The date for the Tony Awards ceremony still remains unknown, as organizers plan for a digital ceremony during the industrywide shutdown.
Though the Tony Awards had originally announced that a ceremony would take place late this fall, that timeline was based on the assumption that productions would be able to resume in March 2021, Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, said at the Theatermakers Summit Monday. Now that many shows are eyeing a return in fall 2021, St. Martin said Tony Award presenters have more time to create the digital ceremony.
“We don’t have a decision date yet,” St. Martin said in a discussion with SiriusXM host Julie James. “Since we’re not opening in March, we have more planning time.”
St. Martin said the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, which co-present the Tony Awards, are working with CBS, the traditional broadcast partner of the Tony Awards, as well as producers of the Tony Awards to determine what the ceremony will look like during the pandemic.
“Our timeline has always been fluid and the partners are working together to create the best possible Tony Awards in the tradition of the brand,” a spokesperson for the Tony Awards wrote in a statement to Broadway News.
Nominations for the 2020 Tony Awards were announced Oct. 15, but no further details on the ceremony or the Tonys voting process have been released. The nominating committee considered 18 productions from the 2019-2020 season, after setting an eligibility cut-off date of Feb. 19, 2020.
The Tony Awards made the initial announcement about a forthcoming digital ceremony on Aug. 21. The ceremony was originally scheduled to take place at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, but was postponed after theaters shut down in March 2020.
