Okay, so Iâve patiently waited all day after staying up for almost 5 hours to watch the Tonys last night, and I can finally have my say. Iâll be brutally honest, last night was a complete farse.
So first off, Im pretty sure the tonys are supposed to be this massive âBroadway comes together for one nightâ and, it has been that for the past shows, but this one was more âHamilton, starring other Broadwayâ, and donât get me wrong, I this Hamilton is a great musical, but last night was just over the top, as if they were trying to prove the point that Hamilton is the hot ticket on Broadway right now, which we all know with its 16 nominations and 11 tonys altogether. Just, as people had suspected, some of the amazing shows that are out right now, such as Waitress got overshadowed so much that I didnât even notice they were actually nominated for anything.
So my main upset is based around the Spring Awakening revival and the stupidly little representation it got. Let me tell you why 3 nominations and no awards is not right for such an amazing show.
Firstly, its a show that is simultaneously performed in two languages. There is a language in the choreography
It is only the second musical ever to have deaf actors, and the first broadway musical to have interpretation for deaf, blind, deaf-blind and hearing audiences.
The musical cast itself was incredibly diverse, with deaf and HOH people, the first woman on broadway in a wheelchair and POC.
The show itself focuses on so many issues that the modern youth has, including sex and the ignorance of its education, adults not listening to their childrenâs problems, underage sex, abortions, teenage pregnancy, child abuse, sexual abuse, depression, young people and their sexuality, gender, and with addition to the new cast we have language barriers, ignorance, disability and the Milan conference
The actors themselves were battling personal issues during the show, for example, Krysta Rodriguez was battling cancer during the whole run of the show, sometimes doing hours of chemo before a full show, 8 shows a week.
Now Iâm very biased about how great this show is, and none of the other nominees had this such a list that includes such an innovative show. This kind of representation is what people need now. When I showed the video of Touch Me to the kids I teach Musical Theatre, my two deaf and HOH kids faces lit up, because they saw this representation. They saw the sign language, their language, their community on the stage that they wanted to be on, and it lit that spark inside them.
Best revival wasnât the only Award they missed out on in my head. Best lighting, whilst seems like an unimportant award compared to the bigger ones, is so important to this show. The lighting visually makes up for any sound that anyone in the audience may not have been able to hear. And it wasnât even regular lighting. Its much more than that.
I feel like I donât need to say much about the Best Director award as it stands, but the âmistakeâ that CBS made to show Christopher Fitzgerald, who stars in Waitress in place of Michael Arden was incrediblyâŚstupid, really. The twitter account has since been active and there are no signs of apologies at all. To put it into the words of Michael himself âyou work your whole life to be on the Tony Awards and they show someone else when they call your name. Thanks CBS!" The team know each nominee by name and face, so what was the excuse for this? It makes me so angry that this company raised $200,000 to perform out of love, not for advertising to gain revenue, because the show closed. Doesnât that show how people had faith in this show? People donated their money and it all pooled together to get them on the Tonys.
But lets get back to representation. If the only Deaf production to be nominated for a Tony won nothing, how is that convincing producers to put on the show and others like it. What does this do for deaf representation?
This is all I have to say to be honest. I personally feel like Spring awakening was robbed and Hamilton was made to look super shady by overshadowing every musical.
 My ask box is open, join the debate!
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