So it’s Tony night again. The first awards to be canceled by the pandemic and the last to come back. And I’m not sure we’re still ready for awards as per the whole last article I wrote critiquing the totally botched Oscars. Last week’s Emmys fared no better, trying to blend low key intimacy, with only nominees sitting around dinner tables á la the Golden Globes, this year with full on reverie—gowns and tuxes and exuberant speeches patting themselves and their colleagues on their backs. The whole evening once again rang false and unnecessary. Maybe even a little tacky. And because of this all, I’m not convinced we’re ready for awards to continue, especially this lackadaisically trotted-out mess tonight. I apologize for being last minute but I still don’t care that much, especially for these most political of all the awards.
So tonight, the Tonys are airing across 2 platforms and from A to Z, I can guarantee you that if the Oscars were a trainwreck that culminated with egg all over their faces with the not Chadwick Bozeman finale debacle, the Tony Committee was apparently sitting at home saying “hold my beer” while they unleashed an Amtrak fiasco that couldn’t have been mounted better by Irwin Allen in the 70s.
We understand the pandemic mandated an unprecedented 18 month shut down that started out with “let’s lock down for 2 weeks and get this under control” and culminates tonight. Under the circumstances outside their control, they had two choices: call the 2019-20 season at March 12, honor the half season with their awards and pick up when Broadway came back, or wait until April 30 of this year when all the remaining shows that didn’t get a chance to open filled the roster and we had the complete season to honor with a big bash to end all Tony bashes. Unbelievably, and with typical Tony hubris, they chose this laughable hybrid: let’s wait a whole year, honor the short half season from 2019, but not even schedule the awards for another 6 months so that nobody even remembers any of the excitement, and a few of the nominees (most prominently Moulin Rouge’s best actress Karen Olivo, protesting Broadway working conditions) don’t even return.
So not only do we have a rushed out, half-assed slate of nominees, they can’t even fill several very important categories. We have only one nominee for best actor in a musical (but they orchestrated that with their typical snobbery concerning the only original musical of the season, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musicall shutting it out á la the infamous Victor/Victoria ’96 debacle on all awards because they deemed it “unwarranted of the honor and respect of the Tonys”, in all categories), no best revival of a musical because the only revival that even opened did so 24 hours after their arbitrary deadline (once again, manipulated to shut out West Side Story to avoid the political implications discussed below. Read on), and zero—yes, zero—nominees for best score so they filled that category with five straight plays’ scene-change music, a complete slap in the face to Lightning Thief.
So we have a half season nobody even cares about, nominations that are a joke, and awards that don’t even matter anymore. Enter long time network sponsor CBS who hands the Tony committee their beer and aims a torpedo at the rest of the awards evening. We know the Tonys never garner ratings. We know CBS has been doing them a favor for years out of sheer support for Broadway. We also know that no matter what CBS runs on Sunday evening, they are getting decimated in the ratings by HBO, Showtime, and almost singlehandedly by The Walking Dead if it’s airing. So CBS throws in the towel, and decided to only air the top three awards, best play, best musical, and best revival of a play from 9-11, with the three musical performances from the best musical nominees, and a whole bunch of your favorite Broadway stars singing, billing it not as the 2021 Tony Awards, but as “Broadway’s Back!”. (An amazing strategy! Those Walking Dead fans will never suspect what they’re not watching!) Picture a dozen crickets chirping all over my room right now. Then to heap further insult on the evening, they are airing all the rest of the awards from 7-9 on sister streaming station Paramount+, a pay platform, because those crazy Broadway fans will pay anything to see their Broadway. (I blame every one of you who paid $6-900 to see Hamilton or the upcoming Hugh Jackman Music Man. You’re the problem and you give us all a bad name.). But it’s biting them in the backside because all the Broadway sites on the internet are telling their subscribers to download it for a free week’s trial and dump it on Saturday.
So, yes, tonight is already a very multi-layered joke, one of Seinfeld-ian proportions. I’ll be tuning in and out, but with zero ambition for the lack of respect the network and their own organization has shown for this year’s Tonys. But on the bright side, with only 3 show’s nominees available in every musical category, my chances of calling a sweep have risen dramatically.
