8:05: Opening Number. Neil Patrick Harris, you had me at "Hello." Brook Shields shows us the beauty of live theater by flubbing the lyrics...twice. No disrespect to Ms. Shields. It was definitely a funky fit lyrically.
SPOILER ALERT!!! I'll be announcing winners here so if you've got this Tivo'd read this AFTER you watch.
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The Live Blog:
8:08: Ellen Barkin wins the first award of the evening for Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. Don't think this was much of a surprise although I personally loved the woman from Mother****** with the Hat.
8:15 ish: Daniel Radcliff and John Laroquette set high standards with a production number from How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. The show was introduced by Robert Morse who starred in the original production and Ferris Bueller aka Matthew Broderick who starred in the revival.
8:22: AWESOME! NPH does a joke that connects Daniel Radcliffe, Equus and War Horse.
***Fun Fact: The Tonys moved to a new theater this year with alot fewer seats.***
8:25: John Lequizamo does stand up. Shortly afterwards John Benjamin Hickey takes Best Featured Actor in a Featured Role in a Play. I love JBH because a) his mom is in Plano, Texas and b) he also did a shoutout about the Mavericks game. (Hmm....Normal Heart wins again...is this gonna be a shut out?)
8:30: Catch Me if You Can does their production number... "Live in Living Color" happens to be IMHO one of the best Opening Numbers on Broadway in recent years. Norbert Leo Butz could snag the Tony for "Catch Me..." from the iron grip of Book of Mormon. What do you think?
****Note to John Benjamin Hickey's mom. The Mavs score is Dallas 32 Heat 27.
8:40: Boo! CBS doesn't show Best Choreography which went to Kathleen Marshall for Anything Goes. I always get peeved when Rob Ashford doesn't win a Tony. He's one of the best choreographers in the business. Consistently brilliant. (Although upon further reflection, I hear Kathleen Marshall's work, especially for Anything Goes is really fantastic.)
Some other winners announced outside of the broadcast are:
Lifetime Achievement: Athol Fugard, Phillip J Smith
Regional Theatre Tony Award - Looking Glass Theater Company, Chicago, IL
Isabelle Stevensen Award - Eve Ensler
Special Tony - Handspring Puppet Company
Excellence in Theater - William Berloni, The Drama Bookshop (Every drama kid's dream. Really. They have everything!) and Sharon Jensen and Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.
Spiderman in :30. Awesome! and now it's over? Really? No more spidey jokes....we'll see.
8:44: Book of Mormon wins Best Director/Musical with Trey Parker and Casey Nicolaw. Warhorse wins Best Director/Play. Congrats to directors Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris from War Horse.
8:47: Scottsboro Boys performs! Ahh...I forgot about the impending national tour...the tour must have paid for the Tony performance.
****Fun Fact: Rob Ashford won a Tony for Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002. I'm placated.
8:56: Broadway Royalty, Angela Landsbury and a *very important gentleman whose name escapes me* talks about all of the amazing things that The American Theater Wing does in addition to the Tony Awards.
9:00: Harry Connick Jr. announces NIkki M James from The Book of Mormon as the winner of Best Performance by an Actress/Musical. The Book of Mormon is raking in the awards....
***Fun Fact: Harry Connick Jr. wrote a musical called Thou Shalt Not. It played for 85 performances in 2001.
9:02: Book of Mormon performs. Watch carefully. This may be the hardest ticket to get on Broadway this season....hmmm. Interesting. This musical is known for being irreverent but their Tony performance is really tame...oh. Wait.
Warlord: "What the f**k is this?" There it is!
9:10: Awards for Best Sound Design of a Play goes to War Horse (Christopher Shutt) and Best Sound Design of a Musical goes to Brian Ronan for Book of Mormon.
Additional awards not televised:
Best Scene Design/Musical: Scott Pask, Book of Mormon
Best Scene Design/Play: Rae Smith, War Horse
Best Lighting Design/Musical: Brian McDevitt , Book of Mormon
Best Lighting Design/ Play: Paul Constable, War Horse
*****INSIDE JOKE: Hugh Jackman only plays the big rooms. See my first Fun Fact.
9:15: Hugh Jackman and Neil Patrick Harris medley officially steals the show!
9:20: John Larroquette wins Best Performance, Featured Actor/ Musical. Did he get choked up?
9:21: Perhaps Bono and The Edge are actually the next Martin & Lewis instead of Jackman and Harris? They're pretty funny. The Edge: "For Rock Stars, deadlines are just something that managers tell you to get you back on the bus."
9:23: Spiderman: Turn off the Dark performs. Peter Parker: "Anything can happen out there." Performance is really tame and (dare I say it?) pitchy. Upside: Nobody got hurt.
*****NOTE to John Benjamin Hickey's mom: I think it's halftime.
9:34: Announcing the nominees for Best Play Jerusalem and Good People.
9:35: Robin Williams announces Best Book of a Musical goes to....wait for it...wait for it.... Book of Mormon and Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Robert Lopez. (Yikes! Somehow I missed reporting Best Music of a Musical...perhaps I missed it in the onslaught of Mormon wins.) Best Music and Lyrics of a Musical go to Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone for Book of Mormon. I promise! The actual Tony broadcast is much more captivating than this increasingly exclusive list of winners implies.
*****By the way, Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardiner win Best Costume/Musical for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Desmond Heeley wins Best Costume/Play for The Importance of Being Earnest.
Other awards go to Larry Hochman & Stephen Oremus, Book of Mormon for Best Orchestrations.
9:39: Sister Act performs. Whoopi Goldberg announces it. Turns out just about every movie she does becomes a Broadway Musical. Coming soon, Ghost the Musical. (Really.)
