Part of the fun of following the Tony Awards is digging into the meat of the unusual nominations. A good place to start in recent years is Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theater. See how long and windy the title is? That's how the Tony nomination committee decided to handle the inclusion of original music in non-musical plays this year. The nominees for Best Original Score...are split down the middle this year. You have your two original musicals--Newsies and Bonnie & Clyde--which you can easily access by way of original cast recordings. Then you have your play nominees--One Man, Two Guvnors and Peter and the Starcatcher--that you normally have to see in theaters to get a feel for.
One Man, Two Guvnors clearly wants Best Original Score...attached to their play. They released a promotional video on Playbill featuring Grant Olding's original skiffle songs from the play.
The two songs shown are quite catchy, which is the point. Skiffle is ear candy. It's proto-rock and roll as interpreted by Brits exploring traditional American music. Who doesn't like a good washboard percussionist?
If the rest of the songs are like that, there's a chance that One Man, Two Guvnors could win the category. Newsies has new songs but the best songs are re-orchestrated from the movie. Bonnie & Clyde is a Frank Wildhorn show and NYC doesn't care for him too much. If voters are willing to award a non-musical here (and the he said, she said gossip that spreads like wildfire around here swings back and forth like a pendulum), One Man, Two Guvnors might be victorious.
Prove me wrong, Peter and the Starcatcher. Put out your own video of your original songs and join in the fun. I mean, I'm going to see you anyway because OMG Celia Keenan-Bolger and Peter Pan and cast doubling as crew onstage! But it would be nice to hear what you're working with before the Tonys have come and gone.
What do you think? Can a play actually win this category? Or will it take a year with no score nominees from musicals to guarantee that result? Sound off below.
