For details, see the official Tony Awards site.
Is it just me, or was it just crazy to see The Lion King open the Tony Awards this year? If I didn't have such a new DVR, I might have thought that I had started watching the wrong year's awards. I guess those costumes are so expensive that the more they use them the better they feel about the whole thing. Whoopi Goldberg coming out in Sebastian's outfit then was great, though.
I'm a big fan of the clips of great moments in the Tony's and was a bit confused by the clip with The Phantom of the Opera, since I know Michael Crawford was the Phantom in the Tony Awards that year and the guy singing didn't sound like I remembered or look like Michael Crawford that much. When Whoopi turned around and started singing, it all made sense. I'm still not sure I think opening with Circle of Life makes too much sense this year (I liked last year's opening with A Chorus Line, since it was a new revival that year), but I like what they're doing with putting Whoopi in the different shows. It's very entertaining and similar to the concept behind the amazing Oscar openings Billy Crystal has been putting together for years. Clearly, you can't do something like that in live theatre, but the concept is similar and it was very well done.
Kristen Chenoweth's joke about defying gravity would have probably come off horrible if it had been done by anyone else but her. Fortunately, she did a great job. Kristen seems like a very corny person, so she pulled it off well.
The comment about praying cell phones get turned off was nice. I would love to see theatres that somehow block all cell phone use and make doctors who might need to get paged check in to be notified. Perhaps someday... The law about it doesn't seem to completely help the situation on Broadway (and certainly touring productions all over the country where there are not laws to help out are SOL).
Having clips from the plays (complete with some set pieces on stage with Whoopi before showing them) was a nice touch. Plays are often so much shorter running than the musicals, so I understand why they can't all show us scenes from the nominated plays on the Tony Award stage. This year's solution was my favorite so far, by a large margin.
The Mary Poppins & Spamalot bits with Whoopi were very funny, too. They did a good job with this year's hosting segments. I'm sure having someone who can sing is helpful, but many of the past Tony Award hosts could sing very well, so perhaps it just took the right person to figure out what to do between awards. I was very entertained. With TONS of presenters, it's clear on any awards show that a host isn't really necessary, so I like to see them doing something that makes it worth having a host.
Stephen Sondheim getting a lifetime achievement award makes me happier than any other award could. I'm sorry he couldn't be there, but having Mandy Patinkin read his speach was perfect. Sondheim is truly amazing and I'm glad he's being recognized. Seeing how the current technology was used for Sunday in the Park with George in the revival was really great, too. The clips of that and the lead-in to the Tony performance of the revival were extremely well done.
Seeing Whoopi in one of my two favorite musicals (Spring Awakening) was wonderful! Having Anthony Rapp introduce my other favorite musical of all time (Rent) and then having the La Vie Boheme clip (How hard must it have been for the current Mark to follow the intro by Anthony Rapp?) was wonderful, especially since it initially made me think that I had misheard them earlier when they'd said that they had reunited the Original Broadway Cast for the night. Idina Menzel's cute comment about how it changed their lives and looking at her husband Taye Diggs was great. The current and original casts singing together on stage was really great to see. I'm glad that they showed the stars in the audience who were really into it (some of whom were even crying), too. This is going to be one of my favorite Tony Awards highlights of all time. Hopefully, one of these days they'll put some of these on DVD, so I can own them on something better than a video tape (there's no way I could keep them all on my DVR even if I still had the same one).
Patti LuPone's "Shut up, it's been 29 years" to the orchestra was another great Tony Award moment. I honestly thought they'd get more quiet at that point. I mean, she is Patti LuPone. I might not really like her voice, but she's an icon. I actually think her voice was perfect for her role in Gypsy and it was good to see how happy she was about winning again after such a long time and a few nominations in between wins.
I haven't seen In the Heights yet. I was hoping Xanadu would win, since it's definitely one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen on Broadway. I guess I need to see In the Heights, since it won Best Musical. It must be better than Xanadu, which was a lot of fun.
I truly believe this was the most entertaining Tony Awards in a long time. I was surprised how entertained I was throughout the show. There really wasn't anything where I found myself thinking that they were wasting time or that I fast forwarded through when not watching live.
Grade: A-
Reviewed by Kat at the 8:33 PM show | 0 screams