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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to Tony Telecasts from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Mo Brady.

[0:13] Aaron Albano: And I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:21] Mo Brady: Welcome listeners to a new miniseries.

[0:25] Mo Brady: In this new miniseries, we are bringing you all the drama behind the drama of a theater season in Broadway history. In each podcast episode, we will watch a telecast of a previous Tony Awards and then delve into the theater season by discussing a few things. The nominations. The telecast. The season that year. The winners. The losers. The overlooked. And maybe more. The possibilities are endless.

[0:50] Aaron Albano: Endless.

[0:51] Mo Brady: So tell me, Mo, why Tony Telecasts?

[0:55] Aaron Albano: Alright, this was my idea that I pitched to you. And I was living. And here's what I was thinking. The Tony Awards is perhaps the one moment each year where the most theater fans from around the world come together to watch something.

[1:09] Mo Brady: Uh huh.

[1:10] Aaron Albano: That's real. Even in this world of DVRs and second screens, award telecasts like the Tony Awards are some of the very few things that we all watch at the same time.

[1:20] Mo Brady: Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, those of us who live in this will watch it just the same way that like people who aspire to do this or are husbands of people who aspire to do this will be watching it as well.

[1:34] Aaron Albano: And yet what I think is really interesting is that how we in the industry watch is different from even the most avid theater fans.

[1:42] Mo Brady: Absolutely. That's very true. And what happens in these Tony Award performances becomes Broadway history. You know, what happens in the theater eight shows a week is more of what actually a show is. And yet this three-minute commercial for a show or this one acceptance speech or this one opening number can really become kind of written in stone testament of what Broadway was like at that point.

[2:10] Aaron Albano: Yeah, I totally agree. It becomes sort of the history, especially like pre this YouTube era. This was the documentation of our industry. It was Tony's, maybe some commercials and that's it.

[2:24] Mo Brady: Yeah. Maybe like an Ed Sullivan show appearance, but yeah, like a Johnny Carson show and L. Sullivan show. But like, that's all you get. So this is truly if you didn't get to do any of that stuff outside of Wikipedia, you're wiped from the face of everybody's memory. If a Broadway show fell in a forest and there was no Tony telecast performance, oh, crap. Did it make a sound?

[2:44] Aaron Albano: Wow. Dark.

[2:49] Mo Brady: And so yes, the Tony Awards are the most remembered kind of testament of any theater season. And yet there's so much work and politics. It's the most scrutinized and labored over three hours of the entire year.

[3:08] Aaron Albano: The entire year. Every Broadway musical knows that the Tony Awards is their biggest chance to reach into potential audiences' homes and convince them to spend money on their show. It's basically a commercial disguised in a celebration of excellence. Not that it's not a celebration of excellence, but there's absolutely that commercial aspect to it. And that's how the Tony Awards differs from other award shows.

[3:34] Mo Brady: I don't think that people watch the Oscars and think, oh, I'm going to see a snippet of a movie that I may want to watch.

[3:43] Aaron Albano: Right?

[3:44] Mo Brady: Yeah. That's just a commercial.

[3:46] Aaron Albano: Yeah. That's just a trailer.

[3:48] Mo Brady: Yeah. But this is the Tony Awards are Broadway's trailers just all lined up.

[3:55] Aaron Albano: Absolutely.

[3:56] Mo Brady: Okay. So I remember like, I remember when you when you approached me with this idea and I was I loved it. I thought it was awesome. I thought it was a really interesting, especially coming off of, hey, listeners, for those of you who missed our episode by episode recap of Broadway's Love Letter Smash, you can go back. We've only been doing it for a year. You can go back. It is all there on the Ensemblist feed. Have fun. You can find episodes on the NBC app or on NBC.com.

[4:29] Aaron Albano: But coming off of that, because that show ended with the Tonys, it was such an interesting look at sort of this presentation to the masses of what this ceremony is to the industry itself. And again, we talked about how what it got right, what it got wrong. But it was such an interesting look that carrying that sort of into the actual Tony telecast, I was like, that could be a really interesting sort of analysis of each year, the shows of that year. Because again, like you said, this is the one sort of glimpse the rest of the world gets and arguably even the industry gets from the season of Broadway that year.

[5:17] Mo Brady: Like it's not like the Emmys where season seven of the West Wing can get another Emmy nomination, even though you had like seasons one through six and have arguably like more seasons to watch. Once a show gets nominated, it can't get nominated again. A replacement can't get nominated. This is it. And this is the one shot. Because again, also with Oscars, with Emmys, even with Grammys, like you, these things are in people's homes. These things are in people's hometowns. Tonys are specifically in New York. Like nothing's touring before the Tonys. Tonys are the signal on whether that show's going to get the tour.

