The annual celebration of excellence on Broadway, the Tony Awards ceremony, will be broadcast Sunday night at 8 on CBS. Trophies and kisses will be handed out in some two-dozen categories, including outstanding lead and feature performances, scenic and costume design, choreography and score, play and musical.
Unfortunately, denizens of the Great White Way are so busy handicapping the nominees and debating the merits of this or that actor, this or that director they’ve utterly failed to take note of a serious omission in the list of contenders. They’re focusing on best show when, really, considering the Broadway season that just ended, theater geeks ought to be thinking in terms of best throw.
Consider the following: Cannons positioned at the front and the back of the house at the Palace Theater blast a confetti payload in the last moments of “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical,” a Tony nominee for best musical. As if that weren’t enough, cast members fling beach balls into the audience during the show’s curtain call. Beach balls also get heaved at the close of the Jimmy Buffett musical “Escape to Margaritaville.”
Meanwhile, despite the abundance of sunshine and the thaw at the end of “Frozen,” snowflakes, um, rain down on departing patrons. And the biographical jukebox show “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” ends with small gold paper discs wafting down from on high. I’m just imagining a preshow announcement borrowed from an airline: The 7 o’clock performance will be delayed for 20 minutes while our maintenance crews finish cleaning the front of the orchestra section.
The strewing of this litter may fall under the heading of “value added.” It’s a list that includes the post-show gab sessions known as “talk-backs,” but also such lagniappes as the cucumber sandwiches and small cakes offered to departing audiences by the performers during the 2010 Broadway run of “Brief Encounter,” the musicalized rethinking of the 1945 movie of the same name; the champagne-style bubbles released into the theater during the finale of the flat 2015 revival of “Gigi”; and, last season, the pierogies presented to patrons in the high-price seats during “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”
Or perhaps it fills a need for those people who want to be part of a show. If they’ve yet to experience their 15 minutes of fame, they can have 15 seconds of somehow feeling connected to the doings on stage even if it means getting beaned with a beach ball.
It may also be a way both for producers to justify the high ticket prices and for audiences to rationalize them. Cannons shooting confetti! Talk about bang for the buck.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when contented audiences at a musical left the theater humming the songs. Now they leave brushing off their sleeves, not—apologies to Cole Porter—brushing up their Shakespeare. “You come out on the street and find some confetti in your hair or purse and it’s a reminder of the night you had,” said Kyle Jarrow, the Tony-nominated librettist of “SpongeBob.”
That makes sense when you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party, but a Broadway show? Still, when you come right down to it, the beach balls and bits of colored paper seem to be about one thing and one thing only: theater for non-theatergoers—the children (and their parents) who would probably rather be at home watching the animated version of “Frozen” for the 100th (or 1,000th) time than the Broadway adaptation; Parrotheads who don’t require a storyline with their Jimmy Buffett tunes; fans of the Queen of Disco who prefer their hot stuff straight up.
“We’re living in a time when everyone has a library of every movie and TV show ever made at home,” Mr. Jarrow said. “To get people out to the theater you need to get them involved and to make the show feel like a party.”
Put that way, the possibilities seem endless. But why limit the party to musicals? The creative teams behind future productions might consider flinging bottles of hand soap at “Macbeth,” sweaty undershirts at “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and Bibles at “Inherit the Wind.”
The winner for best throw this particular Broadway season? Let’s just call it a toss-up.
—Ms. Kaufman writes about culture for the Journal.
Appeared in the June 6, 2018, print edition as 'Before You Clap, Duck.'