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Kennedy vs Nixon.
Bush vs Gore.
Will Ferrell vs. Zach Galifianakis.
For over a hundred years,
campaign battles waged between opposing forces shaped our modern world history.
This extends to the world of Musical Theatre,
where a yearly battle has raged for over seven decades.
A Tony Award for Best Musical.
There have been several Tony awards telecasts where the top prize reveal was as mysterious
as an unmasking in an old episode of Scooby-Doo. However, some years the battle for Best Musical
is fought between two worthy opponents with the outcome known only to the Gods of Theatre.
But they don’t even come close to the monumental showdown between two unstoppable forces in 2004.
Witches vs. puppets.
One a bombastic, belt-fest with big Broadway names, box office success,
and loosely tied into one of the most beloved stories of all time.
The other, a raunchy, laugh-riot look into early adulthood with a decidedly un-pc tone,
enough swear words to make Gordon Ramsey blush, and full puppet nudity.
All of which led to one of the most memorable and controversial nights
in award show history. This was fuzzy David vs the Green Goliath. This was Avenue Q vs Wicked.
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In 1996, Stephen Schwartz was on top of the world. Following a string of
successful Broadway musicals, his move to La La Land brought him international stardom.
Schwartz teamed up with composer Alan Menken to provide the lyrics to iconic
Disney animated films Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
the former providing the creator with his first two Academy Awards.
As Schwartz finished up work on his next animated feature, The Prince of Egypt,
he took an impromptu weekend getaway in Hawaii, joining a friend who was vacationing there.
During the boat ride back from a scuba diving expedition, someone casually mentioned a new
book they were currently reading about the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West.
"I just thought that is the best idea I've ever heard in my life." *laughs*
"I got back to the mainland the next day and I called my lawyer and I said 'Ok, someone has
the rights to this book. You have to find out who has the rights, cause I think I need to do this.'"
Like divine intervention, he somehow knew Wicked was a story ripe for musical theater.
Wicked — Gregory Maguire’s prequel to the beloved “The Wizard of Oz”—
examines the tumultuous and tragic past of the famous Wicked Witch of the West,
as she defied expectations, defied a scornful society, and defied, well, you know.
Condensing a 400-page odyssey of complex characters and complicated
social systems into a two and a half hour evening
of musical theater is a tall order. But one woman was more than up for the job.
Emmy nominated Winnie Holzman made a name for herself in the television world writing
for the popular drama Thirtysomething and creating the hit show My So-Called Life.
In 1996 while casually book shopping in New York, Holzman was struck by the cover artwork of Wicked.
Intrigued by a reimagining of a famous story from the villain's perspective, she purchased the book.
Before she even read a page,
Holzman inquired about the rights with the hope of adapting it for the film world.
Holzman and Schwartz received the same answer:
Universal held the rights and a screenplay was already in the works.
Robert Lopez was living at home with his parents. A recent graduate of Yale,
he’d found his passion for writing music at the ripe old age of eleven.
Through his years of composing various musicals,
like his idol, Stephen Sondheim, Lopez loved making people laugh with his music.
After graduating, Lopez joined the Lehman Engel BMI Workshop, a weekly masterclass where
a select few burgeoning book, music and lyric writers gather to learn and hone their skills.
Lopez was used to one-man organization, but soon he started feeling left out. But one
student stuck out to him, a curly haired kid who’d broken through the stuffy and stoic
seriousness of the class with a song called “People Suck.” The student was Jeff Marx.
The duo discovered that in addition to enjoying each other's company,
they also worked extremely well together.
One night, Marx and Lopez found themselves on the roof, discussing theatre like a young Hal Prince
and Stephen Sondheim in Walgreen’s Diner. They made two very important revelations that night.
#1. People their age didn’t care about musicals anymore and
#2: It was much harder for audiences to just get on board with humans suddenly bursting into song.
This spurred a question:
what if instead of writing for a cast of humans, they wrote for puppets instead?
The two often wished there was someone to guide them like when they were kids:
a Sesame Street but one that helped young adults traverse the minefield of holding down a job,
binge drinking, and one night stands. Not only could people
accept puppets bursting out into song, it's almost a requirement that they do!
Jeff Whitty, a sometimes cater-waiter, gravitated towards dark, off-kilter humor and stories. It
was a perfect match of sensibilities, and the three got to work creating a modern,
relatable narrative in the confines of a mock educational setting.
And just like that, Avenue Q was born.
On the Wicked front, Stephen Schwartz met up with then president of production Mark Platt,
who owned the rights to the original novel.
But the adaptation of Gregory Maguire's "Wicked" was proving to be a tough nut to crack.