So with no further ado, the 2021 Tony goes to…….hell. I really just don’t care again.
BEST MUSICAL
SHOULD WIN: Moulin Rouge; WILL WIN: Jagged Little Pill
This isn’t that controversial, as they both have about 1:1 odds give or take a fraction of a point, depending on taste (sorry other musical I actually want to see most). Moulin Rouge is the big splashy escapist mega-musical in a year we definitely need levity and entertainment. Jagged Little Pill is the edgier, grittier, more threadbare interpretation of Alanis Morissette’s iconic album, where the music and performances are attracting the bulk of the attention this abbreviated season. I won’t be upset if either win, but Jagged Little Pill will make them feel like they’re choosing the artistic over the fluff. Even though we really, really, really need the fluff.
GOT ROBBED: The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. “We want more original musicals! No more jukebox musicals!”, chants the snobby Tony committee. Every. Freaking. Year. Yet in a season with a distinct shortage of nominees, they just can’t resist being superior and denouncing the only original score musical of their arbitrarily fabricated season as not deserving of their lofty standards. Screw you like you screw others, Tony committee.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Basically all the shows that didn’t get to open this season, so none.
BEST ACTOR
SHOULD WIN: Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge)….maybe
One would think that the lone nominee would be the one guaranteed winner of the evening. But there is one little know last hurdle Tveit has to clear, and the Tony committee have notoriously not been Tveiter Tots in the past, Tveit has never been nominated, even when he carries heavily nominated shows. He was the best and most pivotal actor in 2010’s highly lauded Next to Normal, yet the only lead cast member not to be nominated. Same with Catch Me If You Can, he only left the nearly 3 hour show to change clothes (and sometimes not even for that), carrying the musical as only a solid triple threat can on his broad, athletic shoulders. Yet they did not nominate him but awarded his costar Norbert Leo Butz Best Actor. Again, small chance, but the notoriously shitty Tony committee has left themselves an escape hatch if they choose….and ask Dame Julie Andrews how that can turn out.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: The self-important Tony committee, who have left themselves a little know escape hatch to still rob Tveit as they have every other year. Being the lone nominee, the committee still has to vote for him with a 60% majority. If he attains any less margin, the category of Best Actor in a Musical is thrown out this year. So, small a chance and shitty as it would be, there is still a way for them to rob Tveit from an award he has no competition for.
GOT ROBBED: Chris McCarrrell (The Lightning Thief), the lone other leading actor in a musical fell prey to the Tony snobbery that The Lightning Thief wasn’t a high quality musical and thus McCarrell wasn’t a high quality enough actor to be nominated. And to a lesser degree, Isaac Powell (West Side Story), for their silly, arbitrary season deadlines. West Side opened the day after the eligibility deadline “so Tony voters had time to see all the nominees equally”. But few Tony voters attend an opening night, as that is a huge gala evening for the show, it’s people, and A-List celebrities. Thus they had just as much time to see a show that opened on the Monday after as they did the Sunday before. Plus, shut down happened fast and quick, 3 hours after announced, so no one had time to plan to see anything. Again, on both fronts, your decision to jump the gun, you deal with the lack of nominees. The shade of it all, though, is that in doing so, the self-important Tony voters have deliberately opened that door to deny Tveit the award they’ve refused to even nominate him for the last decade. It would be a D move, but that’s when Tony arises to the occasion.
BEST ACTRESS
SHOULD WIN: Adrienne Warren (Tina); WILL WIN: Adrienne Warren (Tina)
Warren was the one performer out of the starting block who was pretty much dubbed unbeatable, much like Ben Platt in the year of Dear Evan Hansen. Like Platt, despite the limited competition being female heavy, expect Warren to shake a tail feather all the way to the podium.
