The Next Best Theatre Podcast: Episode 56 - Our Reactions To The 77th Tony Awards

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[00:01:27] Uber vermittelfahrten und ist kein Beförderer. I'm Cody and I'm joined here by Dan Baer. Hello, hello, hello. Willkommen. Too soon, Dan? It's night time. And Lauren LaMagna. Hi guys. All right. So this is going to be interesting because what an interesting night.

[00:02:18] Those of you who are joining, who may have listened to our last episode, which was our predictions episode, maybe shaking your heads and wagging your fingers at how very, very wrong we were about a lot of the categories.

[00:02:29] Sorry if we led you astray in any office pools or contests. But honestly, I don't think anybody knew what the hell was going to happen tonight, which is exciting. You know, it's like part of the fun of this type of award show is that it doesn't always

[00:02:42] go the way we think it's going to go. But no matter the way it goes, it's almost always exciting. And I would say this was one of the more exciting ones. Yeah. I'll just say it. We clearly underestimated the power of Angelina Jolie. That's all it is, really.

[00:02:57] Yeah. Take that, Hillary Clinton. We're so sorry, Angie. But yeah, I mean, this was a wild night. The love was spread and it was just really exciting to watch it happen and not go anywhere

[00:03:14] near where myself, us or really anybody who was doing any sort of prediction or preview of the Tonys thought it was going to go. Let's just start by talking about some of the wins that most excited us. I want to start with something that wasn't a surprise.

[00:03:31] In fact, it was one of the more predictable awards of the night. But it was so exciting seeing Jonathan Groff up there holding a Tony award. Oh my God. As I mentioned in our last episode, you know, he's really just been a huge, great mascot

[00:03:44] for Broadway and musical theater in general. And as somebody who saw the original production of Spring Awakening three times in high school, this has just been a night that's been long coming and well welcomed.

[00:03:56] I just love watching creatives and talent talk about how passionate they are about their field. And sometimes with actors, you can see like they're maybe just not phoning it in, but definitely marketing themselves.

[00:04:09] And you could just see the passion and love that this man has for this art form and how he is truly taking it all in. It's one of the biggest nights of his life.

[00:04:18] And I love how you could just see that he loves what he does and he just wants to keep doing it. And that's just always so moving for me. That was a fantastic, beautiful, heartfelt speech.

[00:04:29] But for me, what I loved really most was seeing how connected all three of the stars of Merrily were throughout this ceremony. I mean, whether they were performing, whether they were just in the audience or whether they

[00:04:44] were on stage accepting awards, they were all so clearly in love with each other. And I love that, especially that they're playing these three characters and have that kind of real-life connection is so beautiful to me.

[00:05:00] And the way that Jonathan Groff like ran to hug Daniel Radcliffe as soon as he won, that was everything. Yeah, it was great seeing both of the boys from Merrily get some love. Jonathan and Daniel have both been Broadway mainstays for the past over a decade.

[00:05:19] And they both got rewarded for that. Jonathan on his third nomination and Daniel somehow on his first. I feel a little bad for Lindsay Mendez. You know, we said on the episode that it would feel a little odd if two of the three of this

[00:05:31] very integral central trio were given awards, but not all three of them. And that is what ended up happening. That being said... News Keisha Lewis. Keisha Lewis. That was the speech. The speech. That's my favorite, I think, award of the night.

[00:05:47] I mean, she comes out there looking like Big Bird's pink cousin, but that speech is so, so wonderful. And how she started, like trying to find her phone and then people stopped texting me. But also it was a running theme of the night.

[00:06:06] People reading their speeches off phone. I was just going to say, watching her and Shoshana Beam have like an exchange during her entire speech and just seeing how connected she was. I love the women of Hell's Kitchen, how connected those three are because you could see it throughout

[00:06:22] the entire night with when Moon won. Just like the way Shoshana was just praising her and just cheering her on. And the entire time, it was just a really beautiful exchange between those two women. And that was a very moving part of it for me.

[00:06:37] Yeah, she gave the speech of the night, including, like Dan said, not having her phone ready to go. The way she ended the speech with a call we hear a lot on the Tony stage, which is a call to never give up on your dreams.

[00:06:50] But this may have been the most powerful expression of that I've ever seen. Just so forceful and with just decades of gravitas behind her. As she mentioned, it was nearly 41 years, I believe, to the day since she made her Broadway debut at the age of 18 in Dreamgirls.

[00:07:07] That just encapsulates so much of what I love about the Tony Awards is it's such a celebration of an extremely close-knit, extremely talented community that doesn't always get the spotlight on them in the way that other areas of arts and entertainment do.

