Shows launching in San Diego, landing on Broadway and winding up in the thick of the Tony Awards mix.

Big news. Twenty years ago.

But since La Jolla Playhouse first blazed the path from here to Broadway glory in 1985, winning seven Tonys for “Big River,” the Playhouse and its crosstown counterpart, the Old Globe Theatre, have sent upward of three-dozen shows to New York's theatrical capital.

THE OLD GLOBE FOUNDED: 1935 LEADERSHIP: Lou Spisto, CEO and executive producer; Darko Tresnjak and Jerry Patch (departing May 31), co-artistic directors. CURRENT CONTENDER: “A Catered Affair,” a musical based on a teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky and the Gore Vidal-scripted film “The Catered Affair”; music and lyrics by John Bucchino, book by Harvey Fierstein; directed by John Doyle; stars Fierstein, Faith Prince, Tom Wopat, Matt Cavenaugh. Globe opening: Sept. 30, 2007. Broadway: April 17, 2008. TONYS TRACK RECORD: 1984 Regional Theatre Award; nine additional Tony wins; 59 nominations. HIGHLIGHTS: “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”: one Tony, 11 nominations, 2005 “The Full Monty”: 10 Tony nominations, 2001 “Damn Yankees”: one Tony, four nominations, 1994 “Joe Turner's Come and Gone”: one Tony, six nominations, 1988 “Into the Woods”: three Tonys, 10 nominations, 1988 Note: Artistic director emeritus Jack O'Brien also won three best-director Tonys for shows not produced at the Globe. JOAN MARCUS LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE FOUNDED: 1947 (revived 1983) LEADERSHIP: Christopher Ashley, artistic director; Steven Libman, managing director. CURRENT CONTENDER: “Cry-baby,” a musical based on the John Waters movie; lyrics by David Javerbaum, music by Adam Schlesinger, book by Mark O'Donnell and Tom Meehan; directed by Mark Brokaw; stars James Snyder, Alli Mauzey, Elizabeth Stanley, Harriet Harris. Playhouse opening: Nov. 18, 2007. Broadway: April 24, 2008. TONY TRACK RECORD: 1993 Regional Theatre Award; 28 additional Tony wins; 66 nominations. HIGHLIGHTS: “Jersey Boys”: best musical, three other Tonys, 2006 “I Am My Own Wife”: best play and best actor, 2004 “Thoroughly Modern Millie”: best musical and five other Tonys, 2002 “The Who's Tommy”: five Tonys, 1993 “Big River”: best musical and six other Tonys, 1985

Between them, the two theaters have piled up a tidy 39 Tonys over the years, out of a startling 125 nominations. (San Diego Rep added another four noms for “It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues” in 1999.)

And yet when the nominations for the 62nd Tony Awards are announced Tuesday morning, it could be something more than the old trophy ho-hum. This time, two locally spawned musicals – one each from the Playhouse and Globe – have a shot at scoring nominations and competing against each other for the awards, to be presented June 15.

They are two very different shows. “A Catered Affair,” which opened at the Globe in September, is a modest, low-key musical, particularly by modern Broadway standards. Written by Harvey Fierstein (who's also in the cast and is a lead producer), it's based on a Paddy Chayefsky teleplay and subsequent 1956 movie about a Bronx family of modest means, grappling with how lavish a wedding to throw for their daughter.

“Cry-baby,” which premiered at the Playhouse in November, is a giddy, satirical riff on class conflict among 1950s teens. Its pedigree says everything about its sensibility: The musical is based on the 1990 movie of the same name by the cinematic provocateur John Waters. Lyrics are by Comedy Central “Daily Show” alum David Javerbaum, and the book is by Mark O'Donnell and Tom Meehan, the writing team behind the earlier Waters mega-hit “Hairspray.”

Both shows opened on Broadway in April, one week apart. Both have received mixed reviews, and recent nominations in smaller awards programs haven't done much to clarify the potential Tonys picture (although “A Catered Affair” did score a surprise 12 Drama Desk nominations, the most of any show).

But if Tonys fever is spreading through the halls of the Globe and Playhouse – and if competition between the two is much on anyone's mind there – you wouldn't know it from talking with the theater's top execs.

“We do not make the decision at all to move something to New York as part of a strategy that it will win a Tony,” says Steven B. Libman, the Playhouse's managing director. “If it does, that's wonderful. If the Globe moves something and it wins a Tony, we applaud them and think it's just fantastic.

“To me, the bigger picture is how wonderful it is that in the city of San Diego, we have two major theaters that are creating work and subsequently moving it on to the commercial theater.”

To Louis G. Spisto, CEO/executive producer of the Globe, the Tonys are “a wonderful thing” but still subordinate to the theater's mission of fostering new work.

“At the end of the day, while the path to the Tonys is exciting and certainly can be an important feather in our cap, it's not what we think about when we choose material,” he says.

“It's all terrific and important. But by no means is it the standard by which we as a regional theater are going to be judged. Our worth is measured by how we reach San Diegans, how we challenge and stimulate and entertain them, and by what San Diegans think of the Globe.”

Lasting impact

To soft-pedal the Tonys, though, is to sidestep a key reality: A good part of the national recognition (and financial rewards) the two theaters have built up over the past two decades flows from the shows they've sent to New York. And the ones that get noticed most – the Globe's “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” the Playhouse's “Jersey Boys” – tend to be Tony-winners, or at least contenders.

