After 2 'catastrophic' years for Broadway, have the Tonys become too big to fail?
For a few days earlier this month, Broadway producers panicked at the possibility that the Tony Awards would not air on television. Canceled and revived within the space of about 72 hours, the June 11 live ceremony was caught in the crossfire of the ongoing writers' strike: Its broadcast home, CBS, is part of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group with which the Writers Guild of America has been at an impasse since May 2.
"The Tony Awards was established to recognize excellence in the craft of theatermaking and all the different categories of people who work extremely hard to put on shows all year, but we just happen to celebrate on TV every year so that we can reach as many people as possible," said Scott Sanders, theater producer and member of the Tony Awards Management Committee, the group that negotiated with the guild to avoid a Tony-night picket line.
"In our conversations with the WGA, we said, 'We're in complete support of your mission to ,'" Sanders continued. "'This year in particular, when the theater is just coming out of
