Last night’s Idol shocker reminded me of two things:

1. Always set your DVR to record 5 minutes past the end of a show that broadcasts live (I literally heard, “And the winner is . . . ” and my screen went blue).
2. Judges and audiences don’t always see eye to eye.

The three witches of Idol basically handed the title to David Jr. before the votes were in.  But America ignored the cutesy charisma of the 17 year old old and gave it to the real rocker.

Who was right?

And is there a winner’s curse?

Avenue Q bested Wicked for the Tony way back when, but which one would you rather have invested in?

Little Mermaid wasn’t nominated this year but Cry Baby was . . . which do you think will run longer?

Jersey Boys won, and it’s still winning.

Is there any correlation?

What would happen in we let our audiences decide our winners, just like on American Idol?

Broadway.com wants to find out with its Idol-like Audience Awards.  You get to pick your choice for Best Musical, Best Play, and even non-Tony categories like best breakthrough performance and favorite onstage pair (which has a little too much of a high school superlative feel for me).

Let’s watch closely this year and see the deviation between the two.  I’ll post the results when both are in.

Vote for your choices here.

Speaking of awards and surveys, we’ll be having our own Producer’s Perspective Tony Pool which will be announced on June 1st.  No Starbucks cards this time.  We’ll be goin’ a bit bigger, so stay tuned!

Oh, and when you’re voting for the Broadway.com Audience Awards, pay special attention to the categories of Best New Off-Broadway Play and Favorite Long Running Off-Broadway Musical,
especially if it’s your FIRST TIME taking a survey like this since you
were an ALTAR BOY (Oh just vote for ’em, already, will ya?).