Category: theatre

Despite lots of star power this year, Sunday night’s Tony telecast dropped audience from last year. “The telecast, which expanded from two hours last year to three hours this year, averaged 7.9 million viewers, down a bit from last year’s average of 8 million viewers.” Sunday’s big winner was Barbara Walters’ interview with Hillary Clinton, which drew 13 million viewers.

A lingering kiss between gay partners and their declaration of love in front of the cameras at the Tony Awards, stole the show Sunday night. “It was certainly the most prominent assertion of gay confidence at the awards yet, and comes at a time of a backlash against gay and lesbian relationships. ‘I thought, ‘No, no, no, this is the whole point.’ The whole point is that we all have to risk something personal to make something happen. The more it’s talked about the more it becomes commonplace, the less it becomes freakish. I think it’s a good thing’.”

“`Hairspray’ took a firm hold of the 2003 Tony Awards Sunday, winning five, including best book, score and direction. Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece `Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ was named best revival, while Brian Dennehy and Vanessa Redgrave, the play’s tortured parents, received the top acting prizes.”

“Slickly produced to the point of corporate blandness, the three-hour telecast featured generally well-mounted selections from the five nominated musicals and two youth-market swatches of ‘Def Poetry Jam,’ winner of best special theatrical event. The show also sold Broadway artistry short by consigning the design awards, including best scenic design and lighting for ‘La Boheme,’ to brief tape-delayed snippets.”

“This year the program felt less rushed, and it included some clever promotional touches, like having Jason Alexander and Martin Short, stars of the Los Angeles production of “The Producers,” announce the best-musical winner from the stage of their show. The cadre of presenters came from the worlds of film, theater and television, all delivering tributes to their roots (or brief stints) on the stage. The luminaries ranged from Sarah Jessica Parker and Benjamin Bratt to Rosie Perez and Danny Glover.”

“Seldom on Broadway does a kid topple an icon, but Bernadette Peters, musical theater’s top female box office draw, lost the top prize to newcomer Marissa Jaret Winokur, the bubbly fat girl who stars in “Hairspray.” In the past, Peters has usually bested the competition, once even picking up a Tony for “Annie Get Your Gun” in which she was hilariously miscast. But in the case, the kid benefited from the icon’s enduring difficulties playing Momma Rose, the ferocious stage mother who turned her mousy daughter into the celebrated stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee.”

The competition really wasn’t all that fierce. “Hairspray” faced Twyla Tharp’s “Movin’ Out,” a dance-musical based on the music of Billy Joel. The other two entrants in this category were hardly prepossessing.

The Tonys were heavy with contributions by regional theatres from around America.

“Broadway found a way to honor everything from a Eugene O’Neill masterpiece to a play about a baseball player’s coming out; from hip-hop poetry and opera to a dance-driven show and movie-inspired musical based on a John Waters cult hit and a Federico Fellini film.”

“The ceremony, which annually honors the best of Broadway, combined a new generation of shows and stars with the traditions and talents that go back to ‘The Impossible Dream’ and Mama Rose in ‘Gypsy’.”