Tony Awards Rules

The Tony Awards have received their name after actress, producer and director Antoinette Perry. In her honor the Tony Awards rewards astounding achievements in theatre for plays and musicals presented on Broadway every year. In 2011 the Tony awards celebrated its 65th edition.

Since 1947, the very first edition of the Tony Awards the ceremony has included more and more categories, allowing a lot more talented people to be rewarded for their performances, talent and the effort put into creating the plays. The Tony Award rules are the guidelines that must be followed in order to include or exclude a play every year, in order for the very best to shine among others.

The rules of the Tony Awards specify whether a play is allowed into the competition or not, based on a series of factors. New plays and musicals are most of the time original, but they sometimes include classics that have been previously produced and showed on stage.

For the purpose of the Tony Awards there are two committees: the Administration committee and the Nominating committee. The first one if made up of 24 theatre professionals, of which 10 are from the American Wing and another 10 from the Broadway League; their job is to specify whether or not the plays or musicals are eligible for the specified awards. They also select the 30 people who make the actual nominations for the Tony Awards.

The Tony Awards rules and regulations are very strict, making sure that every nominee is eligible and up to the standards of the administration committee. A number of around 700 specialists from the theatre vote for the plays and musicals to appear in the Tony Awards. By the rules of the Tony Awards, the nominations are seen by the Nominating Committee and approved by the administration until the total number of plays is placed in their specific category from which the winner is chosen.