The Tonys

I hadn't planned to write about the Tonys. As I told a friend, better-connected, more knowledgable people than I have already flooded the cyberwaves with erudite punditry. But a piece in yesterday's Times caught my eye and prompts me to have my say.

In Tony Awards Face Criticism Over ‘In Memoriam’ Segment on June 10, Patrick Healy writes about the omission of the people-who-died (thank you, Jim Carroll) segment from the broadcast. It was run during a commercial break so we TV viewers didn't see it.

“Presenting in this manner allowed us to include more individuals than we have been able to include most years, and as a result, more accurately reflected the depth of loss suffered by our community this past year,” Shawn Purdy, a spokeswoman for Tony Award Productions, said in an email. This year’s montage was about two minutes and 40 seconds long, the same length as Cyndi Lauper’s last year.

I LOVE that paragraph. We get the bullshit explanation from a Tony spokesman and then in nineteen quick words the Times points out the lie.

The In Memoriam segment was dropped to make room for advertisements, of that I am sure. Worse, they weren't advertisements admitting to be advertisements -- they were adverts pretending to be entertainment: Sting plugging The Last Ship (coming to Broadway in October); The Paramount Group, owners of the Gershwin Theatre, promoting their longtime tenant Wicked; and, worst of all, "Jennifer Hudson singing a song from Finding Neverland even though she isn’t in the musical – and the musical isn’t even on Broadway.” (Note: it's opening soon at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, with no definite plans to come to New York).

I am so sick of advertisements and the money-grubbing culture that propels them. With TiVo's help I managed to avoid every single moment of the traditional commercials during the Tony broadcast, but I was suckered into watching the three in-show hypes. But you know what? I represent the backlash. I am now less inclined to see The Last Ship, Neverland or Wicked.

Take that, you pushy producers.

As for the awards, I was thrilled, and surprised, that A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder won for Best Musical. It is a fantastic show, but with no mega stars or spectacle, I didn't think it would win. I was also extremely happy that Neil Patrick Harris and Hedwig both won -- I see it in August -- and touched that Jesse Mueller won for Beautiful -- seeing it next week. And The Glass Menagerie finally won a Tony -- admittedly, a minor one, Best Lighting Design -- its first in seven Broadway incarnations. How is that possible?!

And the best-named winner of a 2014 Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre? No question: Beowulf Boritt, for scenic design of the play Act One.