Fortunately for Schwartz, Mark Platt also loved Broadway, so when Schwartz
proposed pivoting the property from film to the stage, Platt was all in.
Book writer Winnie Holzman found that pulling a digestible script from the massive Wicked
novel was a difficult task. The script was trimmed, re-thought,
and rewritten constantly trying to find the right tone, eventually finding it by deciding to focus
on the relationship between Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda, the Good Witch.
Wicked the Musical puts the question at the very beginning of the show.
Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
Elphaba, born with rich green skin, has been an outcast her whole life.
Galinda is the epitome of phony class and entitled privilege.
When the two young women attend Shiz University and find themselves stuck rooming together,
things go about as poorly as you can imagine.
In contrast, Avenue Q focuses on Princeton, a young puppet fresh out of college setting out
into the unknown realm of adulthood with nothing but a useless degree in English to guide him.
He rents an apartment on Avenue Q (he started at Avenue A and worked his way down until he
could afford something) and gets to know his eclectic group of neighbors.
Don’t let any of the cute puppets fool you, this was most assuredly not a show
for families. Songs like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," "The Internet is for Porn," and
"It Sucks to Be Me," the show was tailor made for the Simpsons and South Park generations.
The small cast for the show was made up of then unknowns, mostly from the world of Hensen and
Sesame Street: Rick Lyon, John Tartaglia, and Stephanie D’Abruzzo. There was only
one main set and the costumes were minimal, with the puppeteers wearing all-black street
clothes. This was a small, intimate show that had audiences wiping away tears from laughter.
The show opened off-broadway at the Vineyard Theater for a few months in spring of 2003.
Encouraged by great reviews and low running costs, the show quickly moved
to Broadway’s John Golden Theatre that July, the second smallest of the 41 Broadway houses.
Three months after Avenue Q moved into the neighborhood,
Wicked worked its way down the Yellow Brick Road at the Gershwin Theatre on October 30, 2003.
The show was big on every level. Big feelings, big voices, big sets. Lavish,
expensive costumes, mystifying stage magic, flying monkeys! It had it all.
The show added an impressive mix of beloved Broadway legends,
young talent beginning their bright careers, and two actresses on the precipice of superstardom,
Rent star Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Tony Award winner Kristin Chenowith as Glinda.
While the show received some good reviews, they were mostly lukewarm at best.
But that was not the audience's feeling in the Gershwin Theatre every night. It appealed
to scores of devoted Wizard of Oz fans, spoke to young people, and embedded itself into the hearts
and throats of every theatre kid from New York to Australia. Wicked had the world seeing green,
particularly the show’s producers, to the tune of over a staggering million dollars a week.
Once the Tony nominations were announced on May 10, 2004, it set the theatre world ablaze
with speculation. Avenue Q received 6 nominations, and Wicked flew away
with 10. Everyone had their own opinion on who would capture the night; all the major
awards seemed to be a lock. Even the biggest award of the night was considered a done deal.
Wicked would win.
Though Avenue Q got the best reviews of the season,
Wicked dominated every Tony prediction poll and was defying gravity at the box office.
But the persistent puppets weren’t going down without a fight,
and luckily they had a secret weapon.
Drew Hodges.
As founder and CEO of one of Broadway’s biggest marketing agencies, SpotCo,
Hodges created the iconic branding of shows like Rent and Chicago.
With Avenue Q opening almost nine months before the Tony nominations,
Hodges realized voters might forget Avenue Q even existed. He wasn’t going to let this happen.
In years past that would likely mean a small increase in ads and
inviting voters to see the show again closer to voting. Hodges' new strategy?
Launch an all out assault on the theatre world that would change the Tony's forever.
Stripped away were the fake smiles and polite politicking. It was time for a disruption,
and Avenue Q was ready to make it known, loud and proud,
that they were gunning for the Best Musical Tony Award.
Bawdy Avenue Q was in a unique position to parody political campaigns and earnestly fight for votes.
"Please clap."
Hodges spearheaded Avenue Q’s now infamous, “Vote Your Heart” campaign. Vote Your Heart told people,
“Come on, you know you loved us more than the witches, do the right thing!”
Full page ads appeared in the major papers. The marquee of the John Golden Theatre where
Avenue Q was playing was redone to look like a political rally. Campaign posters covered
the outside of the theatre with slogans like “America Needs Avenue Q”, and “Yes Q Can”,
Unlike Hollywood where the number of Academy Awards members sits at around six thousand,
the Tony Voting committee is just over 700 people, making it feasible to directly court
and cajole each member. Voters were invited to lavish campaign style events and pizza parties
where members of the cast would perform special material and cut songs from the
show. Each voting member was sent a CD of a fun, new original song written by Marx and
Lopez specifically for the Tony campaign. “Rod’s Dilemma”, about Avenue Q’s favorite
tightly-wound resident Rod seeking advice on voting in a local election, this approach was
especially effective when the song reminded voters that the Tony ballot was anonymous.
