Although organizers obviously can't dole out tickets to the Tony Awards to just anyone, this year they tried to do the next best thing: produce a live simulcast for a packed crowd of over 1,000 in the heart of Times Square Sunday night, just a few blocks away from the show's home at Radio City Music Hall.
The free public screening hosted by CBS TV's Katie McGee included a live airing of the creative arts awards (which were not televised) at 7 p.m., a complete screening of the awards ceremony from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., and several hundred surprisingly comfortable chairs assembled in and around Duffy Square. All of the action at Radio City played out on the Clear Channel Spectacolor HD screen, rigged with crisp audio for the occasion.
Broadway League executive director Charlotte St. Martin knows theater is often seen as a rarefied art form created for, and consumed by, a small, privileged group. "We do a number of things geared toward changing that impression," she said two days before this year's Tonys, which the League produces in conjunction with the American Theatre Wing. "The primary mission of the Broadway League is to make theater accessible to everyone."
"That Clear Channel wanted to do this is pretty extraordinary," said American Theatre Wing executive director Howard Sherman, remarking on the relative ease of pulling the event together. "It wasn't a case of we had to labor and pitch them. They saw the value in making this available." St. Martin noted the perks of the ongoing partnership between the Broadway League and the Times Square Alliance, which helped secure approvals and permits for the event.
Plenty of tourists and local alike took advantage of the screening, the free place to sit, or both, and the Tony simulcast became, coincidentally, one of the first events to take place in the newly redesigned, pedestrian-friendly Times Square. "The timing of the city's plan was extremely fortuitous," said Sherman, who reported that St. Martin had hoped to stage a simulcast in the center of the theater district for years.
Both execs expressed the desire to make the live screening an annual eventthat grows in size each year, and enlisted traditional media, as well as Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about the live screening.
