Suzy's Take on the Tonys...

Tags:


Picture 1.png

Yes, I enjoyed the Tonys this year. I even did the "who I want to win" and "who I think will win" ballot from Tonyawards.com. It was actually surprising how many of my predictions were correct, even though I hadn't seen any of the shows this season! If you read the trades, you can pretty much guess who is going to win. South Pacific anyone? In the Heights? Yup.

But I still have three lingering questions about this year's show:

1. What was Kristin Chenoweth giggling at? (That she has a steady TV gig this fall on Pushing Daisies and Idina Menzel doesn't?)


2. Why didn't Stephen Sondheim show up to receive his Lifetime Achievement award? (I mean, come on…)


3. How could they possibly think it was the right thing to do to eliminate the "Best Book of a Musical" and "Best Revival of a Play" from the tv show? As a musical book writer who is always being told "the book is the most important thing" in a musical, I was offended. I honestly could have done without quite so many goofy musical bits with Whoopi Goldberg, if it meant we could see those awards as part of the telecast.


I thought this official statement from the Dramatists Guild said it very well:


DRAMATISTS GUILD STATEMENT ON THE TONY AWARDS

On Sunday night of June 15, the annual celebration and commendation of this year’s Broadway theatre season was celebrated at the Tony Awards hosted by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League. While we gratefully acknowledge the program time spent on how playwrights construct their dramatic ideas (and the mention of all four playwrights’ names), we are concerned (and have expressed our concern) that the awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Revival of a Play were relegated to pre-televised programming. Council President John Weidman maintains, “The theatre is an art form which is driven by writers. Nothing exists before the script. So when theatre awards are given out, it’s appropriate that the writing awards should take first position. Even acknowledging the enormous time pressures on the producers of the Tony Award broadcast, Best Book of a Musical and Best Revival of a Play belong live, on the air.”


Actually, I do have a fourth question:


4. When will Hugh Jackman host the Tonys again?


Note: By Suzy Conn

By Myrna Conn on June 20, 2008 6:37 PM | | Comments (1)


1 Comments

Gina said:

1. Ouch! lol

2. Nobody ever told him. He found out through the media announcement. Kudos to Steve! He deserves more respect than that. Not cool.

3. I'm with you on that 100%. Me and my friend/theatre instructor saw those categories pop up on the quick winning announcements and yelled at the tv.

4. Hopefully any time they ask Whoopi to again. I mean, really, what was up with the media praising her hostess-ness? The bits she did were equivalent of what a pre-K kid would think up.
Mom/Agent: What do you want to do, darling?
Kid: I want to dance with the shiny people, Mommy!! They have funny hats! And can I sing with the scary man??

June 20, 2008 8:38 PM

Leave a comment