The Tony Awards are this Sunday and as in years past, they're so big that one channel can't contain them. There will be two parts to the presentation.
It starts with The Tony Awards: Act One which will be hosted by Darren Criss and Renée Elise Goldsberry. This will be viewable on the Pluto TV streaming service beginning at 6:40 PM on the East Coast and therefore 3:40 PM on the West Coast. This segment will run for an hour and twenty minutes — until the time the second part of this commences.
To view it, go to Pluto TV, click on the "live music" channel that's within the Entertainment category. At least, that's what they say to do. Don't blame me if you wind up watching a rerun of The Price is Right from back when they were playing a game where you could win a car by guessing all four numbers in its price. That's all I seem to be able to find on Pluto TV. Maybe you'll have better luck.
This will be followed by The 78th Annual Tony Awards broadcast live on CBS from Radio City Music Hall and hosted by Cynthia Erivo. This part starts at 8:00 PM on the East Coast and therefore 5:00 PM on the West Coast and I'll bet you already figured that out. This part is expected to run three hours and at least on the West Coast, it will be followed by a complete replay. Remember the days when the Tonys had to run two hours and not a second longer?
The CBS telecast will include musical numbers from all the shows this season nominated for Best Musical. Those would be Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Death Becomes Her, Maybe Happy Ending and Operation Mincemeat. There will also be presentations from the shows up for Best Revival of a Musical — Floyd Collins, Gypsy, Pirates! The Penzance Musical and Sunset Boulevard.
But that's not all! There will also be a performance by the original cast of Hamilton and numbers from two new musicals that were not nominated — Just In Time and Real Women Have Curves. I'm not seeing anything about a number from Boop! The Musical at least on the CBS part of the show. There's also no word if they're going to set up a dunk tank with Patti LuPone in it and let everyone on Broadway lob softballs at the target.
Having seen exactly zero of these shows, I have no predictions and no rooting interest. When the nominations were first announced, everyone seemed to assume that Audra McDonald in Gypsy would glide to an easy victory for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical. Ah, but some Broadway pundits are now cautiously forecasting an upset in that category by Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard and I saw one going out on a limb for Megan Hilty in Death Becomes Her. You still have time to get a bet down.