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It's the Tonys! Officially named the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, this awards ceremony celebrates the best and brightest on Broadway.
For many years I had a love/hate relationship with the Tonys. I loved it because Broadway, but hated it because I would see all these clips from shows and know that I wasn't there. In 2011 I wrote on Facebook how I needed to figure out how to go to New York quarterly just to see shows.
Then I did. I figured out the three 'cheaps': flights, hotel, and tickets, and boom I'm in NYC pretty much whenever I want to be.
Now, I watch it much more critically because I've either seen all the shows or I have read up on them. Last year I saw all the Tony nominated musicals before the awards show. This year, I didn't. It wasn't that I couldn't have, it was purely out of choice. The Best Musical nominees were: Spongebob, Mean Girls, Frozen, and The Band's Visit (the one I did see) and my heart just wasn't into three out of the four. I will see one or two of them on my July Broadway trip, but seeing before the show just wasn't necessary this year. Now, I did PLAN to see Spongebob in April on my way back from London, but I had flight issues and so it didn't happen.
For the third year in a row I called Best Musical long before seeing the show. I think it was last August when I walked by the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and was pretty certain it would win (I was also sad because I thought teaching would cut my NYC trips, which it has restricted them, but not cut them entirely, though I have to be more careful about them).
When I saw Once On This Island in February I knew it would win Best Revival of a Musical, though during the awards I was thinking My Fair Lady (which I will hopefully see in July) might have nailed it.
In the coming weeks I'll go back and give commentary on the shows that I've seen. I think I just got so far behind (from the beginning) and got overwhelmed and that's why the writing stopped abruptly. Now things may not be linear (which will make me slightly crazy), but they'll still happen!
Back to the Tonys. One of my favorite things about this awards show is the speeches and this year did not disappoint. Broadway has become a place for such diversity, especially over the last few years, and the speeches touched on this time and time again. From Lindsay Mendez speaking about how people told her to change her name to Matthews in order to get jobs to Ari'el Stachel talking about avoiding events because he was Middle Eastern to being in a show which celebrated the fact, the speeches were amazing.
One of the highlights of the night was Melody Herzfeld, drama teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, winning the Excellence in Theatre Education Award after hiding 65 students during the February 14 shooting. Her students then came on stage to sing Seasons of Love from Rent. It was beautiful.
In the end The Band's Visit swept, winning eleven Tonys. Spongebob actually won a few. Mean Girls did not. Neither did Frozen. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child swept the technical awards on the play side (I'm SUPER excited to have tickets to that in July!) which Angels in America (which, sadly, I will miss) cleaned up on the acting side.
Overall, it was a good show, though as much as I love Josh Groban I didn't really LOVE he and Sara Bareilles hosting...they were okay, but I'm kind of an NPH (Neil Patrick Harris) snob and I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the winners and losers all night with some of my favorite people. Until next year...
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