Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Les Tonies

No, I didn't manage to see anything besides Sweeney this year, and no, this does not preclude me from shooting my mouth off about the other plays involved.
  • The Jersey Boys win was nothing short of a travesty. I don't care how fun it is, you can't stage an oldies station and have it compete with people trying to write actual new musicals. They should just have a separate freaking category for these things, call it "Best Regurgitated Musical" or whatever. I would also like someone to explain to me (again) how a piece can lose book and score and still win best new musical.
  • The History Boys really sounds like a good show. Must do that one of these days.
  • Drowsy Chaperone also looks delightful, and J confirms as much.
  • I'm sure L. Chanze deserves her Tony for that other "entertainment" very much, altho I really would have liked to see Ms. Lupone take it home. A titan herself, she took a role essentially set in stone by another titan and made it her own. If we are going to award Broadway people for anything, shouldn't it be this?
  • At least Sweeney won two categories it earned in spades: direction and orchestration.
  • The number from the Wedding Singer made me want to claw my eyes out. How low has the American musical theatre sunk that it can actually make you pine for the authenticity of the original Adam Sandler movie? So very, very, very sad. May it close tomorrow and may we never speak of it again.
  • Even though it is supposed to be ass and everyone is complaining about Alan Cumming being a one trick pony/greaseball, I have to say the Threepenny opera number with him and Cindy Lauper was pretty good.
  • Supa-cute acceptance award goes to Cynthia Nixon.
  • Julia Roberts, you are a big tool.
C'est tout. See also Maury and our favorite countertenor for more.

3 comments:

Maury D'annato said...

Yeah, Cyndi Lauper is compelling almost regardless of context.

Wedding singer looks like, in the words of a John Guare character, "an all time low in a lifetime of theater-going."

Alex said...

Dur...I spelled her name with a 'y'. Not very goonies of me.

OperaGuyNY said...

Think Money people! The TONY awards are MARKETING TOOLS, created by the producers to make money. The show that brings in the most money at home AND on the road wins.

Jersey Boys is 'ready made' for the road, where it will make oodles and oodles of moo-lah.

Drowsy Chaperone is a theatre persons inside joke. People in Kansas, will not get it and sit there scratching their heads.

When watching the TONYS it is good to keep this in mind.

Exhibit B: The year Urinetown won everything BUT Best Musical. I don't even remember what won that year...