Why isn't there a Tony award for the best script of a play?

And if there is such an award, then I will use the powers of editing bestowed by Muriel to correct my question.

Maybe because there's a Pulitzer?

This thread sent me down a rabbit hole.

[quote]On July 1, 1955, while performing a scene in The Shrike that took place in a hospital, she collapsed on a bed, having died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Clark, ad-libbing, put his arm around Bonner and said "Ann, speak to me. Is something the matter? What's wrong, darling? I love you." Then, realizing something was wrong, he turned to the wings and said "Bring down the curtain." A film editor in the audience, Harold Cornsweet, later said of the ad-libbed scene: "It was so realistic that people in the audience were crying.

Because Shakespeare would keep winning it.

r3...

Yeah, there’s Best Play. I guess that means overall production, best words. This year Best Play nominations are English The Hills of California John Proctor Is the Villain Oh, Mary! Purpose. Best Direction of a Play has the first four, leaving out Purpose for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Nothing about the book or words in Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting Design, Sound Design which has picked up Stranger Things. No matter, I hope Best Play can be Oh, Mary! Or John Proctor Is the Villain. Both seem the fun shows of Broadway that’ll score big in future regional, college & community productions. The kind of show hinterland acting staffs want to put on.

Because they're theatre awards and you're awarding the production/dramatisation of the text, not the text itself. That would be a literary award.

*not the text alone, rather

Interesting, OP.

I often wondered something similar. Why isn't there an award for best song? Every new musical has a score of original songs. For many, most of the songs are unmemorable, but usually one or two sticks out. I can't thing of a single song from any musical in the past 10 or so years, but back in the 70s/80s, everybody knew "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line, "Ease on Down the Road" from The Wiz, and "Memory" from Cats. Sometimes, there are memorable songs from mediocre musicals, (none I can recall. Any Theatre Gossip posters here?).

It almost makes more sense for The Tonys to have that category than The Oscars.

r5 watching now ...

R7: "Because they're theatre awards and you're awarding the production/dramatisation of the text, not the text itself. That would be a literary award"

Then why give a score and book award for a musical? That's just awarding the word and notes - not the performance (which is given with best musical or revival)?

Once, and I think only once—in 1965, there was both an award for Best Author and Best Play. The Author award went to Neil Simon for The Odd Couple but Best Play was Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses. I guess this was considered an awkward distinction because by the next year the separate Author category was dropped, never to be seen again.

[quote] "Because they're theatre awards and you're awarding the production/dramatisation of the text, not the text itself. That would be a literary award"

The Academy Awards are film awards, yet they have screenplay awards.

r13 but to my point at r2, there is no Pulitzer category for screenplay.

R14 I don't see what a Pulitzer prize has to do with the Tonys. You're saying because a Pulitzer Prize exists, there doesn't need to be a Tony for writing. They're two completely different sets of awards. It's like saying the New York Film Critics give awards for acting, so the Oscars don't need to.

This Pulitzer argument confuses me too. Lin Manuel Miranda won a Pulitzer for his musical, HAMILTON. So if the writer of a musical can win both a Tony (or 2 Tonys if they write both the book and score) and Pulitzer, why can't the writer of a play do the same?

r15 my point is that when the Tonys were introduced in 1947, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama had already been around for about thirty years. A Tony award for best script of play may have been seen as gratuitous. After all, the Pulitzer had long been regarded as the definitive honor for dramatic writing.

The Pulitzer Prize is determined by a committe, the Tony is voted on by a larger group of theater professionals.

Anyway, doesn't Best PLay go to the authors of the play (along with the producers)?

"Of Thee I Sing" is a musical that won the Pulitzer in 1932.

Pulitzer winners.

What would you judge? It’s difficult to silo out the elements of a script apart from the impact of the play (which in itself is hard enough to judge comparatively). For example, some of the greatest moments in Angels in America are not the lines themselves, but the context or the action. Louis’ speech about America is as much about Belize enduring it, but you might not get that from reading the script.

The Best Play Tony is not a reflection on the quality of the production, direction, or acting. In fact, it really is the award that you say is missing.

"What would you judge?"

The same things Tony voters judge when they consider the merits of a musical's score or a musical's book separately from the musical overall. It's why SUFFS lost best musical but won book and score: there's something different there, and the Tony awards recognize it. For musicals.

Of course there should be an award to a playwright for the Best New Play. If you want, there can then be an award for Best Production of a Play. That makes the distinction clear that the first time you are awarding the words, and the second award is for the way it all comes together. There have been plenty of times its first production has not done justice to a new play and the poor author has had to go away unrewarded, through no fault of his own.

Saying the Tonys don't need such an award because there's a Pulitzer is like saying the Oscars don't need one of their awards because there's a category in the Golden Globes.

[quote]Saying the Tonys don't need such an award because there's a Pulitzer is like saying the Oscars don't need one of their awards because there's a category in the Golden Globes.

Not quite. Your analogy is like comparing the Nobel Peace Prize to Employee of the Month.

Only I can (and will) fix it, by Executive Order.

(R25)