[00:07:20] But this night is for them and they know it. And they're there to celebrate not only themselves and the talents of those around them, but the talents of the community as a whole. And it's just always so powerful to see.

[00:07:32] And my takeaway from the Tony Awards, and this year more than most for some reason, is that I just feel lucky to be watching it and being able to live a life that is saturated in the arts.

[00:07:42] It just is something so special that we shouldn't take for granted. Yeah, that is something that is, like you said, it's a big theme of most, if not all, Tony Awards ceremonies. But there was something about that thread tonight that felt particularly poignant.

[00:07:57] It's a call even to those merely observing it to just recognize the importance of the arts, not only for ourselves and those around us, but society as a whole. To bring it back to the awards, I was a little surprised to see the ways that the Tonys honored

[00:08:13] certain shows through their awards and what story that told about the season and what they appreciated about the shows. Because we had Suf's winning score and book, which it could be argued are the central tenets of a musical.

[00:08:28] And then we had The Outsiders winning musical and direction, which is again, kind of like when a film wins Best Picture and Best Director, it's an indicator of something really powerful there worked together.

[00:08:40] And then on the other side, we have Hell's Kitchen winning two acting awards, which is really exceptional and Merrily won the other two. So it was just a really spread the love kind of night, which is something we don't always

[00:08:51] see at the Tonys or at awards shows in general. But I think that really speaks to this season, which I think we were kind of bemoaning that it felt a little bit like a weak season.

[00:09:00] And I think what ended up happening is that there was so much affection for these shows in individual pockets that let them all get awarded for equally important but different areas of their productions. I think you hit the nail on the head, Cody.

[00:09:16] I think that this was a really good time to have a spread the wealth year at the Tonys because of that very thing. It always felt so weird to me that we were looking at the list for Best Musical and just

[00:09:29] like basically knowing, okay, it's not Water for Elephants, but any of the other four have a good shot, but they all have things that they would be potentially missing because of things they weren't nominated for or just didn't have a chance in hell of winning.

[00:09:46] And the way that checked out, I think was really, really interesting. Shaina Taub is now only the fourth person ever and the first woman to win both book and score for the same show solo, which is insane.

[00:10:03] And you would think that with something like that, it would then go on to win Best Musical. And you would most usually be right because the last non-jukebox musical to win Best Musical without either Best Book or Best Score was Monty Python's Spamalot all the

[00:10:24] way back in what, 2004, 2005? Yeah, almost exactly 20 years ago. It's forever ago that something like that happened. And really the only reason that I have to throw in the non-jukebox thing there is because of Moulin Rouge and Jersey Boys, to be fair.

[00:10:40] But that's just the kind of thing that is so, so strange. The other thing that was weird, I mean, for me, was when Maria Friedman lost Best Direction of a musical to Tanya Taymor for The Outsiders because Merrily has been so much the talk of

[00:10:57] the town this season. It has been the only, that and Stereophonic, frankly, were really the only ones that seemed to cross over to more mainstream. The common culture zeitgeist. Yeah, yeah, to the zeitgeist. And they didn't win, I think, as big as we thought they would.

[00:11:15] Well, and to your point, Dan, both those shows, Merrily and The Outsiders, won the same number of awards, which is four, which is the most for any musical of the night. And Stereophonic topped the night with five.

[00:11:25] None of them swept, which I think does speak to how, like you said, Cody, how people really loved certain elements of certain shows or just certain people. I don't know about you guys, but The Outsiders was my number four, most likely, in Best Musical.

[00:11:41] But we all said on our episode that it genuinely could be any of those four, except for Warped Health. I'm sorry. No, I think I literally predicted The Outsiders to walk home empty-handed. Like, that's how wrong I was on this.

[00:11:54] Lauren, I do remember you saying, though, like, I do feel like there's a lot of love for The Outsiders. Yeah. At the end of the podcast, I was like, this is kind of weird. I'm not predicting it for anything. Whoops.

[00:12:04] It's one of those shows that every non-theater person I know that has seen The Outsiders, they've all been really talking about how much they love that show. And that should have been a bit more of a clue, I guess.

[00:12:19] Yeah, I know a few people who are passionate fans of that show. What are some other specific awards that we were really either surprised by or excited to see? I was wrong about this prediction, but I was really excited for Will Brill to win the Tony

[00:12:35] for Featured Actor in a Play for Stereophonic. I've loved him as a character actor for years and getting to see him, and that was very sweet. And I also really loved Cara Young winning.

