Tony Nominations for Everyone! Award Honchos Look to Expand Number of Hopefuls in Show Categories

Every year, the Broadway.com editorial staff spends hours making charts, graphs and dartboards to try to figure out which four musicals will be honored with a “Best Musical” nomination for the Tony Awards. Wait, what? Five musicals?!

Suddenly, yes. According to Variety, the Tony Awards administration committee quietly voted last month to allow the number of nominees in the Best Musical, Best Play, Best Musical Revival and Best Play Revival categories to five rather than the traditional four nominees if there are nine or more eligible shows to choose between. On the flip side, if less than nine possible shows exist in a category, the number of nominees could be reduced to three.

At this time, twelve new musicals have either opened or are scheduled to open during the 2013-2014 season on Broadway, which means you can probably expect to hear five Best Musical nominees when this year’s crop is announced on April 29. There are also more than a dozen play revivals in the season, so that category could also be expanded.

Sadly, there will still only be one winner per category. Sorry producers.