a recommendation by the members of the American Theatre Critics Association.

The competitive nominees are selected by a rotating group of up to 50 theater professionals, who meet after the Tony eligibility deadline, which this year is April 28th (which helps explain why there is such a marathon of Broadway openings in April.)

The Tony voters, numbering about 868 (it fluctuates from year to year), are theater professionals (representatives from various theater unions, for example, including Actors Equity) and press agents, and a handful of critics. A few years ago, The Tonys announced they would no longer allow any theater critics to vote. This caused such an outcry that they re-enfranchised the dozen or so members of the New York Drama Critics Circle (see below) , but still banned therest of us.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The Pulitzer Prizes were established in 1917 at Columbia University, and, although most of the awards are given for works of journalism, from the start, they included an annual award for a new work by an American playwright that premiered either in New York or regionally within the previous calendar year. While this is a national award, it’s rare for the award to go to a show that hasn’t had a run in New York City.

The 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to Lin-Manuel Miranda for “Hamilton.” The finalists were Stephen Karam for The Humans and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for “Gloria’

The winner and finalist are recommended by a different annual group of four theater critics and a theater academic, but can be