This being my first year as a Tony voter, it's been very unclear as to which shows allow the press to re-attend the nominated shows as voters. In several cases, the shows send out mailings formally inviting us to re-attend. In other cases, we informally email a press rep or company manager and request tix. The responses I've received from the shows have varied from top to bottom. Frankly, my take is that even if a critic has seen a show, if he wants to see it again as a voter, why not let him - that is, providing that the show is not a sold-out smash...
It's awkward in the sense that I've been allowed to re-attend perhaps half of the nominated shows, and not another half. I also imagine that I'm now in a much different mindset than when I was a reviewer.
Well, as of the moment, I'm really conflicted on whether to vote for COMPANY, 110 IN THE SHADE, or A CHORUS LINE for best revival.
Which did I enjoy most? I think A CHORUS LINE. But as you probably know, people at pointing fingers at A CHORUS LINE for essentially taking Michael Bennett's original staging and replanting it into the revival. Wheras in COMPANY, John Doyle has wholeheartedly reconceived the staging of the show with his actor-musicain concept.
But here's a thought - was it perhaps brave of the producers of A CHORUS LINE to chose not to reconceive the show? For what if they did do that, and it was awful? Then the sh-t would have really hit the fan. And they did not scale down the show in any capacity. It still brims with its original splendor in almost every way.
And though there are many, many wonderful moments in COMPANY, particularly thanks to Raul Esparza's marvelous performance, Doyle's direction of the book was very off-point. (What's up with the weird, full frontal staging of the fighting sequences with Harry in Act One?)
As for 110, I really appreciated the fact that this show, which I consider to have a wonderful score, received its first revival, but most others saw it only as a showcase for Audra.
My conclusion - I'll probably end up voting for A CHORUS LINE, but I need to think some more.