[00:12:47] That was just a lovely moment, especially with her speech and just how on fire she's been the last three to four years. What a moment indeed. Incredible dress, too. This was an award that was on the Act One telecast of the technical awards before the

[00:13:06] main show on CBS. All of the special Tony Award winners, frankly, gave the best speeches. Yes, agreed. Especially the one who the teacher, the Education Award. Yeah, CJ Gillis. How she saved us, thank gosh.

[00:13:22] Woman said, I have one shot to be on Broadway and goddammit, I'm going to take it. And yes, mama, work. Yeah, I also loved the guy who won for best sound design of a musical for The Outsiders. Oh my god.

[00:13:38] Buddy Spencer, who I guess cursed and then the feed on the sturdy, reliable network that is Pluto TV cut and my phone watching it kind of freaked out. So I guess it was appropriate that the best sound design category is the one that

[00:13:56] made the sound on the feed cut out. As it should. As it should, exactly. Indeed. The special Tony speeches, to your point, Dan, were phenomenal. I also really loved Billy Porter is always good for TV.

[00:14:08] Oh my god, Billy Porter getting up there, taking everybody to church and then, where's my speech on the teleprompter? George C. Wolfe and Jack O'Brien as well, just legends of the theater. Just fabulous directors who really brought such energy to the stage and profundity.

[00:14:26] And I even remarked, you know, Audra introducing George C. Wolfe. I was like, well, this is just a run, a dry run for next year. When they're on the main telecast for Gypsy. Oh my god, what a moment. Jack O'Brien's speech was so freaking brilliant.

[00:14:41] And that's one of those things that I really, really wish that the Oscars would broadcast the Governor's Awards somewhere because getting to watch that live like that is so special. Yeah, and it's especially in theater.

[00:15:01] You know, we were saying that it's people who don't usually get recognition even on the main telecast people like lighting designers and set designers. These are people who rarely even get to speak in like press packages.

[00:15:12] So to get them on the stage and get them broadcast in front of a national audience is always just so heartwarming. The moment when Jonathan Tunick won Best Orchestrations for Merrily. Just all the statutes to Sondheim, first of all, for Merrily just made me

[00:15:28] brought a little tear to my eye. That one in particular was so sweet. His first Tony Award for a Sondheim show, which is just insane. Oh my god. Yeah. And Shaina Tau's first Tony, which was the first one of the night,

[00:15:43] got me emotional at six o'clock Eastern Standard Time, which was kind of unacceptable in my opinion. But just the emotion and the energy of it was unbelievable. And yeah, I agree. This needs to hopefully move somewhere into film and television where we can see more awards.

[00:16:01] Because I just think I like the way that Pluto TV kind of works with the Tonys just so we can see everything. We doesn't feel like the actual show itself is rushed in any way, shape or form. Absolutely.

[00:16:12] Yeah, it just really did feel like we're going to give you the time you need, even if it's on this silly little streaming platform that I guess I will just download and delete once a year in mid-June. Once a year. Yep.

[00:16:25] But the best part was like the second award of the night, Best Costume to Sign on a Musical, that was instantly when I knew like, oh, this is going to be a ride. Yeah. Because I don't think anyone was expecting Great Gatsby to win that. Great Gatsby.

[00:16:40] And it's only Tony nomination. 100% success rate, Great Gatsby. Exactly. Now I'm curious to see if the other Gatsby can come in and continue this trend with this category because again, Great Gatsby has won two Oscars and one Tony Award for its costumes.

[00:16:57] I've got that Cheryl would love that, I'm sure. Yes. No pressure on Chalfie. I am going to have to call out Tom O'Brien, our delightful guest reporter, after his specific discussions of lighting and scenic design of a play.

[00:17:17] We were all convinced of certain things and those things turned out to be wrong. Well, and the wild thing is that shows that I predicted to win, especially in the play categories, certain design awards ended up winning them just in like not where I predicted. Right, exactly.

[00:17:33] As a possibility in costume or lighting, not scenic, which it won. I had appropriate winning scenic, it won lighting. I just want to gloat a little bit being that I did predict cabaret for scenic design of the musical.

[00:17:46] Yes, and your reasoning was very sound, Lauren, that we were all, you know, praising to the high heavens the gutting of the Broadway theater for you said, guys, they did the same thing for cabaret and that show is open and we should have listened to you.

[00:18:01] I also didn't take into consideration with cabaret's set design that that would be including everything they did to like ornament the lobby and blah, blah, blah. Because to me, I was just picturing like the raised stage, which looked appropriately plain.

