Tony Nominations: Catered Affair Was Robbed

The Tony Nominations came out this morning, and I'll be spreading my observations out over the next few days.

But the first thing that I noticed was that Cry-Baby received nominations in the best musical, best score, and best book categories at the expense of a far superior show: A Catered Affair. The nomination committee evidently got a hair across its collective ass and decided to slight librettist Harvey Fierstein, composer/lyricist John Bucchino, and director John Doyle.

That's really a shame. Although I found Cry-Baby passable (read my review), I enjoyed A Catered Affair far more (read my review). I mean, how can you even compare John Bucchino's lovely score to that of whoever those guys are who wrote the forgettable Cry-Baby songs? Well, history will out, and I think we're going to see that in the long run Bucchino's stirring and heartfelt songs will stand the test of time. Cry-Baby, not so much. At least the stars of A Catered Affair got their well deserved nods for leading actor and actress: Tom Wopat and Faith Prince. Also nominated was the great Jonathan Tunick for his orchestrations.

Hey, it's a business, right? The Tony committee probably felt that Cry-Baby had a better chance of touring and would have a more lively number to present on the Tony television broadcast. I've long since given up the notion that the Tonys had anything to do with artistic merit. But they do mean business: shows that win Tony Awards tend to run longer. Which probably means that the delightful but admittedly slow-paced A Catered Affair is not long for this world.