Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals

The Tonys: Who Should've Won

The Tony Award broadcast last night was a lackluster affair overall, but I was particularly disappointed in the winners. Herewith is my list of who should have won. I've omitted some of the technical awards, mostly because I don't really care, but also because they all went to South Pacific, which pulled off a bit of a Producers-esque sweep in categories that no one really cares about, so the voters just automatically give it to the show they liked the best, irrespective of the actual quality of the work.

Best Musical:
WHO WON: *In the Heights
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Xanadu
Yeah, Xanadu didn't have a snowball's chance of winning, but IMHO it was the most enjoyable Broadway musical of the season.

Best Performance By a Leading Actress in a Musical
WHO WON: *Patti LuPone, Gypsy
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: *Patti LuPone, Gypsy
Here, at least, the Tony voters got it right. LuPone was masterful, and the other admittedly talented women in this category didn't even come close to the power and nuance of LuPone's Mama Rose.

Best Performance By a Leading Actor in a Musical
WHO WON: *Paulo Szot, South Pacific
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Daniel Evans, Sunday in the Park With George
The dazzling revival of Sunday got lost in the shadow of Gypsy and South Pacific, but Evans really deserved to win for his sympathetic and animated portrayal of George.

Best Revival of a Musical
WHO WON: *South Pacific
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Gypsy
Much as I enjoyed Sunday, it was the Gypsy revival that really deserved the revival Tony, although it was recognized in most of the acting categories.

Best Performance By a Featured Actor in a Musical
WHO WON: *Boyd Gaines, Gypsy
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Danny Burstein, South Pacific
I love Boyd Gaines, and he was terrific in Gypsy, but he's won three times before. That shouldn't matter, but it does. I wasn't a big fan of South Pacific, but Burstein deserves recognition for a long career of terrific character roles. Yeah, it should be about the individual performance, but if the Tony voters aren't going to be purists, why should I be?

Best Performance By a Featured Actress in a Musical
WHO WON: *Laura Benanti, Gypsy
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: *Laura Benanti, Gypsy
Again, right on the money. I personally felt that Benanti pushed a bit too much in the confrontation scenes, but she's a remarkably talented woman, and she was so good as the meek Louise, I'm willing to forgive her minor excesses as Gypsy Rose Lee.

Best Original Score
WHO WON: *In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: *In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Well, it really should have been John Bucchino for A Catered Affair, but he wasn't nominated. Of the scores that were nominated, In The Heights is probably the best. The more I listen to Passing Strange the less I like it, although it works well in the theater.

Best Direction of a Musical
WHO WON: *Bartlett Sher, South Pacific
WHO SHOULD HAVE ONE: Arthur Laurents, Gypsy
There's really no comparison here. Laurents' work on the revival of the show that he wrote in the first place is head and shoulders above Sher's pedestrian work on the vastly overrated (both as a show and a production) South Pacific.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical
WHO WON: *Michael Yeargan, South Pacific
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: David Farley and Timothy Bird & The Knifedge Creative Network, Sunday in the Park with George
The Tony voters got such a hard-on for South Pacific, they lost all sense of reason. The brilliant design on the technologically advanced yet emotionally resonant Sunday revival puts the South Pacific set to shame.

Best Book of a Musical
WHO WON: *Passing Strange, Stew
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Xanadu, Douglas Carter Beane
DCB deserved the Tony for nearly singlehandedly re-imagining one of the worst movies of all time and making it into a hilarious and smart camp-fest. Stew's work is OK, but too often veers into pretense.

Best Choreography
WHO WON: *Andy Blankenbuehler, In The Heights
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: *Andy Blankenbuehler, In The Heights
Blankenbuehler's energetic work is one of the best reasons to see this lively but overly earnest show.

Best Orchestrations
WHO WON: *Alex Lacamoire & Bill Sherman, In the Heights
WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Jonathan Tunick, A Catered Affair
The Tony voters could have at least thrown A Catered Affair a bone for Tunick's lovely and intimate orchestrations of John Bucchino's sadly overlooked score.

The Phony Awards

I haven't really been all that into the Tony Awards this year, which is ironic because this season I saw almost every eligible musical. (Somehow I could never quite bring myself to buy a ticket for Grease.) The fact that the nominating committee chose to slight the lovely A Catered Affair in favor of the vastly inferior Cry-Baby just left a bad taste in my mouth.

And apparently I'm not the only one with a bitter aftertaste. My sources tell me that there has been a lot of grumbling about the Tony-nomination process this year, and that it might even cause a shakeup in the nominating committee. Too many business types and not enough artists, or something like that. Plus, there are only 26 people on the committee. I know it would be very hard to have a larger number of people who have a chance to see every show, but clearly those 26 people don't reflect an accurate cross-section of the industry.

