Producers do all they can with tickets, parties and swag to woo voters and then hold their breath for the entire program (if you saw any people in the audience of the Tony Awards with blue faces – they were producers).  Because some shows need the Tony boost to stay open the awards presentations are all important for their marketing.  Lack of nominations already saw closing notices posted for Escape to Margaritaville (as I had predicted) and Children of a Lesser God.  I always watch Tuesday evening after the awards as closing notices are often posted then.  I have seen no new closing notices which is a testament to the growing sophistication of Broadway Producers to manage their product and control their fates better than their predecessors.  A great contributor to this foresight and preaching of Ken Davenport (who’s bet on “Once On This Island” is really paying off).  Well played, Ken.

In the lead up to Tony nominations end of April there are often discount tickets to be had but during the voting month of May they largely dry up.  Now through the summer I will be glued to the TDF and Play-By-Play sites for more theatre discount shopping.

The great game among theatre aficionados is guessing each of the Tony Award category winners and then Monday morning quarterbacking the ceremony after.  I posted my guesses on Sunday morning and shamefacedly only got eleven of the 26 categories right.  My big mistake was under anticipating “The Band’s Visit” sweep.  I bet against them on a number of categories (though did predict Best Musical and Best Score) even though I loved the work (see my review on March 21 of this blog).  I even predicted the “surprise” Best Revival of a Musical “Once on This Island” (see my review on April 16 of this blog).  And the ceremony was great, fun, light, serious and focused squarely on the joys of theater.  Already can’t wait till next year.

As always you can find more at http://www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes

TOMORROW: Opening Night of TAKE WING!