BEST FEATURED ACTOR
SHOULD WIN: Danny Burstein (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Danny Burstein (Moulin Rouge)
Tony has tried for the better part of the millennium to make Burstein happen but despite an impressive array of performances in critically acclaimed productions of The Drowsy Chaperone, Follies, and Fiddler on the Roof, he’s become the Susan Lucci of the Tonys. Seven nominations without a win, it’s always been wrong role/wrong show. He’s finally right role/right show as the deliciously showy master of ceremonies Harold Zidler at the Moulin Rouge with one hell of a sympathy vote to make him the single tearjerking story for tomorrow’s wrap up.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: While I will always think that the character of Ike Turner is grand enough to be a contender, and Daniel J. Watts is up to the challenge, not a chance, even if they’d added the “Eat the cake, Anna Mae” scene from the movie. Not only did Burstein turn in the best male performance of the season, he also barely survived Covid and lost his wife, beloved Broadway legend Rebecca Luker to ALS this year. His place on the podium is reserved right behind Warren’s.
BEST FEATURED ACTRESS
SHOULD WIN: Lauren Patten (Jagged Little Pill); WILL WIN: Lauren Patten (Jagged Little Pill)
Patten is a powerhouse who delivers “You Oughta Know” and “One Hand in My Pocket”, the most definitive Morissette songs of the canon. With the diluted competition, she too is pretty much a given. And all the present fabricated internet controversy this week about Patten, who is straight, playing a nonbinary character, so they made the character straight but that erased a nonbinary presence…….it’s way too much, and fortunately happened after the voting closed so Patten will get her due.
GOT ROBBED: Yesenia Ayala (West Side Story). Like Powell, opening one day after the most arbitrary deadline cost Ayala, whose new age Anita is the best thing in the revival, any chance.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Because of the dearth of shows available, with 3 of the 5 nominees going to Jagged Little Pill actresses, there is a slender chance they may split the vote and allow Myra Lucretia Taylor as Tina Turner’s wise and spiritual grandmother slip in the back. But very slender.
BEST REVIVAL
CATEGORY CANCELLED: No Eligible Nominees
GOT ROBBED: West Side Story
Say what you want about the projections, the questionably diverse casting, and the many cuts (most notably, the iconic “I Feel Pretty”), opening one day after the deadline gave all the Tony voters the same amout of time to view it because few of them come to opening night. They had the same amount of opportunities as whoever had Sunday’s slot tied up for opening. This was undeniably a political way of silencing the ridiculous internet uproar over the casting of NY Ballet premiere danseur Amar Ramasar as Bernardo (cancellation culture at its worst. Cliff’s Notes version: Ramasar and a buddy at the ballet traded nude photos of their ballerina girlfriends, both were reprimanded and dismissed from the ballet. Ramasar has apologized, been cleared at a hearing, completed mandatory counseling, been reinstated at the ballet, and successfully held down employment in the revivals of Carousel and West Side with zero incidents. His girlfriend has forgiven him, is still with him, and given interviews stating the other ballerina has contacted her repeatedly about joining her lawsuit so they can get an easy couple hundred thousand from the Ballet. She maintains the story has been exaggerated by the defendant and her teen and 20-something minions who refer to him as everything from a sexual harasser to a sexual predator to a full on rapist. His actual crimes were promoting a hostile workplace to being a shitty boyfriend at most. No defending what he’s done, because it was definitely wrong and a huge breach of trust, but he has done everything asked of him to show his regret and make amends. When does a guy earn a second chance? His victim has forgiven him, but the one trying to get the money and her band of Broadway misfits she’s acquired won’t. They were staging periodic protests in front of the theatre (unfortunately not the day I was there on my last trip 4 days before lockdown. That would have been some good internet footage). Sad thing that despite solid to strong ticket sales, between this travesty and the subsequent but very real producer Scott Rudin debacle, West Side is the only musical not to reopen after the pandemic. Even Beetlejuice thrown out of its home at the Winter Garden on the smallest technicality to make room for the Hugh Jackman Music Man (again by beastly producer Rudin, but that’s next year’s story) found a new home to reopen in the spring.