What's more, a recent piece on Bloomberg.com exposes just how fraudulent the actual voting process is. Voters are supposed to see every show in a category in order to vote for that particular award. But according to Jeremy Gerard, there are quite a few shows this season that saw Tony-voter attendance of less than 50%. Not that that will stop anyone from voting, the oversight process being virtually nonexistent. Apparently, this season isn't all that unusual in that respect.

Then there's the Tony broadcast itself, which this year has become even more of a pander-fest that usual. At this writing, no fewer than thirteen shows will perform musical numbers on the awards ceremony, which will air on CBS this Sunday night at 8 PM. In addition to the traditional nominees for best musical and best musical revival, the show will feature numbers from Rent and The Lion King, the former to commemorate the end of the run of this landmark show, and the latter to celebrate the show's tenth anniversary.

As predicted, CBS will also allow the high-profile but low-quality shows The Little Mermaid and Young Frankenstein to perform, in a blatant ploy for viewership. On the plus side, A Catered Affair will also get a number, which is a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind that: perhaps the producers wanted to make up for the obvious oversight?

Don't get me wrong: I love the numbers on the Tony broadcast even more than the awards themselves. Far more, in fact. And I know that the producers have a fiduciary responsibility to the advertisers to attract the biggest audience possible. But the unsavory combination of a flawed nomination process, a fraudulent voting process, and a painfully populist awards ceremony have left me sort of glad I have a concert to perform in on Sunday evening. So, after the concert I can fire up TiVo and bloop-Bloop-BLOOP my way through all the crap. I have a feeling I'm going to be bloop-Bloop-BLOOP-ing quite a bit.

Tony Nominations: Catered Affair Was Robbed

The Tony Nominations came out this morning, and I'll be spreading my observations out over the next few days.

But the first thing that I noticed was that Cry-Baby received nominations in the best musical, best score, and best book categories at the expense of a far superior show: A Catered Affair. The nomination committee evidently got a hair across its collective ass and decided to slight librettist Harvey Fierstein, composer/lyricist John Bucchino, and director John Doyle.

That's really a shame. Although I found Cry-Baby passable (read my review), I enjoyed A Catered Affair far more (read my review). I mean, how can you even compare John Bucchino's lovely score to that of whoever those guys are who wrote the forgettable Cry-Baby songs? Well, history will out, and I think we're going to see that in the long run Bucchino's stirring and heartfelt songs will stand the test of time. Cry-Baby, not so much. At least the stars of A Catered Affair got their well deserved nods for leading actor and actress: Tom Wopat and Faith Prince. Also nominated was the great Jonathan Tunick for his orchestrations.

Hey, it's a business, right? The Tony committee probably felt that Cry-Baby had a better chance of touring and would have a more lively number to present on the Tony television broadcast. I've long since given up the notion that the Tonys had anything to do with artistic merit. But they do mean business: shows that win Tony Awards tend to run longer. Which probably means that the delightful but admittedly slow-paced A Catered Affair is not long for this world.

Drama League Awards: Everyone's a Winner!

So, the awards season has started in earnest with the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League nominations. All you have to know about the former is that Young Frankenstein got ten nominations, the most of any production. Reason enough for me to pay no additional attention to the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Then yesterday we got the Drama League nominations, and here are the musicals that were nominated for "Distinguished Production of a Musical":

A Catered Affair
Cry-Baby
Next to Normal
Passing Strange
The Adding Machine
The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island
Xanadu
Young Frankenstein

Um...so was there any new musical that wasn't nominated? Well, The Little Mermaid. That's got to be a slap in the face for Disney. "Yeah, we'll nominate just about anything, but even we draw the line at The Little Mermaid." In the Heights isn't listed because it was nominated last year, although it lost out to Spring Awakening. And there were certainly some smaller, under-the-radar musicals like Yanks and 10 Million Miles that the Drama League missed, but I think you get my basic point.

Do nominations and awards really matter? Well, not so much for the shows that have closed. But there does tend to be a strong correlation between the shows that win and the shows that run, although there are numerous exceptions. Of course, the only awards that really matter in this respect are the Tonys, the nominations for which come out May 13th. According to the poll that I've been running over to the right for the past few weeks, my readers seem to think that the four nominated shows will be In the Heights, Xanadu, Passing Strange, and A Catered Affair, although Cry-Baby is running a very close fifth.

Will the soon-to-open Glory Days change this calculus? Stay tuned.

Nine Film Boasts Recent Oscar Winners

OK, so Johnny Depp didn't win the Oscar for best actor for his masterful performance in Sweeney Todd. There was still cause for musical-theater fans to celebrate at last night's Academy Awards ceremony.

