TONY Live Blogging

Why live-blog? It's the only way I might get through it. Because...

8:01 In the very first minutes, we get a performance from The Lion King. Now, I don't have anything against this particular show --other than that it started the horrid wave of Disney thinking all their animated films should become stage musicals and we all see the dark places that's taken the American theater and... OK maybe I do have something against this show. But here's the point. It's like, old. TONY should be celebrating the "now" rather than admitting that the theater is dead. Lie, people, lie. Your livelihoods depend on it.

8:05 Whoopi is hosting.

8:08 Rondi Reed wins Best Featured Actress (i.e. "supporting") for August: Osage County. It's going to sweep. She beat Laurie Metcalf, who America will know as second banana "Jackie" from endless seasons on Roseanne and Martha Plimpton, who is quite a theater fixture in New York but is also beloved by most folks who have a thing for 80s movies and early River Phoenix... i.e. people in their 30s.

8:12 CryBaby. This performance is a disaster --it's all over the place --but my friend, who has a thing for dark haired pale men, just melted into a puddle since the entire troupe of dancing jailbirds seems to have been cast to look just like the lead guy who has been styled to look like Johnny Depp from the 1990 John Waters film. Not that you can be styled to be Johnny Depp. There can be only one.

he's the king

8:22 THE LOVELY LAURA LINNEY! She's only presenting (somehow she defied the gods of awards shows by not being nominated for playing the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses). But for me her appearance is the first true musical number of the night. "why do birds suddenly appear... any time she is near" The supporting actor award goes to Jim Norton for The Seafarer. Raul Esparza gets snubbed every year. I hate the TONYs. Maybe they'll give him more to do guest starring on Pushing Daisies in the fall. Oh, you know you want his salesman back in the Pie Hole romancing Kristin Chenowith.

8:26 Passing Strange. That number did nothing for me.

8:37 John Lithgow. Usually at some point while looking him I remember that he was briefly threatening to be a regular Oscar fixture. But then it turns out to be just a two-in-a-row deal (World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment) and then he became a TV star and weirdly he still seems to be doing that character from that show about the aliens all the time as himself now. Was it always there? Best Direction of a Musical went to South Pacific (the revival).

8:41 Patti Lupone doing the famous 1st act closing number "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from Gypsy. Is Gypsy to musical actresses what Hamlet is to stage actors? Seems to be. I liked that number well enough but I have seen Gypsy too many times. How do they fill the theater every 3 years when a new revival opens?

8:52 They just shared a bunch of awards that happened off-broadcast. I hate that part. I live in fear that the Oscars will eventually do that. Gives me award-junkie chills.

8:57 A rapped Latino acceptance speech for best score. I think that might be a first for TONY. Very cute. Loved the Sondheim shout out.

Sondheim I made a hat. Where there wasn't a hat. And a Latin one at that!

8:59 South Pacific. Another stage to movie back to stage affair. It's a medley. They start with "There is Nothing Like a Dame" which always cracks me up. Because it's never...butch. Although that was definitely butcher than the last version (that stiff Glenn Close TV version some years back). Now it's the Kelli O'Hara show. I wish I loved her because she keeps getting plum roles. Her voice is gorgeous but as a star... I can never quite bow down. She's just not an "it" girl for me, you know. These things can't be manufactured or rehearsed or willed. They either happen between performer and audience member or they don't. Sigh.

9:02 As we cut to commercial they showed Daniel 'Harry Potter' Radcliffe. Think he's trying to win friends and influence people early to prep for a Lead Actor TONY nomination next summer for Equus? Did that sound cynical? Oh you know they plan these strategies early...

9:08 Whoopi descended from the ceiling dressed as Mary Poppins. "I can watch your children" Hee. Segueway to Kristin Chenowith. [love!] This is Featured Actress in a Musical. And the TONY goes to... Laura Benanti as Gypsy Rose Lee. She's wearing Nicole Kidman's Oscar dress from March 2003 only this time it's glittery and red (see for yourself, pictured left). She is so happy. But take it from me who goes to theater and who has been to a few of her shows. The reputation is earned. By which I mean: her understudies go on... a lot.

9:13 A performance from Grease. Everything (very) old is new again... on Broadway. Zzzz

9:24 I almost fell asleep (still sick. This damn sore throat is not letting up) during commercials but then I got a little e-mail compliment on my work from a writer/director who actually guided one of my favorite actresses to an Oscar nomination. That woke me right up. What a surprise. Boyd Gaines just won (his fourth win! Watch out Audra McDonald) for Gypsy. The show is two for two now acting-wise. Guess Patti's got her next TONY in the bag.

9:27 We're getting a little medley of the musicals that didn't get nominated this year. Hmmm. I thought the punishment was that they didn't get to hawk their show on this show?

