
Close threw back her head and roared.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
