The strategy, if that’s what it was, worked. Nine months ago,
Broadway’s line-up for the season looked like a “Back to the Sixties”
nostalgia fest: Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Carol Channing in
Hello, Dolly! By the end of the season, at least for press
agents, it was the Sixties: a rock musical was on the cover of
Newsweek, Miss Andrews was on the front pages of the tabloids day
after day (“MARY POPPINS HOPPIN’ MAD!”
—New York Post), and
even David Merrick emerged from his long, silent twilight existence
to run one of those whimsical New York Times ads he was once
famous for. The Tony committee had ruled that Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s State Fair, which uses some old movie numbers and
four discarded trunk songs cut from other shows, was eligible for
Best Original Score, but only for the quartet of trunk songs. It
was a fatuous decision, and Merrick gleefully mocked it in an ad
showing scenes from all four songs next to an exuberant shot of the
show’s nominated actor: “Scott Wise tips his hat to fellow Tony
nominees Rodgers & Hammerstein.”

The Tony Awards need not detain us long. Clearly, this is not an
“original score,” in that not one of these songs is a new song
specifically written for a musical play of State Fair. But, if
you’re going to nominate the score, you’ve got to nominate the
score, not just four songs.