The 2008 Tony Awards: Not Very Gay

As you noted there were several good performances at the Tony's this year, particularly Cheyenne Jackson and the cast of In The Heights. But my overall reaction to the show was pretty underwhelming. Whoopi Goldberg was poorly used and scripted. Having her dress up in various costumes was uninspired -- didn't she do that the last time she hosted the Oscars?

On a more positive note, I couldn't be happier for Seattle's own Bart Sher. We've been very fortunate to enjoy his inspiring and innovative work for years in the Northwest. It's great to see him getting recognition for his amazing production of South Pacific.

Its a real shame about Cheyenne Jackson. I hope he is still on when I go to NYC at the end of the year. I hear he is starring on Damned Yankees over the summer, hope the show is still on and hes back by then (fingers crossed). Looking forward to seeing Les Liaisons Dangereuses too.

Its interesting that the only part of the show I catched was Patty LuPones performance. I guess its in the genes, because I have always loved her work, way before I knew she was such a gay icon.

Thanks for the recap.

"Blame it on [her (gay)] papa, What can [we] do?"

Well, for starters, we can spell Lisa Manuli's darn name correctly!

Sorry, Michael, I'm usually not such a stickler for this (unless I'm billing for it, of course) -- but Liza is one of our biggest gay icons, for goodness' sake. It's a sacrilege on the order of pronouncing the second "e" in Bette Midler's name, or spelling Ms. Streisand's first name with a 3rd "a" -- it simply cannot be done.

Luckily, there's a song written about the spelling of her name: it's called (wait for it) "Liza with a Z." Every child should learn it, along with learning "30 days hath September" and "i before e except after c." If I were still teaching junior high English, it would be part of my syllabus!

He looked like ZZ Top's Rabbi.

visit my personal blog!...NOW!

Mandy came to the mic and someone at our party said, "It's Topol!" (Obviously our party was attended mainly by gentlemen of a certain age.)

My favorite things of the night were, The Cry-Baby perfomance because 1) I love the tap dancing scene and 2) I know someone in the show and my other favorite Rent performing with the original cast, except I didn't see Jesse L. Martin. Was he there?, and my last favorite thing Cheyenne Jackson doing a fab job performing and showing that he should have been up for best actor.

afhickman

"It takes a village (to make Village People)"

I want to put in a plug for Mark Rylance. Although he won for playing a role made famous, I believe, by Jerry Lewis, in "Boeing-Boeing," he is a great actor nonetheless. [Does anybody remember "Intimacy"?] I haven't seen the play, nor have I seen "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," but both vehicles strike me as being pretty tired by now. Haven't they been done to death? Of course, I love Ben Daniels, but I have actually met Mark Rylance, when I worked one summer at the Globe Theatre in London. He was artistic director for its first ten years and was quite an innovator. He was a gracious and learned gentleman. My only problem with him is that he doesn't seem to believe that Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays! By the way, he's quite short, only 5'8". Ben Daniels is 6'. Well, I'm just saying....

BFF stands for "big" and "fiasco" on the ends, and you figure out what the middle "f" is (or go to my blog to have it spelled out).

I loved Mark Rylance last night. And, by the way, Shakespeare didn't write his own plays; he was a beard for Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford (Queen Elizabeth the First made Eddie stay in the closet, writer-wise).

It was easy to miss, but apparently Paulo Szot, the Best Actor winner for ''South Pacific,'' thanked his partner in his speech. He thanked his father and mother, whose birthday it was, followed by his brothers and sisters and then ''Eduardo.'' Szot then rattled off a bunch of other names from his thank-you list. I'm also assuming that the guy seated next to Szot was probably Eduardo himself.

Wait ... everybody's always known, but when did Tomlin come out?

I've been waiting two days for this, but it looks like it's not gonna happen unless I pipe up. IN THE HEIGHTS won four Tonys-not three: Best Musical, Score, Orchestrations, and Choreography. It should have won a couple more, like set design and sound design, but what's done is done. Can you please update the article if it's not too late? Thank you.

And, yes, I too noticed that Paulo Szot's date was a man. The dreamy ones are always taken, aren't they? (Like I'd have a chance anyway)

And then I'll totally stop acting like a schoolmarm, Michael. Anna D. Shapiro is the fifth woman to win a Tony for direction, not the fourth. The others are:

1998: Garry Hynes, The Beauty Queen of Leenane

1998: Julie Taymor, The Lion King

2001: Susan Stroman, The Producers

2002: Mary Zimmerman, Metamorphoses

And not to be jingoistic, but two of the five are based in Chicago: Mary Zimmerman, who is a professor at Northwestern University and an artistic associate at the Goodman Theatre; and Ms. Shapiro, who is (of course) part of the Steppenwolf clan.

because they really were about Broadway--there were no painful renditions of Broadway songs by pop stars, no presenters who seemed to not only know nothing about theatre but actually seem to dislike it. I liked that there were a lot of numbers from shows, and even though Whoopi wasn't hysterical she also wasn't disrespectful--she knew the night wasn't about her and got out of the way. I was also pleased because I saw a lot of the shows this year.

...was British actor Daniel Evans, for "Sunday in the Park With George." He famously–and hilariously–asked Cheyenne Jackson to marry him at the Drama League awards this year. It was reported on Playbill.com and they showed a clip of it on CBS here in NYC. At other benefits and interviews he's made comments about how gorgeous the men of Broadway are.

Nobody's made much of it because he's not conventionally "hot" I suppose, but I think it's quite sweet and genuine. He kind of looks like Rob Corddry, bald and adorable. If you can't find a quote of him officially saying he's gay, it's only because no one bothered to ask. He also brought a male date to the Tonys.