A sound decision

Finally, the Tony Awards has decided that sound design is more than just wiring actors with mics, a practice members of the old guard still detest. But it's never too late to catch up with late 20th century modes of thinking (and with the Drama Desk Awards, which has long had audio as a category), and I applaud the painfully overdue decision to make sound design a category for plays and musicals. The 2006-2007 winners should surely have been the soon-to-close Talk Radio, with its exquisitely rendered and multitiered audio design, and Spring Awakening, which pokes a little fun at onstage mics.