Here's what I loved (and could have done without) at the Tony Awards this year:
- The pop medley was all right, but shouldn't Green Day have been singing WITH the cast of American Idiot as they did on the Grammy awards. I was a little perturbed that they got to go on for a good seven or eight minutes, and Ragtime got relegated to a thirty second snippet (done wonderfully) by Christiane Noll.
- Best speeches of the night? Viola Davis gets my first place. Angela Lansbury comes in second place when, as the first Honorary Chairman of the American Theatre Wing, she advised young people to educate themselves as much as possible instead of just moving to New York and hoping to make it big. Hopefully people were listening.
- I could have done with a little less Kristin Chenoweth. I liked having her in the opening number. The Sean Hayes kiss was funny, but by her third bit, it was a little--"Um, you weren't invited to this party, and you're getting too old to keep doing the whole 'look how cute I am' thing."
- They managed to sneak "Promises, Promises" into the show more times than any show that isn't nominated should be. If the reasoning was "Well, we can let them show off choreography" then by that logic, "The Addams Family" should have been able to perform since they were nominated for Best Original Score.
- I thought the "Memphis" performance was solid, bested only by "American Idiot," which I thought had a little more energy to it. The "La Cage Aux Folles" number was a little bit of a drag (pardon the pun), and "Fela" was just--well, what exactly was that?
- I liked the way they introduced the plays, but I'm still hoping for the day when they can have actors actually perform parts of the play, the same way the musicals get to perform numbers from their shows.
- Couldn't the presenters have had some connection to the shows they were presenting? What exactly did Ricky Martin or Antonio Banderas have to do with the musicals they introduced? And why wouldn't Michael Douglas introduce Catherine Zeta-Jones? This was the only thing that actually made me question whether or not this show had producers at all.
- Can we make a new rule that the same show can't win Best Revival within the same decade? "La Cage" taking Best Revival when its last revival won the same award five years ago seems a little...unfair. At this point, I'm wondering how many producers are sitting at home going--"Hmm, five more years and then maybe I'll take a swing at that..."
- I liked Sean Hayes as the host. At first I lamented not having Neil Patrick Harris, but Hayes had the same bubbly, fun, and witty personality that NPH had, plus he played the piano.
So clearly we've established that gay men are the only decent hosts for the Tony Awards...and Hugh Jackman.
- The pop medley was all right, but shouldn't Green Day have been singing WITH the cast of American Idiot as they did on the Grammy awards. I was a little perturbed that they got to go on for a good seven or eight minutes, and Ragtime got relegated to a thirty second snippet (done wonderfully) by Christiane Noll.
- Best speeches of the night? Viola Davis gets my first place. Angela Lansbury comes in second place when, as the first Honorary Chairman of the American Theatre Wing, she advised young people to educate themselves as much as possible instead of just moving to New York and hoping to make it big. Hopefully people were listening.
- I could have done with a little less Kristin Chenoweth. I liked having her in the opening number. The Sean Hayes kiss was funny, but by her third bit, it was a little--"Um, you weren't invited to this party, and you're getting too old to keep doing the whole 'look how cute I am' thing."
- They managed to sneak "Promises, Promises" into the show more times than any show that isn't nominated should be. If the reasoning was "Well, we can let them show off choreography" then by that logic, "The Addams Family" should have been able to perform since they were nominated for Best Original Score.
- I thought the "Memphis" performance was solid, bested only by "American Idiot," which I thought had a little more energy to it. The "La Cage Aux Folles" number was a little bit of a drag (pardon the pun), and "Fela" was just--well, what exactly was that?
- I liked the way they introduced the plays, but I'm still hoping for the day when they can have actors actually perform parts of the play, the same way the musicals get to perform numbers from their shows.
- Couldn't the presenters have had some connection to the shows they were presenting? What exactly did Ricky Martin or Antonio Banderas have to do with the musicals they introduced? And why wouldn't Michael Douglas introduce Catherine Zeta-Jones? This was the only thing that actually made me question whether or not this show had producers at all.
- Can we make a new rule that the same show can't win Best Revival within the same decade? "La Cage" taking Best Revival when its last revival won the same award five years ago seems a little...unfair. At this point, I'm wondering how many producers are sitting at home going--"Hmm, five more years and then maybe I'll take a swing at that..."
- I liked Sean Hayes as the host. At first I lamented not having Neil Patrick Harris, but Hayes had the same bubbly, fun, and witty personality that NPH had, plus he played the piano.
So clearly we've established that gay men are the only decent hosts for the Tony Awards...and Hugh Jackman.
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