THE LOCAL CONNECTION A look at nominations for locally connected shows in the awards programs leading up to Tuesday's Tony Awards announcements: Drama Desk Awards to be presented May 18. “A Catered Affair”: 12 nominations (the most of any show), including best musical “Xanadu”: six, including best musical and best direction (for La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley) “Cry-baby”: one nomination, for Rob Ashford's choreography Drama League Awards to be presented Friday. “Cry-baby”: four, including best musical “A Catered Affair”: four, including best musical (nominee Harvey Fierstein is ineligible to win the Distinguished Performance Award because he's a previous winner) “Xanadu”: three, including best musical “The Farnsworth Invention”: three, including best play Outer Critics Circle Awards to be announced tomorrow. “Cry-baby”: three, including best new musical “A Catered Affair”: two, including new musical “Xanadu”: one, for new musical

“Once you win a Tony, that means (the show) has the ability to be successful pretty much anywhere,” says Élan McAllister, a producer of “Cry-baby” who has won best-musical Tonys for “Spamalot” and “Hairspray.”

“It also legitimizes (the regional theater) within the community, and it supports them as a destination for other producers to develop new projects.”

Not to mention that by sharing in royalties – the Globe, for example, earns between 0.75 percent and 1 percent on “Catered Affair” grosses – “they're going to benefit the way everyone else is, the more successful a show is,” said McAllister.

As Spisto points out, though, losing out on the top Tony – the sought-after best-musical trophy – is hardly the theatrical kiss of death.

In 2004, the Oz-inspired “Wicked” lost the big prize to the snarky puppets of “Avenue Q.”

“And while 'Avenue Q' has done phenomenally well,” Spisto says, “ 'Wicked' has blown up and is in the stratosphere of musicals that will be remembered generations from now.

“ 'West Side Story' did not win the (best musical) Tony Award. We could look at countless pieces of art and/or works that continue to be commercially successful and did not win the Tony.”

Such also-rans make for illustrious company – and considering the possible competition this year, the two locally sprung shows could well join them. Among contenders are a couple of buzz-grabbing, break-the-mold shows, “Passing Strange” and “In the Heights.”

Then, there's “Xanadu,” adapted by Douglas Carter Beane (who wrote the Globe's recent world-premiere “Dancing in the Dark”) from the goofy 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John.

That show adds an intriguing twist: It's directed by Christopher Ashley, now artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, where “Xanadu” will travel this fall. (Among the six Drama Desk noms for “Xanadu” are one each for Ashley and Beane.)

“The Farnsworth Invention,” which premiered at the Playhouse last year and ran on Broadway for three months, also might contend in the non-musical Tony categories.

Roots of success

This is not the first year that the Playhouse and Globe have sent musicals up against each other for the Tonys.

At the 2001 awards, the Playhouse's “Jane Eyre” (staged in La Jolla under then-artistic director Michael Greif) and the Old Globe's “The Full Monty” both were up for some of the top prizes, but wound up being steamrolled by “The Producers.”

But the roots of the two theaters' ongoing Tony presence stretch further back, and they start with two men: Des McAnuff, who revived the Playhouse in 1983 and served two stints as artistic director before handing off to Ashley last fall; and Jack O'Brien, the Globe's artistic director for 27 years until Jerry Patch and Darko Tresnjak took over the post earlier this year.

Both are now longtime Broadway hands, and their destinies sometimes have intersected: O'Brien directed “Hairspray,” which originally starred Fierstein and featured some of the same creative team that McAnuff eventually would bring to the Playhouse for “Cry-baby.”

It used to be that productions with Broadway ambitions typically would rent a theater in Boston or New Haven or Philadelphia and put together a tryout from the ground up.

McAnuff and O'Brien helped pioneer the idea of a regional theater partnering with commercial producers – which could be companies or individuals – to launch these shows. The theater company benefits from “enhancement” money to plump up the show's production budget (plus the promise of royalties to come), and the producers gain from the theaters' artistic expertise, existing facilities and built-in audiences.

“What has risen up is the idea that not-for-profit theaters can be a place where that (commercial) work can be done in a different context and with different expectations,” says Howard Sherman, executive director of the American Theatre Wing, the Tonys' parent organization.

“And I think as you look at producing models, the relationship between the commercial and not-for-profit theater is closer than it's ever been, and more interdependent.”

That has provoked plenty of discussion about whether such deals are subverting the willingness of regional theaters to take chances on new plays and less commercially attractive properties. At the same time, it's hard to argue that the influx of money from these partnerships – which vary widely from show to show – have helped put some regional theaters on stronger financial footing.

In any case, the “clear pipeline” to Broadway that McAnuff and O'Brien's success helped establish has given local audiences one opportunity after another to see shows that turn out to be the talk of Broadway down the road.

“You only have to speak to the creators of any new show, whether it be a musical or a play, to hear them talk about the importance of audience response, and what that teaches them about what they have on hand,” Sherman says.

“So in that sense, the San Diego audiences, really over a long period of time – thanks to both the Globe and La Jolla – have had an impact on work that's seen here in New York.”

Tonys or no, that's not likely to change anytime soon.

– JAMES HEBERT