9:45: Remaining nominess for Best Play War Horse and The Mother****** with the Hat are announced. NPH rides in on the Warhorse. What??? That's a PUPPET? It looks awesome. Must get tickets to War Horse!
****By the way, I feel like I have a responsibility to all those soccer moms in the midwest who think they might take their preteen kids to see a charming play about a Mother and Hat when they come to NYC this summer. The show is actually called The Motherf**ker with the Hat (rhymes with "sucker" but with an "F"). It's hilarious and a great show but it's probably not one you'd want the kids to see.
9:49: The Normal Heart wins Best Revival/Play. Superhero handsome Patrick Wilson announces. FTR, most everybody I know that's seen The Normal Heart loves it.
****FUN FACT: Patrick Wilson attended the opening of Rooms: A Rock Romance. Rooms is now headed to Nebraska's Candy Project Theater.
9:55: Cast of Memphis performs what appears to be an unrehearsed performance. Either that or the sound guy seriously over-sold his skills. The TDF kids (who came to see Memphis one night and surprised the cast by performing a number with them while in their seats) steal the show. Serious kudos to the production team of Memphis who nabbed their second straight national Tony broadcast performance in as many years. What a difference a Tony makes!
10:03: Samuel L Jackson announces War Horse for Best New Play.
10:05: Anything Goes performs. I love this show! and what a great season this year for revivals! Cole Porter and Oscar Wilde! It just doesn't get anybetter revivals-wise. Sutton Foster and the cast get 3 points from downtown on this one. Which reminds me....
*****Note to JBH's mom: The score of the NBA Finals is currently Dallas 81 Miami 75. It's the 4th Quarter with 11 minutes left to play!
10:17: James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave get standing ovation. (Kudos to CTI mentor Jed Bernstein and the rest of the Driving Miss Daisy production team for putting them together!) They present a montage of the plays from this season.
10:20: Christie Brinkley announces the all-star cast of Company! And yes, that's Stephen Colbert! FTR, this performance of Company and Anything Goes so far get my vote for Best Performance AT the Tonys.
10:24: Best Revival of a Musical goes to Anything Goes!
10:27: In Memorium with Tyne Daly. For my lovely friend Randall Wreghitt. On we go!
****Sorry JBH's Mom. Too choked up to check the score.
10:35: Harry Potter er, Daniel Radcliffe announce Frances McDormand as Best Actress/Play for Good People. Despite initial impressions of Ms. McDormand's exceedingly casual Tony attire (apparently jeans jackets are the new black) Frances McDormand is a class act and accepts the award for the entire cast and company. Gets my award for Best Speech at the Tonys. And truthfully I thought her dressed down nature was kinda cool.
10:38: No surprise here. Sutton Foster wins for Best Actress/ Musical. It seems Frances McDormand steals her speech. But What???? Sutton's dating Bobby Cannavale?? Very cool. She's in love! Very jealous. Nice shoutout from Sutton to her dresser who's going to be an artist! Kudos Sutton! With a nationally televised endorsement from this year's Tony winner, he's off to a great start!
10:44: Roller coaster-feeling moment for me...Awesome mix with Paul Schaffer, original Weather Girl Martha Wash and cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but apparently the producers and marketing team of Priscilla are committed to keeping the flyover states in the dark about the fact this show is actually about drag queens.
JBH's Mom: The MAVERICKS WIN IT!!!! Still waiting on final score...... This is a banner evening for the Hickey family. And Dallas. And Cleveland.
10:50: Catherine Zeta Jones announces Mark Rylance for Best Performance by an Actor/ Play for Jerusalem. FTR I haven't seen this yet. I did see Bobby Cannavale in The Motherf*cker with the Hat. He was fantastic. A performance well worth the price of admission if not a 2011Tony.
10:54: Norbert Leo Butz wins for Catch Me If You Can!! This is a big win for Catch Me (although not unexpected.) This Tony win could be the difference between having to close post Tonys and running long enough for the audience to "catch" them. Norbert thanks his Catch Me dresser as well as the dresser he didn't get time enough to thank for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I love watching Norbert perform. His entrance kicks the energy level in the entire theater up a notch in everything he's in.
FACT: Norbert Leo Butz won a Tony for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in 2006. He was also in the aformentioned Thou Shalt Not by Harry Connick Jr and the ill-fated Enron. (Enron ran for a longer-than-it-sounds-if-you'd-seen-the-show 16 performances on Broadway in 2010. Of course, that opinion could just be the Texas girl in me talking trash. )
10:59 : Chris Rock tells it like it is. "We know what the best musical is. It's like taking a hooker to dinner. You know you're gonna get laid." He also mentions "the best basketball game ever" and missing it sit next to Nathan Lane at the Tonys. I have a sneaking suspicion John Benjamin Hickey's mom defected to the Mavs game many awards ago.
Best Musical goes to The Book of Mormon. They thank Mormon founder Joseph Smith. Classy!
11:03: Neil Patrick Harris does a proper beat down to Hugh Jackman with his hilarious speed through of what happened tonight at the Tonys (courtesy of In the Heights' Lin Manuel Miranda and Tom Kail). Again. Hilarious.
All and all, there were absolutely no surprises on winners. But damn! (It's okay! This season on Broadway was a little potty-mouthed so "damn" is actually pretty mild.) This Tony production might just be the best I've ever seen.
Can't wait until next year! (I'm curious to see how the broadcast's TV Numbers faired against "The best basketball game ever!")
****By the way, if you had fun with me tonight, or enjoyed this article, you can subscribe by clicking the orange button underneath my name at the top. Thanks for sharing one of my favorite nights of the year!
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