Playwrights Kenneth Lonergan, Harvey Fierstein & Mart Crowley OK’d For Tony Award Eligibility

Greg Evans

Playwrights Kenneth Lonergan, Harvey Fierstein and Mart Crowley – each of whom had older works produced on Broadway this season – will be eligible for Tony Awards, the Tony administration committee has determined.

The eligibilities were among a raft of such rulings made by the committee today in the third of four planned meetings. Other rulings focused mostly on category eligibility for performers in ensemble cast productions.

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In the cases of Crowley and Lonergan, the two playwrights will benefit from a new Tony rule that allows living authors and composers of plays and musicals that had not previously been staged on Broadway to be eligible along with the producers in the Best Revival of a Play/Musical category. This season, Crowley’s The Boys in the Band and Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery were staged on Broadway after debuting years ago Off Broadway. (Typically, authors and composers are listed in their specific writing and composing categories, not the production slot).

As for Fierstein, he’s eligible for this season’s Torch Song due to another new rule: Authors and composers of Best Revival nominees are eligible with producers even if those authors and composers have previously won Tonys for the works – so long as the revivals have been “substantially reworked.” (Fierstein made significant changes to the former Torch Song Trilogy for the recent Torch Song).

Other determinations made today by the committee:

  • Christiani Pitts and Eric William Morris will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress/Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical categories for their respective performances in King Kong;

  • Peter England’s projection design will be considered eligible along with his scenic design in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category, for his work on King Kong

  • Jeremy Pope will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play category for his performance in Choir Boy

  • Will Roland will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in Be More Chill;

  • Beowulf Boritt and Alex Basco Koch will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Be More Chill;

  • Corbin Bleu will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical category for his performance in Kiss Me, Kate;

  • Derrick Baskin will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations;

  • Robert Brill and Peter Nigrini will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations;

  • Heidi Schreck will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category for her performance in What the Constitution Means to Me.

Nominations for the 2019 Tony Awards will be announced April 30. The 73rd Annual Tony Awards will air live on Sunday, June 9 at 8 PM ET/delayed PT) from New York’s Radio City Music Hall on CBS. James Corden will host.

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