[00:18:15] But I guess the idea is like we are designing the set around you. Yeah. And the thing we pointed out about sound design of a musical often seemingly defaulting to the best musical winner end up remaining true. I just didn't know what it was.

[00:18:30] And I also loved within the show, the use of clips during the category. So general audience members can see, you know, the actual artists themselves, you know, talking about how they worked on the piece and what was the meaning behind certain aspects of it.

[00:18:44] So I thought that was a wonderful, awesome touch. I always like when we get additional clips with the Tonys and with the Tonys, you know, it can't be forgotten that it is not above all else, but very much so a commercial for Broadway,

[00:18:57] which I'm more than okay with because anything that gets people to go to the theater, it's fine by me. And if showing more clips is the best way to do so, which I think it is, then I say let's keep doing that.

[00:19:07] Did you guys also get a million theater commercials? Yes. And like, again, that is exactly what it should be. Yeah. I got a commercial for Great Gatsby, one for Sunset Boulevard, one for Wicked. That was just them screaming. Why show their faces? Exactly. You don't even need to.

[00:19:24] But brilliant, brilliant to have Idina and Cynthia present Best Musical, the last award of the night. When there was also like, what, five other Elphabas in that room as either guests or Tony nominees themselves. Like there were so many green girls in that room tonight. Yeah.

[00:19:43] When Cynthia and Idina walked out, I kind of breathlessly was, I'm currently at my parents' house, breathlessly started explaining to my mom, okay, so she was on Broadway and now she's playing the movies, this is really smart.

[00:19:55] I tell you, the publicity team for the first Broadway production of the last five years, my word, they are working overtime for those paychecks because that just announced when? Yesterday or was it even today? This morning. Yeah, this morning. Literally.

[00:20:14] And Adrienne Warren and Nick Jonas, the stars, were seated together and presented an award together. They had like the same necklace. My God. I know the Tony Awards just finished, but the Best Revival and especially the Best

[00:20:29] Actress in a Musical category for next year, there's either going to be some hearts broken or a lot of very suspicious ties in that category. Wait, let's ask for now, how many nominees do you think are going to make it into that category?

[00:20:42] Well, let's just for fun because I know the people listening to this actually do care about this. We got... Yes. We got Audra and Gypsy, we have Nicole and Sons of Boulevard, my friends, Audra and Nicole, I'm using first name. Yeah, we know them. We have...

[00:20:52] Adrienne in the last five years. Megan and Jennifer in Deaf Becomes Her, Idina in Redwood, I believe it's called. And Kristen Chenoweth in Queen of Versailles, if that's coming next season. Yeah, and the Tammy Faye musical too. Oh yeah. Yep. That's eight right now. Bloodbath. Oh my God.

[00:21:14] Happy Pride 2025. It's going to be great. Thinking about like then with on the play side, like Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga. Of course, yeah. Like... Pat LuPone's in the play too. Oh yes. Oh my God.

[00:21:27] Well, that's not about next season. We will get to that in due time. Anybody have anything else to say about the winners or can we move on to talking about the performances? Greetings from Evergreen Podcasts. We're rolling out a listener survey and we want to hear from

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[00:22:09] Podcasts. Head to evergreenpodcast.com slash listener survey to help a show and possibly get some free stuff for doing so. We can't thank you enough for the support. Now back to the show. I think Angelina Jolie's kid gets an A on her drama final.

[00:22:28] I really loved in his speech for best revival of play for appropriate, Tony Winter, Brandon Jacobs Jenkins, shouting out Ossie Davis, who wrote the other nominee of Pearly Victorious, like, I would not be here without this play. And this play would specifically

[00:22:48] not exist without this play. And then saying, for those of you worried about Henrik Ibsen, who wrote the other nominee, An Enemy of the People, he's been dead for 100 years, and he's already won this award twice. I loved that so much. Also, my other favorite bit of

[00:23:04] the speeches was stereophonic playwright David Ajmi saying, my agent gave me a beta blocker, but it's not working. Shaina Taub hyperventilating when she accepted her the one for best original score. That was great. And another iconic moment on an awards show where

[00:23:24] a woman removes her heels. Thank you, Danya Tamor. All right, I think we can talk about the performances that we saw tonight. Let's start with Hell's Kitchen. The first and really felt like quite the longest performance. Yeah, very long. When they finished the first number,

[00:23:39] I assumed they were done. And then they kept going for another two songs, three songs, kind of. At least, yeah. Yeah. And there has apparently been internet chatter about perhaps this wasn't actually fully organic, but I have never seen a standing ovation for a performance

[00:23:59] of the Tony's quite like that one. They got up in the middle of that performance and stayed up for the entire rest. Granted, the Jay-Z cameo probably helped. Performing from the lop? Moppy? Yeah! Insane.

