ANOTHER SET OF JERSEY BOYS: Sure, most TV sets in these parts will be tuned to the Sopranos finale on Sunday night, but there's also another show that features award-winning sopranos airing then--the Tony Awards. This year's awards are unusual in two ways. First, the show is going completely hostless, instead depending solely on presenters and musical numbers to move the show along. Second, unlike most years, there hasn't been a show that's been both a critical and a commercial phenomenon this year. Indeed, critical favorites this year like Journey's End and Company have limped along slowly bleeding money, with other critical favorites like Spring Awakening and Grey Gardens managing to pull out adequate numbers, but barely making any money. Even "sure things" Mary Poppins and The Year Of Magical Thinking wound up being less than the mega-hits that were probably anticipated, and there were a few complete misses in Deuce and The Pirate Queen.
That makes this year's awards interesting, because there's not a single show that looks like it has "sweep potential" (at least in the musical categories--in the play category, Tom Stoppard's nine hour epic Coast of Utopia became a substantial snob hit, and is likely to pick up the tech and direction awards, as well as the big "Best Play" award, and the complete raves for commercial bomb Journey's End will probably get it the revival award). Ultimately, my guess is that you're going to see one of the more spread-out sets of Tonys in a long time, with Grey Gardens getting Actress, Featured Actress, and Book, Spring Awakening getting Director, Featured Actor, Score, and Musical, Poppins getting most of the technical awards (flying nanny is worth something), and Company getting Best Actor and probably revival.
Closest race this year? Leading actress in a play, which pits the beloved Angela Lansbury and Vanessa Redgrave (both of whom garnered mixed-to-negative reviews) against Brit Eve Best and Julie White. White's performance was a force of nature, but it'll be interesting if she can pull out a win for a comedy that closed in February.
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