Audio problems aside, I thought the Tony Awards were terrific…this, despite the fact that I saw none of the nominated shows and didn't have any rooting interest whatsoever in any of the nominees. As mentioned, I felt the opening was quite spectacular. The special material that Neil Patrick Harris (a fine host) performed under the end credits was also quite wonderful…so they had me coming and going.
To a certain extent, these telecasts have an infomercial component: Will the brief presentations from the musicals sell tickets? I suspect Hair and Billy Elliott moved some seats in their mezzanines…and so did Jersey Boys (which wasn't even one of this year's nominees) and to a lesser extent, the one from Next to Normal. The excerpt from Shrek didn't arouse any yearning within me to rush the box office, nor did the numbers from Pal Joey, Rock of Ages or West Side Story. The segment from Guys and Dolls made me not want to buy a ticket, especially when I mentally compare it to the same song as performed on the Tony Awards the last time that show was revived.
It was nice to see Jerry Herman receive a Lifetime Achievement Award but I always wonder about the timing of these things. Earlier this year at the Oscars, Jerry Lewis got the Humanitarian Award for raising two billion dollars for charity and making all those popular movies. Why didn't they give it to him twenty years ago when he'd raised one billion dollars and made all those same movies? Why was he suddenly deserving of it this year? Jerry Herman did Milk and Honey in 1961, Hello, Dolly! in 1964, Mame in 1966, Dear World in 1969, The Grand Tour in 1979, La Cage aux Folles in 1983 and darn near nothing since then. What happened that made someone decide he finally warranted a Lifetime Achievement Award?
Oh, well. Good show. I'm glad someone made the decision a few years ago to stop confining it to two hours…and rigidly timing it so it couldn't slip over even a few minutes into the local news. This year, it ran about five minutes over and the world, amazingly, did not end. Remember how they used to act like it would?