We're looking forwards to the Tony Awards tomorrow evening if only to see what Neil Patrick Harris and his crew come up with this year. About the excerpts from current or recent productions, we are less enthused.
This was not a great season for Broadway. No show has had the impact of Book of Mormon or The Producers or even Spamalot. There's actually a bit more suspense than usual about who will win so if N.P.H. is doing one of those "recap" songs at the end, they've probably had to prepare more alternate lines than usual. Best New Musical seems to be a race between Matilda and Kinky Boots. Best Play could be Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike or Lucky Guy or maybe one or two others. Musical Revival looks like Pippin but Best Play Revival could be almost any of the nominees. And maybe the real suspense is in the category of Best Actor in a Play which appears to come down to a battle between two big stars, Tom Hanks and Nathan Lane. (I've seen none of these but then neither has 99% of the audience that might be tuning in to watch.)
According to this article, many Broadway theaters have been — or still are — empty, waiting for some show to have its act together enough to occupy their stages. This was not the case just a year or two ago. Every theater was booked solid and a lot of producers who tried to find a place to play couldn't. If the folks behind the musical of The Nutty Professor had their financing in place, they could have their pick of several fine houses in New York but obviously they don't…and if they don't now, it's hard to imagine when they would. The last we heard of that show was Jerry Lewis announcing anywhere that would listen to him that it would open on Broadway on July 15th, which of course ain't gonna happen. There are probably another fifty shows that were reportedly "Broadway-bound" in the last few years that never got there and never will. When it was difficult to get a theater, they had an excuse. Now, they don't.