Terry's commentary for the Wall Street Journal is right on target.

The nominations for the 62nd annual Tony Awards were announced yesterday morning. They weren't surprising. They almost never are ... The Tony nominations, in short, have become an exercise in ratifying the obvious--and how could they be anything else? Broadway consists of 39 houses, four of which are run by Lincoln Center Theater, the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Roundabout Theatre Company, a trio of non-profit outfits that are marginally more adventurous than their commercial counterparts. As for the remaining 35, they're so costly to operate that anyone who dares to bring a new show into one of them is all but begging to throw his money away ... All this explains why the Tonys have grown so lackluster in recent years: Their unsurprising nature merely reflects the safety-first institutional culture of Broadway....

Didn't I vow to ignore the Tonys? Maybe I didn't actually go through with publishing that post.

Can anyone out there tell me why the Tonys are at all relevant to me? And don't tell me it's because they drive attendance to the winners, cause that's been disproved as a significant economic force.

Are they gonna be on TV again? Wanna start a pool on how low attendance will get this year?

Wow. Lots of negativity. I guess I really hate the Tonys, huh? And you know why? It's not just because they are so silly and limiting and ridiculously out-of-touch. It's also because they could be a chance for the entire country to get in touch with the theatre industry and see what's happening, what's interesting, and what's worth hearing about. They could take that quickly fading television contract and turn it into a force for good. Instead, they'll just spend more money talking about shows that've done little more this year than throw good money after bad.

But, who am I to judge. Have fun, go see Xanadu if that's your kinda thing.

Not since the days of Joshua James vs Scott Walters have I seen a comment-war so heated. In fact, the TOC Blog has beaten David Cote's much-covetted 51-comment theatrenet record.

It all started innocently enough. Chris Platt noted aloud that the Jeff Citations will now be called the Jeff Awards, just like the closely related Jeff Awards.

The difference is that there will now be equity and non-equity Jeff Awards. The non-equity folks used to be stuck with paltry-sounding citations, now they get awards.

Well, "Julie" wasn't gonna take it lying down. She fired-up her practically anonymous and definitely-built-by-good-ol-USA-unionified-workers-keyboard and spoke her mind.

Nothing could drag the national reputation of the “Jeff Award” down more than to include non-professional theatres to share equal consideration with professional theatres.

Whoa, Nelly! She would have a hard time finding a better way to get folks fired up. What followed were 66 comments of vitriol and semi-rational argument about the benefits of Actors' Equity and the difficulties of working on either side of the AEA line. Commentors include actors, directors, producers, union-members and non-union-members alike, and - you guessed it - a blaggle of bloggers.

So, get over there. Read it. And don't forget to leave your two cents in the comments.

On a side note: Can anyone report a theatrenet thread with more than 66 comments?