There is something thrilling about having your work recognized by your peers, or your critics, or some body that governs your craft. The speculation, the ranking and rating and comparing and lauding and deriding reach a fever pitch and the winner is finally announced. So, what if YOU were sitting in that live audience and YOUR song was presented and it WON? Such is your potential at the PHONY Awards, where your song vies for the title of Broadway's Next H!T Musical.

We love theatre, and we especially love musical theatre. We think you do, too. And we all want to get in on the act. BNHM is as glamorous as it is ridiculous. It is live theatre, as momentary as anything you will witness on stage. And the evening is a celebration of every possible story and every possible song. One show ultimately wins the evening only because we all acknowledge it is the best of all we created that night.

Ken Davenport recently posted about theatre awards on his Producer's Perspective blog, specifically the clustering of awards at the end of the theatre 'season' and posits: "In any cluttered environment, sometimes the best thing you can do to stand out is simply do the opposite of what everyone else is doing." I think this is what BNHM does. In an already crowded awards season, we are the only awards show that is instant and EVERYONE who joins in has a chance to win. You just have to be present, to alternately lend and borrow the improvised energy bouncing around the theater.

BNHM belongs in the awards season because it captures everyone excluded from the shows that get nominated elsewhere, and it truly celebrates storytelling, and the kind of theatrical creativity that is often absent from high budget, high profile shows. This year, PHONY season (five BNHM shows over five weeks) leads right up to the TONYs.

So, there's something for the best of us AND for the best of the rest of us.

--Robert