[00:24:16] They were live? I was not sure. But no, it must have been because Alicia joined him for like a hot sec. True. Interesting. I mean, I understand being scared of musical theater. Yeah, I understand that, Jay-Z. He doesn't want to interfere.

[00:24:31] I also felt a little bit bad for Alicia Keys. This may be a little shady, but I feel like she got out-sung by people singing about her own life story. But that's just me.

[00:24:39] I kind of felt bad for Malaya Joy Moon because her big number was given to Alicia Keys. I cannot stand medleys on the Tony Awards. I understand the thinking. You want to showcase as much of your show as possible and as many nominated and potentially winning performers

[00:24:57] as possible. But look at any list of the best Tony performances or talk to any gay in a gay bar, and they will almost never tell you that one of the best performances was a medley.

[00:25:07] It's almost always a solitary performance of a powerful song or a recreation of an indelible moment in a show, and those last. And again, I understand why we do the medleys. It makes sense on paper, but it is always underwhelming and feels rushed and chaotic.

[00:25:23] And I think we just, I think we can all agree here, it's not the way to go. Yeah, it is very, very difficult to get a medley at the Tony Awards right. And I think

[00:25:33] the only way to do it really is if you're a big dance show and you can just throw in a full big ensemble dance number in the middle. I think that's really the only way you can do it. And they

[00:25:45] tried to do that with Hell's Kitchen, I think, and it didn't quite work. Although I think that this medley was better put together than the one that came later in the show for The Outsiders,

[00:26:00] which was more technically impressive, but felt very weird. We're getting lots of really cool bits of this show that look cool, but do not come together into a cohesive performance at all. Yeah, Hell's Kitchen sold the show. It did its job as being like,

[00:26:20] we're broadcasting this across the country, we want you to come to New York to see it. And it's a good opener for the Tony Awards. I get it, it was entertaining. I don't think The Outsiders

[00:26:30] performance was entertaining. I didn't really care about it until the rumble happened. And then I was like, oh, that's a really cool design choice. I understand why this is the big talk of the town

[00:26:39] at the moment. So even though both of them are kind of not organized, I was more entertained by Hell's Kitchen. The Outsiders looked like what I assumed a musical of The Outsiders would look

[00:26:51] like, which is not necessarily a critique because sometimes just doing the thing you are to the best of the abilities of everyone involved is enough. But it didn't really impress me until to everybody's

[00:27:02] point. The rumble did look good. I wish the camera had pulled back a little bit, but it made me understand why the show won lighting and sound because damn, the rain and the flicking of the

[00:27:11] hair and the blood, it was very impressive and appropriately theatrical. It looked great. It just felt really weird out of context, which was also true for another show, Suss. Let's just get into it. I really didn't like the performance at all.

[00:27:30] It was the wrong song. It was such an obvious song that they should have chose and they just did not choose it for some reason. I get why you maybe wouldn't want to sing a song titled

[00:27:43] Great American Bitch on the Tony Awards, but that sucker would have sold more tickets than this song. I guarantee you. Keep Marching, it works really well in the show as the finale

[00:27:59] because you're building up to it the whole way through and that message coming at the end of two and a half hours is really resonant. But on its own… It doesn't sell.

[00:28:12] No. And if they were going to do a big number like that, they should have done the opening number, which is very traditional musical theater and so catchy and is sung by Jen Colella. It was right there.

[00:28:29] I also tweeted as much, but it's a song about marching. So the staging is, we're marching. We're marching in place. We're marching upstage. We're marching downstage. We're marching. It's just, I don't know. There was a lot of tweets going on about

[00:28:42] this is extremely Schoolhouse Rock, which I can't disagree with. And again, it isn't even necessarily a critique, but it is just kind of capturing an energy that personally to me did

[00:28:53] not sell the show. The landscape of the year with the original musicals is the scores all kind of mushed together for me, you know, between The Outsiders and Softs and Water for Elephants.

