Pitch a collection of works, overwhelmed by theatre award (8)
I believe the answer is:
tonality
'pitch' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a collection of works overwhelmed by theatre award' is the wordplay.
'collection of works' becomes 'lit' (short for literature).
'overwhelmed by' is an insertion indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'theatre award' becomes 'tony' (as in the Tony Awards).
'a'+'lit'='alit'
'alit' inserted within 'tony' is 'TONALITY'.
(Other definitions for tonality that I've seen before include "key" , "Use of conventional keys and harmony" , "classical feature of music" .)