Mo Rocca, the writer, satirist, and general funnyman, made his mark as a commentator on TV shows including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Tonight Show, and on VH-1's I Love the... shows. He is currently on Broadway, playing Vice Principal Panch in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Rocca took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to school EW.com on the Tony nominations, the power of theater critics, and why he thinks he might get his butt kicked for sharing his honest opinions.
The Tony nominations for achievement on Broadway are in. And what do I, a Broadway newbie, think? First, a more pertinent question from the new-media skeptics:
In a Broadband world, does Broadway even matter?
Yes. For the 2005-06 season, 12 million Broadway theater tickets were sold, grossing $861 million. (Sure, only a fraction of Hollywood's 2006 domestic box-office total of $9.49 billion. But when you consider the size of New York's theater district — approximately three blocks wide and 11 blocks long — it's suddenly pretty darn impressive.)
So there's a lot of money involved. And the Tonys end up mattering more than any other awards show. That's because, with tickets topping out at over $100, buyers want to spend wisely. They want some guidance. (It's also why theater critics remain, word for word, far more powerful than their counterparts in TV and film.)
Now for those nominations...
I'll choose my words carefully. Broadway is, as I've said, small and everyone seems to know each other. On a two-show day, singers from The Phantom of the Opera will grab dinner between shows with dancers from Hairspray and actors from Journey's End. It's high school — but everyone's in Drama Club. (Think Fame, except most of the restaurants on Ninth Avenue won't let you dance on the tables.) And as the new kid on the block, I'd rather not get my butt kicked — or dance-belt snapped.
The Shutout: The Pirate Queen, from the team behind Les Misérables and the most expensive musical of the year, got no nominations. Yes, it got torpedoed by the critics, but as my good friend and ensemble member Brian O'Brien pointed out, the costume and lighting design are unparalleled (in a good way). And the choreography's terrific. (Brian made me point that out. Told you it was a tight community.) The Tonys wouldn't be a real awards show without charges of cruel injustice.
NEXT PAGE: Mo Rocca on Spring Awakening, the Women, the Men, and the Plays
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