Two of the winners in the acting categories are "attached" to Rob Marshall's upcoming film version of Maury Yeston's Nine. Javier Bardem, who took home a best supporting actor award for his performance in best picture "No Country for Old Men," is slated to star as Guido Contini. And best actress Marion Cottilard, who won for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," will reportedly play opposite Bardem as Contini's wife Luisa.

The movie was delayed because of the recently resolved writer's strike, and according to IMDB is still in pre-production, although the IMDB page hasn't been updated since November. Anyone know whether this baby is filming yet, or whether Bardem and Cottilard are definitely going to be involved?

Sweeney Todd Gets Three Oscar Nominations

The Academy Award nominations came out this morning, and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" received three nods: best art direction, best costume design, and best actor for the sensational Johnny Depp in the title role.

It would be very easy to start talking about how the movie deserved more recognition, and how Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton were robbed, and blah blah blah. But that would be just fan-based bitterness and musical myopia. Yes, "Sweeney Todd" was a masterful film all around (read my review here). But this was a year of very strong non-musical contenders. And if you really want to get theater-queen pissy, you could note that "Hairspray" failed to land a single nomination.

As theater fans, we should probably be content that Hollywood has resumed making musicals at all. We went for decades without a decent musical film to speak of, apart from the occasional artistic and box-office disaster (e.g. "Annie," "A Chorus Line," "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "Little Shop of Horrors"). For my part, I'm simply happy that the "Sweeney" movie came out as stunningly as it did, and I look forward to rooting for Johnny Depp on Oscar night, although he has some insanely stiff and worthy competition.   

Kiki and Herb: Alive from Broadway

I got one up on the Tony voters.

Last night I caught Kiki and Herb: Alive from Broadway presented under the auspices of Boston University's Huntington Theater at the Calderwood Pavilion. Kiki and Herb lost the Tony for special theatrical event to Jay Johnson: the Two and Only, which I also saw. (Read my review here.)

So, unlike many of the Tony Voters, I'm actually in a position to determine who really should have won. ("What's that you say? The august members of the Tony community vote even when they haven't seen all the shows?! Slander! Libel!")

The bottom line: Kiki and Herb was robbed.

Kiki is more than just a drag queen. She amounts to nothing less than a bravura acting achievement on the part of Justin Bond. Bond does more than merely portray the boozy cabaret star Kiki; he embodies her. Bond's ministrations are fierce, frenetic, and above all funny. But the show isn't just a wildly comic spoof of chanteuses of a certain age. It's also a timely political tract on everything from the Iraq war to the Catholic church to gay marriage, apropos of yesterday's landmark vote in the Massachusetts legislature.

As both Kiki and Herb consume vast quantities of alcohol, the show also gets increasingly moving and downright existential. Despite the fact that neither of them is really consuming anything alcoholic, the act becomes gradually, almost imperceptibly looser as the show progresses. Bond evinces one of the most credible drunks I've ever seen, and the results are both hysterical and heartbreaking.

Kenny Mellman as Herb matched Kiki's intensity with a smarmy, obsequious rendition of the classic cabaret pianist, but I could have done with a little less screaming into the microphone. We get it: the guy's deaf. Does the audience need to be as well?

Speaking of which, one major note to the production staff: the sound overall was wa-a-a-a-ay too loud. I'm not sure if this is part of the intent of the creators, but the decibel level was over the top, jarring, and at times painful. The Wimberly Theater isn't that big: we don't need the sound system to go to eleven.

But I encourage any fans of cabaret or musical theater to make their way to the Calderwood Pavilion before June 30th.

Earplugs in hand, just in case.

Company Revival Closing

The Tony fallout has officially begun.

The Tony-winning revival of Company will close July 1st. (Radio Golf will also close, but blah blah blah, it's a play.) Company will have played 247 performances and 34 previews.

No word yet on whether the show recouped its investment. It wouldn't surprise me if it didn't, because it's been playing to half-empty houses, but then again, it's so economically produced that it just may have possibly eked out a profit, much in the same way that director John Doyle's actor/musician Sweeney Todd did, although the latter show did play about 100 more performances.

As I said in my review, I found the Company revival admirable but bland. The show needs to be neurotic with a sense of urgency, and I got none of that from this cast. Raul Esparza sang the hell out of the role of Bobby, but I didn't really feel any of the requisite inner turmoil. Likewise, I was disappointed in Barbara Walsh as Joanne. It pains me to say it, because I genuinely admire both performers.

So the first post-Tony shoe has dropped. How long will it be before the next shoe?

Spring Awakening Wins Eight Tonys

There weren't a lot of surprises last night on the Tony Award Broadcast. As many people were predicting, Spring Awakening was the big musical winner of the evening, coming away with eight awards in total. Grey Gardens came in a distant second with three awards, and Curtains, Mary Poppins, and Company each scored one tchotchke each, to use Julie White's word.

