Each year the Tony awards, in an effort to reverse a seemingly inexorable ratings decline, drop a few more of the actual awards from the live telecast. The goal, of course, is to make room for the program's real raison d'etre: excerpts from the Broadway shows it is busily trying to sell to tourists planning summer trips to New York. But there are 26 little statuettes to be given out tonight, and I have a special stake in reminding you of that. I'm one of the 796 Tony voters.
I don't pretend that my votes are any kind of reliable predictor of who will or won't win. I don't even pretend that they're backed by any special knowledge or coherent reasoning -- hey, I'm a theater critic, not an expert in sound design. Indeed, the dirty little secret is that voting for the Tonys is a dangerously haphazard affair. It's not a pretty picture, but here's a quick run-down of how I voted and why -- listed in the (somewhat arbitrary) order they're given on the ballot.
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