There's a brouhaha raging about this year's Tony Awards. Naturally, the producers want Bette Midler on the telecast to do a number from her sold-out, just-try-and-get-a-ticket revival of Hello, Dolly! They especially want her and the male ensemble to do the title tune. When asked, Bette and her producers said yes but on the condition that they not do it at Radio City Music Hall, which is where the Tony Awards are being presented. They said the stage was too different from the one they have over at the Shubert Theatre where the show is running. They said the number would not be effective at R.C.M.H. and because the number has a lot of acrobatics in it, the alien stage might pose a threat to the dancers.
The Tony Award producers said no, they don't want to create that precedent. There have been remote numbers before on the show but they want to stop that. Arguing ensued and at the moment, the plan is that Ms. Midler will not sing at all on the broadcast. She will show up to present an award and possibly receive one but the number that will be performed to represent her show will be her co-star David Hyde-Pierce singing "Penny in My Pocket."
You may not know that tune because most likely whenever you saw Hello, Dolly!, that number wasn't in it. It was cut from the original production but has been put back for this staging. Frankly, I don't think it's a very good song and I wonder why nothing else from the show is being considered. There are plenty of good numbers in that show, with and without Bette Midler, and most of them work just fine out of context.
Obviously, this is not a big issue and the way tickets are going for Dolly, it won't hurt them one bit. But Midler doing the title tune would probably up the tune-in and do a little good for Broadway in general. If I were in charge of the telecast, I'd let them do it on top of the Empire State if they wanted to.
In fact, here's what I'd do. The Shubert is about half-a-mile from Radio City Music Hall. A person could walk it in about 12-15 minutes. The Tony Awards show is three hours, commencing at 8 PM. I'd have Bette present an award around 9:00 PM and after it, host Kevin Spacey would come out and tell her that the world is watching and the world would love to see her and her dancers perform the signature moment of her show. Bette would explain that she'd love to but she would have to do it from the Shubert because they're used to that stage and this one's too big and so on and so on and so on…
Spacey would say that will be fine— "And we have you scheduled to do it at 10:45 as the last musical number in the telecast tonight — if you get there on time. If not, we have someone standing by…"
We then cut to a live remote from the Shubert where Nathan Lane, dressed in the Dolly dress with the wig, is waiting to go on in her place. "Take your time, Bette," he calls to her. (Obviously, it could be someone other than Nathan Lane.)
"Oh, no!" the Divine Miss Dolly proclaims. "Nobody's doing that number on this show but me!" She bolts from the stage and a live Steadicam follows her out the door where she is mobbed by fans and unable to work her way through the mob and hail a cab. For the next 90 minutes or so, every time the Tony Awards broadcast goes into or out of a commercial, we cut to Bette in a cab, Bette running up W. 50th, Bette calling an Uber, Bette running into construction work, etc. At some point in her journey, she is joined by her dresser who saw her struggling to get there and brought the dress out so she could arrive ready to go on. We see her changing into it on the subway.
But she misses her stop and winds up way out in Central Park. Desperate, she appeals to a policeman on horseback and she (i.e., a stunt-person) hops on and the horse gallops down 7th Avenue with "Dolly" clinging to the cop for dear life. At 10:45, we cut to the Shubert where Nathan is cackling and getting ready to go on. Bette arrives just in time to shove him aside, make her entrance and perform the number to, of course, perfection. (Most of this — except maybe her leaving Radio City Music Hall and "her" arriving at the Shubert — would be recorded a few days earlier.)
Then back at Radio City Music Hall, they present the last two Tonys of the night: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Bette is nominated) and Best Revival of a Musical (Hello, Dolly! is nominated). If she wins hers, she accepts from the stage of the Shubert. If she loses, they cut to her mouthing "Fuck!" or something like that. The producers of the revival are at the Shubert so they can also accept from there with Bette and the cast if their show wins.
That's roughly the idea. It would get a lot of attention for the telecast…and keep people tuned in until the end, which doesn't always happen. They would have the big money number but it would not really create a precedent because they could tell other shows that wanted to do remotes, "Sorry, we only did it for this special routine." It could be very funny, especially if Miss Saigon and Eva Noblezada (who stars in it) win.
Will they do it? Probably not. But I had to throw it out there…