[5:56] Aaron Albano: Escape to Margaritaville toured before the Tonys.

[5:59] Mo Brady: Okay, great. Well, thank you for disproving my entire idea.

[6:05] Aaron Albano: But they didn't perform on the Tonys.

[6:06] Mo Brady: So to bring it up. But again, but those are movies. Those are movies. Bring it on. Those are movies. And so those are known quantities. This was a time like to go back farther than like 2015. Like these are shows that people don't know yet. Had Rent not done well on the Tonys, Rent would not become what Rent is. If Lion King did not get the exposure it did on the Tonys, no one would know the spectacle of Circle of Life. And they'd say, I could just watch the movie that I have in my clamshell VHS tape.

[6:45] Aaron Albano: And so it's interesting just to examine because in that vein, what gems are lost to time? And that's what excited me most about this idea. Because I remember I asked you, I was like, is this us watching the Tony performances? Or is this us watching like the entire three-hour ceremony? And you said, oh, no, this is the ceremony. Because you and I, you and I. We're not going to be settled with just like performances that we could watch at like Musical Mondays at Splash. RIP Splash.

[7:20] Mo Brady: No, I think that what is interesting to you and I about watching the Tonys is seeing how much of a testament it was for the theater season as a whole. That's what takes it beyond watching performances at a karaoke bar, you know?

[7:39] Aaron Albano: Yeah. And we can watch who won stuff and who they thanked. And especially where we are right now, what the demographic was of that season. And get to sort of as spectators and sort of analysts, like just ponder why things were the way they were back in 1984, 1997. Like all of these things that, contrary to popular belief, we weren't around yet for. And so it could be fun to sort of like, look at those from a more analytical and speculative point of view while still loving the industry that we love so well.

[8:22] Mo Brady: Yes.

[8:23] Aaron Albano: Mm-hmm. I think it'll be cool. So let's talk about how this is going to work.

[8:28] Mo Brady: Okay.

[8:29] Aaron Albano: Okay. In the week prior, you and I, Aaron, are going to randomly select a Tony Awards telecast to watch on YouTube.

[8:35] Mo Brady: Yes.

[8:38] Aaron Albano: So we will have the following week to research that season and then to bring our most surprising findings about the telecast and how it did and didn't reflect that year on Broadway.

[8:49] Mo Brady: Perfect. So let's select our very first Tony telecast. Now I've put a handful of infamous Tony seasons on pieces of paper in this basket.

[8:58] Aaron Albano: Listen to it, Russell.

[9:00] Mo Brady: And now—

[9:01] Aaron Albano: That's audio.

[9:02] Mo Brady: That is the—

[9:03] Aaron Albano: This is real.

[9:04] Mo Brady: We only deal with real authentic content here. And now I am going to randomly select one of our, one of these years to explore for our first full episode. Mo, if you could give me a drumroll, please.

[9:17] Mo Brady: Okay.

[9:18] Aaron Albano: So. Our first Tony Award ceremony that we will be watching is from 1991.

[9:21] Mo Brady: Oh!

[9:22] Aaron Albano: This is a good one.

[9:23] Mo Brady: This is a good one.

[9:24] Aaron Albano: 1991.

[9:25] Mo Brady: I don't remember anything about—

[9:26] Aaron Albano: Do you know—

[9:27] Mo Brady: Before we even, like, research, do you know what year it is?

[9:28] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:29] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:30] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:31] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:32] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:33] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:34] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:35] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:36] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:37] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:38] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:39] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:40] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:41] Mo Brady: I don't.

[9:42] Aaron Albano: I don't.

[9:43] Mo Brady: Before we even, like, research, do you know anything about 1991? Go.

[9:44] Aaron Albano: This is an epic one. This is the year of Miss Saigon, The Secret Garden, The Will Rogers Follies, and Once on this Island.

[9:52] Mo Brady: Work!

[9:53] Aaron Albano: It's that year?

[9:54] Mo Brady: Okay, firstly, round of applause for pulling that off of the top of your head.

[9:58] Aaron Albano: It's epic!

[9:59] Mo Brady: That was an epic Broadway season.

[10:00] Aaron Albano: I can only imagine. Because that's—

[10:02] Mo Brady: Okay. We'll save that for next week.

[10:04] Aaron Albano: Yeah, we'll save it for next week. To join us for our first Tony recap, be sure to watch the 1991 Tony Awards by searching for them on YouTube.

[10:12] Aaron Albano: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano.

[10:16] Mo Brady: And me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and the second is by becoming a Patreon member at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[10:29] Aaron Albano: Please follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network. You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, everybody. Until next time.