The 75th Annual Tony Awards

I know that this forum is usually reserved for discussing film and television, but I felt I had to come in here and weigh in on the fastest three hours of television entertainment I've seen in decades called The 75th Annual Tony Awards on CBS. Full disclosure, I stopped watching this show about 20 years ago when I moved away from the tri-state area. We all know how the movie and television industries were hit by Coviod-19. but no entertainment genre took a bigger gut punch from covid than Broadway, because it's live entertainment, which not only requires physical contact between cast, crew, and musicians, but sometimes interaction with the audience as well. We heard about one show last night that had its fourth preview before covid and didn't have it's fifth preview until almost a year and a half later. The struggles of holding casts together for almost two years was inspiring and the fact that the Broadway can laugh about it now deserves a shout too. We found out where some celebrities have found work when others could not...did you know Oscar winner Sam Rockwell and Laurence Fishburne are packing full houses in a revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo? Did you know that Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) won his first Tony Award last night for a play called Take Me Out? Did you know a revival of my favorite Broadway show of all time, Company, won five awards last night, including Best Revival of a Musical? Did you know Phylicia Rashad won her second Tony award last night and Broadway Legend Patti Lupone won her third? Did you know Billy Crystal turned his 1992 movie Mr. Saturday Night into a musical? And did you know two time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Mare Winningham is starring in a musical based on the music of Bob Dylan? Not to mention a musical about Michael Jackson called MJ that won its star, Myles Frost. his first Tony as well. After seeing what I saw last night, more entertainment than I've seen in the last 20 Emmy and Oscar ceremonies, if you live in the tri-state area, take a day trip to Manhattan and see a show.

Also wanted to give a big shout out to Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, who totally nailed her duties as hostess of the event. She was not only given an extremely complex opening number to pull off, that referenced just about every Broadway musical ever written, but a closing number as well, a first I believe for a Tony host. Debose was poised, energetic, and effervescent throughout the evening.
There was a running theme throughout a lot of presenter banter and acceptance speeches about behind the scene artists like stage managers, swings, and understudies that was fun. We learned after one of the musical numbers performed from a Best Musical nominee featured an understudy who learned she was doing the number 12 hours before the ceremony. The musical excerpt from The Music Man was a little strange because the majority of it featured Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster tap dancing, which I thought was strange, considering tap is a dance style I have never associated with The Music Man, but Christopher Wheeldon's Tony-winning choreography for MJ had a real Fosse influence to it. Joaquina Kalukango, who won Best Actress in a Musical for a show called Paradise Square performed a song called "Let it Burn" that literally made me burst into tears, easily the highlight of the evening that stopped the show. I'm sure most of this show can be found online and it's worth the watch if you can find it. An unforgettable evening of entertainment that may have revived my interest in the Tonys.