"Get all your friends to vote their hearts too!"
“Remember, it’s a secret ballot. Nobody has to know who you voted for!.”
Overall, the Tony campaign cost an estimated
$300,000. Almost an entire week’s box office grosses.
It was a major investment but one that, if successful,
could ensure a long and profitable run. If not, with sales already beginning a
decline in sales by May, an added expense like that could be a nail in the coffin.
All the planning, all the cajoling,
all the elbow rubbing built to one memorable night on June 6, 2004.
Right off the bat, Wicked bagged two awards for Best Scenic Design and Best
Costume Design. Awards that Avenue Q wasn’t even in the running for.
The real first battle in the Tony war between the Wicked and Avenue Q didn’t come until 40
minutes into the evening, with the Best Book of a Musical category. Jeff Whitty’s script was a
heartfelt and hilarious look at the low-stakes ins and outs of being an adult, but Winnie
Holzman’s masterful metamorphosis of Gregory Maguire’s original novel was destined to win.
Presenter Harvey Fierstein opened the envelope and in his gravelly, bass voice announced:
"And the 2004 Tony Award goes to...
Jeff Whitty, for Avenue Q."
The theater erupted into thunderous applause as an equally shocked Whitty rushed to the stage.
Somehow, Avenue Q emerged victorious in their first skirmish, but the war was far from over.
The evening rolled on. After a powerhouse performance of Defying Gravity, the next
big matchup for Best Original Score seemed to be a lock. How could a pair of musical theatre workshop
friends possibly defeat Broadway and Disney royalty in Stephen Schwartz? The score for Avenue
Q was light, fun and funny. But complicated, it was not. Wicked on the other hand, boasted large,
complex group numbers, killer solos, and one of the most thrilling act one finales in history.
"And the American Theater Wing's Tony Award goes to...
Avenue Q - music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx!"
Avenue Q and Wicked were now tied at two awards apiece. By this point,
Wicked’s producers were nervous, but cautiously optimistic. They’d yet to win any awards on the
main telecast of the Tony Awards, and with each award that slipped out of their hands,
the odds of winning the Best Musical trophy increasingly became less favorable.
One of the few remaining chances for Wicked to take home a Tony
came down to one gravity defying category: Best Actress in a Musical.
"And the 2004 Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Musical goes to...
Idina Menzel, Wicked!"
Now ahead with three awards to Avenue Q’s two,
Wicked’s producers felt pretty confident going into the evening’s final award for Best Musical.
Presenters Nathan Lane and Sarah Jessica Parker took to the stage.
Finally, the moment everyone was waiting for had come. The tension in the room was palpable.
The collective theater world held their breath as the names of the nominees were
read. It seemed the biggest hit of the season was closing in on the biggest award of the night.
Nathan Lane opened the envelope,
and with his comically expressive eyebrows raised in surprise, announced the winner.
"And the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical goes to...
Avenue Q!"
The shockwave of disbelief could be felt through the television screen as the 6,000
seat auditorium erupted in a collective gasp. Absolutely no one saw it coming,
not even the people running the awards telecast itself. When Nathan Lane read the name of the
winner, the image that flashed on all the huge screens in the hall was “Best Musical: Wicked.”
Avenue Q had done the impossible. They got the Tony voters to vote
with their hearts instead of their pocketbooks.
Thanks to the Tony, Avenue Q lasted over six years and 2,500 performances on Broadway
before closing on September 13, 2009. But in a then unprecedented move, the show immediately
re-opened Off-Broadway at New World Stages and ran for another 10 years, closing on May 26, 2019.
Wicked is still one of the biggest musicals on the
planet with productions selling out theaters around the world.
Not only were the effects of Tony night felt in each show’s respective
box offices but the ramifications shook the Tony Awards themselves.
In 2006, the Tony Awards updated their Campaigning and Promotion rules with
a Fair and Ethical Process clause as well as limiting what producers could send out to voters,
now pared down to only a script, a souvenir program, and an Original Cast Recording.
With the new rules, the Tony's sent a clear message to anyone trying to
replicate the 2004 Tony Campaign Heard ‘Round the World: It sucks to be you.
So what role do the Tony Awards play in the life or death of a musical?
Click on this musical to learn more about how to define a Broadway flop.