SPOILER: Scott Rudin and the Internet
BEST DIRECTION
SHOULD WIN: Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge)
As a director who specializes in spectacles, I know how difficult it is to coordinate the many aspects to one off. As far as tech and spectacle, expect a sweep of Moulin Rouge as the only big splashy show in town that ridiculous half-season.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Diane Paulus is always a force to be reckoned with and is at the top of her game with Jagged Little Pill, mounting something from the threadbare beginning of Morissette’s landmark album. What she’s accomplished, in typical fashion, is not as showy or splashy as Moulin Rouge, but its smart and emotionally raw, which may coax an upset with the snotty Tony voters too “knowledgable” to choose style over substance. Note: style is important too for $189 a seat and up.
BEST SCORE
SHOULD WIN: Who cares, this is the biggest travesty of the night.
With only three jukebox musicals eligible this year, they have nominated 5 straight play’s scene-change music in this category. Here is where, much more so than West Side Story, they should have just cancelled the category. Talk about a fake, meaningless award.
GOT ROBBED: Showing their worst of their snobbish side and pulling a repeat of The Cher Show, the shitty Tony committee shut out the one original musical, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical because they deemed it inferior. Sorry, losers, you rushed out the nominations, you sat around forever to give out the actual now meaningless awards, you’re stuck with the fact that you had only one original musical and there is no way it’s score is inferior to background music. Your headstrong, stupid decisions; your rules, your consequences. Maybe you can orchestrate a way to rig the numbers and shut Lightning Thief out of best musical, but it totally deserved a nomination and a win for best score. Like passing The Cher Show over for best choreography for a straight play, and for best set for the picnic tables and chili of Oklahoma, once again that’s just crap. As a matter of fact, #ThatsJustCrap may well become my new hashtag for the out of touch, unrealistic, archaic Tony committee and its voters for the future. They need to go.
SPOILER: Again, the shitty Tony committee
BEST BOOK
SHOULD WIN: Diablo Cody (Jagged Little Pill); WILL WIN: Diablo Cody (Jagged Little Pill)
Cody (Weeds, Orange is the New Black) is already coming in with the Hollywood glamour vote, but she, with Paulus, creates an emotionally overwrought story from only the playlist of Morrissette’s album. Tina and Moulin Rouge told stories we already know.
GOT ROBBED: Again, The Lightning Thief. It didn’t stand a chance at winning but it legitimately deserved to be nominated under the rules presented.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Truly none unless the voters fall under the spectacle of Moulin Rouge, but that would make them look touristy and pedestrian, so, again, minimal to no chance.
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
SHOULD WIN: Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge)
As much as I would love to see Tina win for Proud Mary alone, from the Lady Marmelade can-can to Satine’s descent from the ceiling for the Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend montage, Tayeh keeps the show moving and the energy flowing.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: None, I just wanted to say Tina and Proud Mary again.
BEST COSTUMES
SHOULD WIN: Catherine Zuber (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Catherine Zuber (Moulin Rouge);
Nothing else this season touches the glamor and opulence of Zuber’s creations. Not even Tina Turner shaking a tail feather to Proud Mary.
BEST SET
SHOULD WIN: Derek McLane (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Derek McLane (Moulin Rouge)
The others are functional. McLane has given us everything from the movie, from the red velvet to the acrobatics to the Windmill and even the freaking Elephant.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: Did I mention the Windmill and the freaking Elephant? No one.
BEST LIGHTING
SHOULD WIN: Justin Tonwsend (Moulin Rouge); WILL WIN: Justin Tonwsend (Moulin Rouge)
Tony voters don’t know the difference between best lighting and most lighting, so this is their vote.
POTENTIAL SPOILER: The one tech award Jagged Little Pill has a chance of upsetting. Equally great lighting, they just have to think about it and notice it.
BEST PLAY
Actually, the straight plays are really where this silly truncated season is at. Jeremy O. Harris should walk off with Best Play and Best Direction for his revolutionary and couldn’t-be-more-timely Slave Play, an unflinchingly uncomfortable but very necessary look at interracial relationships from within. Beyond that, look for a lot of Hollywood like Mary Louise Parker, Tom Hiddleston, and Lois Smith to take the performance awards, as any other year. Even though they won’t be on CBS.