The Designer Series, part 1

Tonight begins my series on the design awards for the upcoming Tonys.  I'm going to start with the newest category of the bunch -- Sound Design.  Created in 2007 to award theater artists long ignored by our awards system, the Tony here is in that funny transitional place where it is old enough (this upcoming awards season will be the award's third year being granted) to have some data at which to look but young enough for any analysis of the data to be entirely scientific -- the sample size is too small.  There seem to be two patterns going on in the short history of the category.  The shows that are nominated in this category are either blockbuster hits of the season -- In the Heights, South Pacific, Billy Elliot, etc. -- or shows whose technical merits outshine the production -- Macbeth, Equus.    Based on that information, I have picked a combination of shows I think will be the biggest hits of the season and shows that will have great technical merit to them.  Ant the lists are:

Sound Design of a Play

A View From the Bridge

Present Laughter

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Superior Donuts

Sound Design of a Musical

Ragtime

Fela!

La Cage Aux Folles

Addams Family

On the play side, A View From the Bridge and Present Laughter are sure bets, while the latter two are only highly likely.  The biggest competition to the play side of the sound design category comes from A Behanding in Spokane and The Royal Family.  On the musical side, La Cage Aux Folles is the weakest of my pics, with a potential threat coming from American Idiot which may turn out to be more like Taboo than I'm guessing at the moment.  That show, from 2004, was a critical failure and closed not long after it opened, but received an unexpected nomination for its costume design in a year with major competition from shows like Wicked, Assassins, and the revival of Henry IV at Lincoln Center which put both of Shakespeare's parts into a full evening of theater.  Based on buzz after the opening of some more shows, I will have updates in many categories, but this one in particular.