Dear Tony

Why We Need the Best Sound Design Awards Back

Dear Tony,

I consider you to be a good friend of mine because we see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. We’re usually into the same shows and we fangirl over the same actors. Most importantly, we think theatre is worth celebrating, and that’s why you honor the best of the best at your Broadway Christmas party every June.

But I have to admit, you’ve made some questionable decisions at Christmas parties of late. Remember when you let Hugh Jackman make up a rap based on The Music Man with LL Cool J and T.I. at the dinner table (when you know it’s my favorite show)? Or when you let J-Hud and Sting sing as we opened presents when their shows weren’t even open yet?

Yeah, me too.

But Tony, your worst decision yet came just two days into the New Season when you decided to un-invite a family from your party next year—the Sound Designers. You didn’t even relegate them to the commercial-airspace kiddie table again; you kicked them right out the back door.

I don’t think you understand how big of a deal this is. This family is relatively new to your guest list (after all, you only discovered that they lived in the neighborhood back in 2008), but they’re always fun to be around…even when they’re speaking in terrible sound puns.

By removing them from the party next year, you’re saying that you don’t value them as artists. Yes, Tony, sound designing is an art form. It takes skill to reign in the noise and technology that’s running amuck in the theatre to create something that we as an audience can stand to listen to. It takes skill to produce the perfectly-mixed track that’s piped through the house each night.

Every story deserves to be told, but to reach an audience, it must first find its voice. It must find a playwright, a leading player, and in special cases, a composer. But somewhere along the line, there has to be someone who can bring all these voices together (and add some sounds of their own) to create the story that reaches the audience—one that is tangible and real, one that they can connect and empathize with.

And that’s what the sound designer is for.

And let’s not forget that theatre is a community, Tony. We aren’t in it for the money, we’re in it because we love it. Theatre people are special because we all recognize the importance of each other’s roles in the creative process.

But now that you’re taking the Sound Designers out, you’re saying that their role in our community isn’t as important as the other ones. You are making them into something less than what they are—creative and innovative and vital. (And, c’mon, isn’t there enough exclusion in the world right now?)

I know it’ll be hard to change your mind, but lest we forget, you’ve struggled with sound problems in the past (and desperately needed the Sound Designers to help you out). Remember when Tituss Burgess was getting ready to blow the freaking roof off of “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” but his microphone cut out? And then an ASM had to run onstage mid-broadcast to give him a hand mic so that he could belt into it Spring Awakening style?

(Unfortunately for you, my dear friend, that moment is preserved forever on YouTube.)

I guess what I really want to know, Tony, is why the Sound Designers should have to jump through extra hoops to be considered for your guest list in future years. They’ve done their fair share of work. They’ve given a voice to stories that need to be told. Don’t they deserve to be celebrated, too?

(It’s clear that you don’t think so. And I think your mother, Antoinette Perry, would be ashamed. She raised you better than that.)