It’s been a swirl of cocktail parties, lunches and celebrity shoulder-rubbing this week for road presenters — the hundred or so people who present Broadway shows in cities across the country.
They’re in town for the annual Broadway League Spring Road conference. Because they’re all Tony voters, producers have been trying to charm the votes from their ballots.
The most aggressive show by far has been “After Midnight,” which is up for several Tonys, including Best Musical. It has a potent champion in Tommy Tune, who gave the keynote address at the conference and announced that his favorite new show is “After Midnight.”
When the road presenters turned up Wednesday night to see the show, who should be in the house but Oprah Winfrey. No coincidence there. Oprah co-produced “The Color Purple” with Scott Sanders, the producer of . . . “After Midnight.”
Sweetening the pot even further, Wynton Marsalis swung by with his trumpet and joined the orchestra for a couple of songs.
Scott Rudin pulled out the celebrity stops, getting Jon Stewart to moderate a “Raisin in the Sun” panel featuring Denzel Washington and the rest of the cast.
The biggest spender in search of road votes was Disney, which hosted a fancy lunch at the Edison Ballroom. The creative team from “Aladdin” — composer Alan Menken, director Casey Nicholaw and James Monroe Iglehart, who plays the Genie — took part in a panel discussion moderated by veteran producer Manny Azenberg, long a favorite with the road people.
I happened to see “Aladdin” with some road presenters and I must report they had a swell time, especially since Disney serves wine in super-size sippy cups.
“Beautiful” is playing it low-key, with a simple cocktail party last night at the Liberty Theater after the show. Carole King didn’t put in a surprise appearance, but the cast was instructed to schmooze the room.
My sense in talking to the road producers this week is that “Beautiful” is the show to beat. It’s a hit, it should be popular around the country, and a Tony Award for Best Musical will be a boon to the marketing department.
In other Tony news, the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing sent a sharply worded letter to the voters, reminding them their Tony tickets are nontransferable. A voter was caught this week giving his tickets to friends, and his Tony voter status has been revoked.
“Being a Tony voter is the highest of privileges,” the letter reads, “and we owe it to all those [involved] in Tony-eligible productions to honor their dedication . . . with the utmost integrity.
“We will continue to monitor this situation closely,” the letter concludes.
Frankly, Tony voters have been giving away their tickets for years, usually to shows they know they won’t like.
It’s a good thing Charles Isherwood’s “The Realistic Joneses” wasn’t nominated for anything, or the vast majority of Tony voters would be having their privileges revoked this week!