Speaking of Julie White, her scoring the best-actress-in-a-play award was one of the biggest surprises of the night. The insanely talented White was un-f%$@ing-believable in The Little Dog Laughed, and I was totally rooting for her, but I thought maybe because the play had closed that voters might go for someone in a still-running show. White also gave the most lively acceptance speech of the night.

But, anyway, that's plays, right? Let's get back to the stuff that really counts: musicals.

David Hyde Pierce scored the major musical upset of the night when he snatched the best-actor-in-a-musical Tony from the figurative hands of the odds-on favorite, Raul Esparza. (Did you SEE the look on Esparza's face when they announced the winner? Ouch.) Esparza is a very talented guy, but I wasn't  blown away by his performance in Company. Hyde Pierce was, for my money, robbed of a Tony nomination for Spamalot, and as good as he is in Curtains, I have a feeling some of the Tony voters were thinking of his hysterical turn as Sir Robin and his show-stopping "You Won't Succeed on Broadway (if You Don't Have Any Jews)" when they cast their votes.

Thankfully, my beloved Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson took away their well earned Tonys for MY best musical of the year, Grey Gardens. The show's third Tony went to William Ivey Long for his witty and period-appropriate costumes. Long summed up my general feelings for the season in his acceptance speech when he thanked the voters and the theater public for embracing the two "little musicals that could," Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening.

But why, oh why, oh why did Mary Poppins get best set for a musical? Were we throwing Disney an undeserved bone after snubbing Tarzan entirely? Or did the voters genuinely think the slow-moving behemoth that is the Banks house actually constitutes good design? Note to the Tony voters: bigger isn't better. Otherwise Starlight Express would have won best set, which it thankfully did not.

More later this week on the Tony results, as the spirit moves me.

Musical Numbers at the 2007 Tony Awards

I love the Tony Awards. (You're shocked, I know.) But it's not really the awards themselves that get me all worked up. Like all awards, the Tonys are arbitrary, politicized, and downright unfair. In other words, they're marketing. I'm certainly not knocking marketing: I edit a magazine about the subject.

But for me, the actual winners are of secondary concern. The Tony broadcast has always meant one thing, as far as I'm concerned: getting to see -- and to save for posterity -- the musical numbers from the nominated shows. Over the years, I've recorded, or secured recordings of, all the musical numbers from the Tony broadcasts since 1980, and I have selected numbers from broadcasts going back as far as 1967. (What me, bragging? Maybe just a bit.)

So each year I eagerly await to hear which musical numbers the respective casts will perform. Not all of this year's selection have been announced, but here's what's in the offing so far:

The producers of Grey Gardens have predictably decided to showcase the [insert effusive adjective here] Christine Ebersole in her hysterical second-act opener, "The Revolutionary Costume for Today." I was hoping for the Act I opening number, "Five Fifteen," mostly because the former is readily available on YouTube, but I'll take the delightful Miss Ebersole in whatever manifestation I can get her.

The cast of Spring Awakening, the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater musical, will perform a medley from the show. I HATE HATE HATE when producers do this: rather than showcasing one number, they create what amounts to a commercial for the show. Even more reason for me to root for Grey Gardens as Best Musical. No word yet on what Curtains and Mary Poppins will perform.

As for the revivals, the [insert yet another effusive adjective here] Audra McDonald will perform "Raunchy" from 110 in the Shade, without question my least favorite number from the show, but it does showcase Audra at her playful best. But with such a magnificent score to choose from, why oh why did they have to go with this middling, semi-effective character piece?

The entire cast of the hit revival of A Chorus Line will perform "One," presumably the finale version, as opposed to the surreal Cassie/Zach standoff version. When the cast performed this number on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day telecast, they inexplicably performed in their "street" attire rather than the gold finale duds, perhaps because it was raining, and the wardrobe department didn't want to deal with wet lamé. One presumes Radio City is more lamé-friendly.

Raul Esparza will perform "Being Alive" from Company, which will give the Best-Actor nominee a chance to show why he's the odds-on favorite to win. However, there won't be a number from the best-revival nominated, but otherwise nod-less, The Apple Tree. I was hoping they'd get Kristen Chenoweth to perform "What Makes Me Love Him," but either the Tony-broadcast producers decided not to let anyone from the show perform because it has already closed, or perhaps the nomination-less Chenoweth refused. 

In a bald-faced bid for ratings, the producers have also asked "American Idol" winner Fantasia, who got some great reviews after taking over for Tony winner LaChanze in The Color Purple, to perform on the Tony broadcast. Hey, if showcasing an Idol idol does for the TV show's rating what it typically does for my blog traffic, it might not be such a bad idea.