[00:29:02] It all kind of has a similar plucky musical theater quality to it that doesn't really do much for me at this point in time, unless you're doing something really clever with say the lyrics, which Softs

[00:29:15] does in moments. I think the lyrics to Softs are actually way better than the music, but I don't know. I think it maybe is part of the reason why there was no kind of cohesion around the specific

[00:29:26] new musical that we are most excited about this year in terms of awards, even though The Outsiders end up winning. I think that modern Broadway original musicals are really struggling to find

[00:29:40] a definitive sound, for lack of a better word. It used to be they were called show tunes for a reason, right? They had a certain sound and certain vibe to them. And when you listened

[00:29:53] to a song, you kind of knew it was from a musical. But as the taste of the audience has evolved, I think they're trying to go more pop or more rocker, even incorporating elements of country. Folk. Yes.

[00:30:10] Yeah, all these sorts of things. And you can do that, but they kind of miss the patchiness that defines great show tunes. I don't want to sound very Jerry Herman speaking against Stephen Sondheim, but it's kind of where we are these days.

[00:30:32] What I'm finding is that it used to be for the better part of a decade, every show wanted to be wicked. And now I think every show wants to be either Once or Six, which again, Six wants to be wicked. Or Hamilton, really.

[00:30:48] But the Once of it all is very much what I get from a lot of these shows. And even my favorite of the nominees, Illinois, would not be on stage if not for Once's success. But I just think that it does a little better.

[00:31:01] Well, yeah. And Once was just such a ridiculously special show. Yes, absolutely. I don't know how to even... Yeah. And Illinois is... Okay. Now that was a great performance. My favorite of the night. Kind of by a mile. Easily. Easily my favorite of the night.

[00:31:19] And they were smart. They picked one of their strongest pieces. They put it on the stage. They adjusted it for cameras. They knew how to adapt their very theatrical piece for film and to

[00:31:31] again, quote unquote, sell it to an audience and to viewers across the world. They understood the assignment. The close-ups we got of Ricky Ubita. Oh my god. First of all, where the hell is that nomination? And second of all, to your point, Lauren,

[00:31:45] you don't usually want close-ups when you're talking about filming a stage musical. They're not calibrated for that. But this was a perfect execution of the camera on stage to accent and elevate the emotions already present in the dance.

[00:32:00] It is exactly what you're supposed to do when picking a singular number from your show. Something that is going to be memorable and have an impact on the audience. And I think

[00:32:12] I got maybe like 30 seconds into this performance and go like, oh no, this show is going to devastate me, isn't it? But I still want to see it because it's so beautifully staged and beautifully sung and orchestrated. And my god. Well, hurry up before it closes.

[00:32:32] I know, girl. I have a feeling that that show is going to be seeing a hefty box office for the rest of its run because of this performance. I think it really sold the show better than any other performance this night.

[00:32:46] By a mile, the best performance of the night. I will say though, I was quite impressed by what Water for Elephants was displaying, which again, it's kind of exactly what I thought the Water for Elephants circus musical would look like. Yeah, they're throwing people in the air.

[00:33:00] Exactly. They're flying around. I'm nervous for their necks and that's all fun to watch. Is it really substantial? Probably not. But I was very taken by it. My eyes were glued to the TV and nothing else out of fear for those dancers. My god.

[00:33:15] That was the pure definition of Broadway spectacle that we got tonight. And it was successful in that. It definitely is a spectacle. So I see why maybe families or that type of audience would be interested in something that big and that glitzy.

[00:33:31] Yeah, it definitely came across more or less exactly what I was expecting it to be, which is like, you know, poor man's Moulin Rouge, kind of. And I don't say that in a negative way. The characters are literally poor.

[00:33:48] Also, if we're ever comparing anything to Moulin Rouge, it's almost always by default complimentary to the thing we're comparing it to. Also true. I do feel a little bad for Water for Elephants though, being the only best musical nominee to not win a single award.

[00:34:01] I did. And it was one of those things where I felt bad for them mostly because based on this performance, this is a show that clearly would have been a much larger contender for choreography and scenic design if people agreed that the show itself was actually good.

[00:34:20] I feel that way similarly about Jessica Stone's direction. She ended up winning both the outer critics and the drama desk. So people were clearly affected by her staging, but not by the show itself, it seems, which is interesting. All right, so that's all the new musical

[00:34:35] performances. Let's move on to the revivals, starting with In Order, The Who's Tommy? What do we think of this one? Who's fine? It's a lot. And I do stand by that I think that it should have been nominated for best

[00:34:46] choreography. I don't know if it was shot in the best way to make that point clear because it did seem kind of just busy and chaotic. But that specific moment comes at the end

[00:34:56] of Act One. And having seen this production, they don't allow for any applause breaks until the end of this number leading right into intermission. And when you watch the whole first act lead up to this moment, similar to kind of how Suf's performance is at the end

[00:35:11] of the show, and you're relying on the context of all that came before it to make it ultimately effective. It really works in this production of Tommy, but on sound, I kind of was just dizzy.

