The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The ceremony is usually held in June.
The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award.
The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton. They are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry, an actress, producer, theatre director and administrator who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel.
The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document "Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards", which applies for that season only. The Tony Awards are the New York theatre industry's equivalent to the Emmy Awards for television, the Grammy Awards for music, and the Academy Awards (Oscars) for film. A person who has won all four is said to have won the EGOT. The Tony Awards are the U.S. equivalent of the United Kingdom's Laurence Olivier Awards, France's Molière Awards, Spain's Premios Max, Australia's Helpmann Awards and Russia's Golden Mask.
As of 2014, there were 26 categories of awards, in addition to several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years. Some examples: the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called "Best Author (Musical)". The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards. For two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer (Dramatic) and Best Costume Designer (Musical). It then went to a single category, but in 2005 it was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a single category was for directors of plays and musicals prior to 1960.
A then-newly established non-competitive award, the Isabelle Stevenson Award, was given for the first time at the awards ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a "substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations".
The category of Best Special Theatrical Event was retired as of the 2009–2010 season. The categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014–2015 season.
On April 24, 2017, the Tony Awards administration committee announced that the Sound Design Award would be reintroduced for the 2017–2018 season.
The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing (ATW), headed by Brock Pemberton. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, "At [Warner Bros. story editor] Jacob Wilk's suggestion, [Pemberton] proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting and technical achievement. At the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony. The name stuck." Nevertheless, the awards were sometimes referred to as the "Perry Awards" in their early years.
The 1st Tony Awards was held on April 6, 1947, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. The first prizes were "a scroll, cigarette lighter and articles of jewelry such as 14-carat gold compacts and bracelets for the women, and money clips for the men". ATW co-founder Louise Heims Beck was responsible for overseeing the organization of the first awards. It was not until the third awards ceremony in 1949 that the first Tony medallion was given to award winners.
Since 1967, the award ceremony has been broadcast on U.S. national television and includes songs from the nominated musicals, and occasionally has included video clips of, or presentations about, nominated plays. The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League jointly present and administer the awards. Audience size for the telecast is generally well below that of the Academy Awards shows, but the program reaches an affluent audience, which is prized by advertisers. According to a June 2003 article in The New York Times: "What the Tony broadcast does have, say CBS officials, is an all-important demographic: rich and smart. Jack Sussman, CBS's senior vice president in charge of specials, said the Tony show sold almost all its advertising slots shortly after CBS announced it would present the three hours. 'It draws upscale premium viewers who are attractive to upscale premium advertisers,' Mr. Sussman said..."
The viewership has declined from the early years of its broadcast history. For example, the number of viewers in 1974 was 20 million; in 1999, it was 9.2 million. For most of the 2000s, viewership was between six and eight million viewers. In contrast, the 2009 Oscar telecast had 36.3 million viewers. From 1987 to 2004, the award ceremony was represented by long-time Broadway press agency, Keith Sherman & Associates. Since 2003, all Tony Awards ceremonies have ended with the Tony Award for Best Musical.
The Tony Award medallion was designed by art director Herman Rosse and is a mix of mostly brass and a little bronze, with a nickel plating on the outside; a black acrylic glass base, and the nickel-plated pewter swivel. The face of the medallion portrays an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks. Originally, the reverse side had a relief profile of Antoinette Perry; this later was changed to contain the winner's name, award category, production and year. The medallion has been mounted on a black base since 1967.
A larger base was introduced and first presented in the 2010 award ceremony. That base is slightly taller – 5 inches (13 cm), up from 3+1⁄4 inches (8.3 cm) – and heavier – 3+1⁄2 pounds (1.6 kg), up from 1+1⁄2 pounds (680 grams). This change was implemented to make the award "feel more substantial" and easier to handle at the moment the award is presented to the winners, according to Howard Sherman, the executive director of the American Theatre Wing:
We know the physical scale of the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys. While we're not attempting to keep up with the Joneses, we felt this is a significant award, and it could feel and look a bit more significant... By adding height, now someone can grip the Tony, raise it over their head in triumph and not worry about keeping their grip. Believe me, you can tell the difference.
For the specific Tony Awards presented to a Broadway production, awards are given to the author and up to two of the producers free of charge. All other members of the above-the-title producing team are eligible to purchase the physical award. Sums collected are designed to help defray the cost of the Tony Awards ceremony itself. An award cost $400 as of at least 2000, $750 as of at least 2009, and, as of 2013, had been $2,500 "for several years", according to Tony Award Productions.
Source: Tony Awards Official Site, Rules
Rules for a new play or musical