So I've been keeping one eye on the Tony Awards, one eye on the protests in Los Angeles and one eye on a script…and I still can't figure out why I'm still on the same page of that script that I was on at 3:00 this afternoon. But this post is just about the Tony Awards…
I was, of course, disappointed that Boop! The Musical was almost completely overlooked. The telecast went something like 23 minutes over and they couldn't have gone 30?
Cynthia Erivo was a good-enough host but I guess I was spoiled by the great opening numbers that Neil Patrick Harris and James Corden gave us. Her closing number (with lyrics, I'm guessing, by Alan Edelman who was credited for Special Musical Material) was pretty good though. I do not understand the reason that so many of the presenters and speakers are introduced by offstage announcers when there's a perfectly capable host there who could serve as more of an anchor. It seems to be kind of a tradition of the Tony Awards for the host to disappear for long stretches of the program. It couldn't have taken Ms. Erivo that long to get into some of those dresses.
I liked the selection of a song by Charles Strouse to be sung under the "In Memoriam" montage that led off with Charles Strouse.
Having not seen any of the nominated shows, I'm not qualified to say if the awards went to the right shows or people…but most of them seemed to please the audience which, presumably, saw all or most of the shows.
Usually, a few of the musical numbers on the Tony telecast make me say, "Next time I'm in New York, I definitely want to see that show" but this evening, the only one that made me think that was the presentation from Operation Mincemeat. I saw Sunset Boulevard twice when Glenn Close was doing it and have zero interest in seeing it again, no matter how wonderful the leading lady might be.
The number Audra McDonald performed from Gypsy probably made me a little less eager to see that show…and I say that as a big Audra fan. But then I'm thinking "Rose's Turn" probably always looks overly hysterical when viewed without the entirety of the play leading up to it.
And as I'm typing this, the replay is starting on CBS. It was a decent show but I'm not watching it again.