[00:35:22] It was a lot of lights for me, less dancing, more things are flashing. I was kind of impressed by the lighting and video design specifically. There were a few moments where it really looked like they just extended that theater back another 20 to 100

[00:35:36] feet. It was great. But the choreography kind of represented to me everything that I hate about modern-day Broadway choreography, which is that it's just busyness for the sake of busyness and

[00:35:51] lots of big, flashy tricks that are cool to look at but aren't really doing anything for the story or saying something about the characters. So you're saying if every new musical score wants to be once, every choreographer wants to be recreating Newsies on Broadway right now?

[00:36:10] Yes! Yes, exactly. We are stuck in that season perpetually. Oh my god, 2012. That's what they meant by it, okay. Next up we had Merrily We Roll Along, which I think also smartly chose a singular number from

[00:36:24] the show to showcase their three stars. And I found this very charming. It was extremely well directed in a way that didn't really bring attention to it. When you hear best direction,

[00:36:34] you might think most stuff going on, but really a lot of times it does come down to simple interactions. And this one little number told a three-act story here. It started somewhere, there was a climax, and then it resolved.

[00:36:47] Yeah, I loved this performance. I thought it was great. The three of them are that show, and they were as great as you would expect them to be. I was also really happy that they chose a number that allowed them to use the ensemble for even

[00:37:01] a few minutes, because that ensemble is working very hard, doing a lot of work in that show. So it was really nice to see that. Yeah, I'm always glad when they get the chance to dress everybody up even for just 10 seconds.

[00:37:13] As much as I enjoy old friends, I really wish they had just said, fuck it and let Daniel Radcliffe do Franklin Shepard, Inc., because it's so good. If there was a world where he was the only nominee for the show...

[00:37:27] Absolutely would have done it. Yeah, I know why, I'm just saying. Next up we had, oh boy, Cabaret at the Kit-Kat Club. Yikes. Oh boy. How'd you guys feel about it? Head in the shoulders, my least favorite performance of the entire night. Everything

[00:37:45] I thought I would not like about this production based on what I've heard was seemingly on display to affirm my fears. Eddie Redmayne, why are you performing the MC like you just want the Blue Fairies to turn you into a real boy? I do not understand.

[00:38:03] Yeah, I couldn't find the perspective in this number. It did feel very movement class. I get it. We were rolling around on the ground and see-murling. I understand, I understand. The Sam Mendes revival is not dissimilar from that, but it's a little bit when you order it online

[00:38:20] versus when it arrives. I see the idea here, but it's not coming together into one thing. Again, I haven't seen this production because I'm not made of money and I don't have an oil well

[00:38:30] somewhere in Texas. Yeah, the fact that this production is the most expensive ticket on Broadway right now. I mean, they have to pay for the theater, the Tony award winning set. I loved the kind of like sicko energy that the ensemble was giving in this performance.

[00:38:47] That's one of my favorite things about the film version of Cabaret is the extreme distorted close-ups on people. Now they're just really big with this bearish makeup taking up the whole frame. I love how aggressive that is, but outside of that energy, I hated everything else.

[00:39:13] All right, we had two more performances that were neither from Best Musical or Best Musical Revival nominees, one of which was from a play, Stereophonic, which until about a week ago wasn't performing at the Tonys. And by the length of this performance, it kind of seems like they

[00:39:27] just found a minute for them somewhere and said, fine, we can throw you on stage in no costumes and just go for it. Yeah. And you know what? They sounded great. Yeah. I mean, they picked a great song. I've been listening to this

[00:39:39] cast album and this song specifically on repeat for a while now. And the thing about Stereophonic though is that, yes, this performance was helpful, but I think the show's constant presence on the stage accepting awards really sold the show for

[00:39:54] anybody that was already not convinced to buy a ticket. Yeah. I'm guessing that the performance is probably different in the actual show, just because of context of what's happening. I'm sure that there's something more going

[00:40:11] on here than what we actually saw, but they sounded like a real band. We actually had two performances to do with memorializing those who left us this past year, one of which I really loved, which is a tribute just to Chita Rivera. And when this started,

[00:40:28] I thought this was the intro to the In Memoriam segment. And then I realized, no, this is just for Chita. And she got included at the end of the In Memoriam segment. That Chita Rivera tribute was just about flawless. I loved everything about it. I loved that they

[00:40:45] did bring out Ariana at the end. I was watching this and I said, like, oh, pretty purple dress and did not even think, oh, she's going to do America. And we've seen her do America. Yeah. First time doing the Jerome Robbins.

