Last Sunday night, the final Tony award — Best New Musical — was presented not from the Radio City Music Hall in New York (like all the rest) but from the stage of the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. The entire company of The Producers was on-stage in formal garb as stars Jason Alexander and Martin Short opened the envelope and announced that the winner was, to no one's surprise, Hairspray. The live audience at the Pantages clapped enthusiastically.
This particular Tony was delivered at around 10:50 East Coast time, which was 7:50 West Coast time. I suppose if anyone had paused to wonder about it, they'd have assumed that the presentation at the Pantages was done before that evening's 8:00 performance of The Producers. That would have been logical…but wrong. For one thing, curtain time for the show on Sunday evenings is 7:30.
Although no one said it on the Tony broadcast, the segment with Mssrs. Alexander and Short was pre-taped. In fact, it was done the previous Thursday evening following the regular performance of their show. They held the audience after, everyone got into tuxedos and gowns, and they taped four different versions — one each announcing the four nominees, Hairspray, Movin' Out, Amour, and A Year With Frog and Toad. I am skeptical that anyone went to the trouble of preparing all four for possible broadcast — especially the last two — but perhaps they had to, just for legal-type reasons. Anyway, at the appropriate moment, CBS ran the appropriate version, then cut back to New York for the acceptance. Clever.