I hereby withdraw my prediction that the Tony Awards might garner decent ratings on Sunday night. That was based in large part on the erroneous (it turns out) belief that nothing of note would be on opposite it. Now, I find out that Game 5 of the Lakers-Celtics match-up will be on ABC that evening. That's something of note.
My pal Bob Claster is outraged that while the Tony broadcast will include a lifetime achievement award for Stephen Sondheim, they apparently are not clearing the time to do a production number of Sondheim tunes. There will, however, be eleven musical numbers from current shows…including several productions that were shut out from the "Best Musical" nominations. Young Frankenstein, for example, will be represented by Megan Mullally performing the song, "Deep Love," which does not strike me as the kind of number that will cause stampedes to the box office.
I also think the Tonys are missing a bet to not bring on Mel Brooks to present something and complain about his show's paucity of nominations.
I'm not sure the question of who will win matters much to anyone who isn't a nominee, a relative of a nominee or someone whose income might be impacted by a win. Just in case you're in one of those categories: Everyone will be very surprised if Patti LuPone doesn't win for Best Actress in a Musical. She's doing Gypsy but the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical will probably go to South Pacific and its director, Bartlett Sher, will probably win in his category. I'd like to see Xanadu win for Best Musical because I saw it and liked it, but the buzz is favoring In the Heights, which I didn't see.
August: Osage County will win for Best Play, Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti will win for Featured Actor and Actress (respectively) in a musical, and beyond these, I have no forecasts — although I'm guessing we can expect a couple of jokes about John McCain's age, Gay Marriage in California and fist bumps. Also, there'll be one along the lines of, "Patti LuPone just won for Best Actress but Hillary Clinton is still refusing to concede."
Enjoy the show. I'll be watching via TiVo so I can do a lot of fast-forwarding.