[00:41:00] Yeah. And of course, she does it freaking fantastically. I loved that they did all little choreography bits from a bunch of her shows and having the people that they did speak about her just spoke to her specific place in Broadway history so well. And everything about

[00:41:23] it was perfectly judged. And if you're going to sort of single a person out for an extra memorial tribute, I think that that's how you do it. Yeah. And getting memorialized by Ryan Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth and Ariana DeBose. Thank you. Come on now.

[00:41:44] Yeah, that doesn't hurt. It was a joyous tribute. Everybody was excited to be there and talking about what she did the best, which, you know, if I were somebody known for my vibrant dancing, that's the energy I would want in

[00:41:54] my memorial. And we also had, of course, the traditional in-memoriam segment. We had Nicole Scherzinger singing what the hell is that song called? Oh, OK. What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line. And I thought she did a wonderful job. She impressed my mom. So there's that.

[00:42:10] I'm so sorry. I'm not remembering what the song was. My brain was saying Kiss Today Goodbye. That's not the name of the song. About this performance, call me old-fashioned, but I think that in-memoriam tributes at awards

[00:42:27] shows should be more focused on the people being memorialized than the person performing. Sure. Yeah. And this person singing this song kind of made it all about them, especially by the end.

[00:42:45] I love this song, but the way it crescendos, there's no way to not make a performance of it feel big by the end. I just don't think that's what I want in an in-memoriam performance. I get that. I thought she sounded nice. I thought she sounded nice, too.

[00:43:04] She sounded good. She sounded great. I get how there's also this little bit of a tease until what's coming in September when Sunset Boulevard does come here, and she's going to be one of those big

[00:43:14] maybe A-plus names for Best Actress next year. But I do think she sounded lovely. We did see four potential nominees for that category this year kind of strutting around the stage going, hey! Insane! Hey! You'll see me next year! Hey, guys! Staking their claim.

[00:43:30] Honestly, if we see a passionate but loving campaign for that category next year, I don't think anybody will be sad, especially with the amount of divas who are up for the award. My god. I think Ariana's still a pretty good host here. I think she's nice and comfortable.

[00:43:44] This may not have been my favorite one of hers, but I do think she's a pretty solid host. I agree. I think she's charming. I do think the kind of constant casualness of the flubbing every

[00:43:57] now and then is kind of sorry losing its charm a little bit. I mean, it was understandable last year when it was the Scriptless Awards, but I think maybe it was kind of directed towards that

[00:44:09] a little too hard this year. But I do think she keeps the show moving. I'm always glad to see somebody who's actually been on Broadway and is renowned for their musical theater skills hosting the awards. So I wouldn't be sad to see her come back.

[00:44:20] And that whole Cher-like opening number and outfit, my god. Oh yeah, you gotta call out the Mackey when you got it. My god, the vintage Bob Mackey. Ugh, love. What did you guys think of the space, the Lincoln Center space? Did you think it was

[00:44:38] a little bit on the smaller side for just the show of it all? It kind of made it look fancier. I'm not gonna lie. All the red. It's all the red. They really embraced that in how they did the set for the Tonys too. It just looked great.

[00:44:55] All right. I think that's going to do it for us here at Next Best Theater. Thank you so much for listening to us and following us along in this very unpredictable, but very exciting Tony season. Where can people find you guys on the internet? Dan Bayer.

[00:45:09] You can find me on Twitter at DanonFilm. And Lauren. You guys can find me on the Twitter at LaurenLemango. And you can find me everywhere at CodyMonster91. You've been listening to the Next Best Theater podcast, part of Next Best Picture.

[00:45:24] You can subscribe to us anywhere you subscribe to podcasts and be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts to let us know what you think of the show. We really appreciate your feedback and

[00:45:34] your support, which you can lend on over at Patreon. For $1 minimum a month, we get some exclusive podcast content from us. Thank you so much for listening as always. And we will see you all next time.

[00:46:26] Hey there. I'm Hannah. And I'm Audrey. We are a sister filmmaking duo. And co-hosts of Sleepover Cinema. Our show where we analyze the films that created the collective unconscious of the girls, gays, and they's of the late 90s and early 2000s.

[00:46:44] Princess Diaries, The Cheetah Girls, Aquamarine, Cinderella, The One Starring Brandy. We haven't stopped thinking about these movies since we first saw them. And we want you to rewatch them. And review them with us.

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