9:40 Oooh, clips (and sets!) for the Original Plays. August: Osage County will win. First it wins Best Director.

9:53 Mary Louise Parker. MLP!!! We love her so much. We loved her before Weeds. And now there's even more to love. Best Leading Actor in a Play goes to Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing. We've heard from multiple sources that that win is deserved and that he's side-splittingly funny in it. If you're asking "who?" just know that he's amazing and totally sexy to me (What? Shut up!) and he's often naked onscreen including in the devastating Intimacy (2001, my review) and Angels & Insects (1995). I didn't understand that acceptance speech at all.

10:00 Deanna Duagan wins best actress. She's the pill-popping mom in August: Osage County. As soon as they decide to make it in a movie, there will be a war among all your favorite actresses 'of a certain age' to get it. That is, if Streep doesn't want it. You know Hollywood always gives Meryl first dibs.

10:04 a number from the new musical In the Heights. Strong number. The show is already a hit and this performance will only sell more tickets.

10:12 Harry Potter and the teacher from The History Boys (both are in Equus) presented Best Play to August: Osage County. Tracy Letts accepts. Takes some (deserved) potshots at both television and Broadway. I love him. He also wrote Bug.

10:15 Before I moved to NYC I was one of those guys who watched the TONY Awards every year and dreamed about seeing things that I never got to see. Before I ever saw a Broadway show I loved Mandy Patinkin wildly. So I was never one of those people who was like "isn't that Inigo Montoya?" So for me it's always a joy to see him... although his beard freaks me out. He is accepting a Lifetime Achievement for Sondheim. Nice proxy speech. And now a number from Sunday in the Park with George. Such a brilliant show and this was a strong production. The music.... ah, so pretty.

10:28 Best Revival goes to South Pacific. Glenn Close presenting was kinda telling/tacky since she played Mitzi on TV.

10:33 Lily Tomlin struts out all seductively and says that that was her tribute to Marisa Tomei. I don't get it. But Marisa (my current movie girlfriend) is shown laughing so all is right with the world. Or maybe I'm happy because Lily is introducing the "out of their minds cast of Xanadu" OMG. Cheyenne Jackson. Swoon. Hollywood is so missing out on him. He could so easily be the first big out gay movie star. So talented, handsome, manly, tall, memorable, everything. Gah! But the real star of Xanadu is of course Kerry Butler who is laugh out loud funny throughout playing Olivia Newton John playing a Greek muse playing "Kira". High-larious. Watching her hobble around during the "Don't Walk Away" number on one skate is so funny. I know the whole thing is silliness but I deeply appreciate silliness and that bit of slapstick generously reminds one of Katharine Hepburn's great screwball moment

I was born on the side of a hill

When I laugh I forget that I feel like hell. I have now lost track of the show because I keep rewinding and rewatching the Xanadu number.

Olivia Newton-John with the cast of Xanadu: Kerry Butler, Cheyenne Jackson
and Tony Roberts (not from the TONY broadcast unfortunately)

10:something Rent anniversary. Wheeee. Anthony Rapp --still so adorable. I used to always end up at the same shows as him Off Broadway. It was uncanny AND... true story: that first crazy screening of Moulin Rouge! that I went to at Ziegfeld in New York? He was also there... just a few people away in line. The original cast is lined up which I think might mean that they're going to sing 525,600 minutes. Yep. Taye Diggs & Idina Menzel met on Rent of course and they're such a handsome married couple. This'll be on YouTube in seconds I'm sure.

10:something LIZA! She needs a big font, don'cha know. The Best Leading Actor Musical goes to Paolo Szot as Emil in South Pacific (pictured, right). I guess I need to see this show. Damn he's handsome. I'm really gaying out with this live-blogging today. Cheyenne, Anthony, Mark, Paolo... but it's the TONYs so what did you expect?

10:something David Hyde Pierce is here to present a trophy to Patti Lupone... I mean to announce the Leading Actress in a Musical. I only saw Jenna Russell in Sunday in the Park and Kerry in Xanadu and both were deserving. She says she's using an old speech and just changing the names. The TONYs are in some ways like an unholy but classier version of the EMMYs: i.e. some people win over and over again. Other people are strangely passed over regularly despite many honors and big careers. She hasn't won in 29 years. Jesus.

i'm just fastforwarding now Oooh, final award. Best Musical goes to In the Heights.

the award for best live-blogging DOES NOT GO TO ME. My apologies. I'm sick and delirious!
Good night.

further reading: complete list of winners * ModFab projects about the fallout from the winnings and losing *
more familiar faces @ the TONYs last night:


Lily Tomlin, Kristin Chenoweth, Glenn Close, Gina Gershon, Laura Linney, Idina Menzel & Taye Diggs, Mark Rylance, Daniel Radcliffe.
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