A few quick observations on last night’s Tony awards, while the tea cools:
- What was with Neal Patrick Harris’ shiny suit. Did he have it tailored in Duloc?
- Award shows are not only to award the best, but to market Broadway. To that end, I was confused by the choices of numbers from Shrek, Guys and Dolls, and West Side Story. Although Shrek’s number showed Christopher Sieber’s remarkable on-the-knees dancing, it did nothing to show off the principles. Similarly, Guys and Dolls showed off Nicely-Nicely’s number, not the numbers for the leads: Sky, Nathan, or Sarah Brown. As for West Side Story, although the number showed off the dance skills of the cast, it did nothing to show off the revised bilingual lyrics. On the other hand, the numbers from Billy Eliot, Hair, and Next to Normal made me want to see those shows.
- It was nice to see the touring companies perform, although the number from Mamma Mia struck me as low-energy. As I noted in the last bullet, these numbers should sell these shows: they should make me want to see the touring productions. The Mamma Mia number didn’t.
- Beating the marketing horse to death: it would have been nice if they had also included production numbers for some of the other musicals currently running to help publicize Broadway as a whole.
- It was interesting to watch Gregory Jbara drag his wife up to the stage. You can tell she was a little shell shocked, plus her dress was not really meant for running up to the stage.
- I was disappointed that 9-to-5 didn’t win anything, although their competition (in the form of “Billy Elliot” and “Next to Normal”) was very strong.
- The opening number was excellent, and I found the closing song amazing. Other than that, NPH did acceptably. Not outstanding.
- Some of the folks haven’t aged well: Stockard Channing, Liza, Carrie Fisher. On the other hand, Susan Sarandon and Jane Fonda were stunning.
- The sound engineer for the production had trouble. There were lots of problematic microphones — much more than usual.
- Some of the acceptances were truly great: the three Billys, Geoffrey Rush, Alice Ripley, Angela Lansbury, and Karen Olivo come to mind. Others were…wtf… especially Liza’s, where I expected her to go off on some odd tangent.
- Frank Langella’s introduction was priceless, where he castigated the ATW for not nominating him.
- The snippets from the play nominees were too short — they didn’t give a good sense of the plays. Again: this should be Marketing 101: put in a sufficient scene to sell seeing the play. If you’re not going to do that, why bother?
- Lastly: It was great to hear about “Working in the Theatre”. But bring back “Downstage Center”. It’s been gone since November, when Sirius and XM merged.
