AND THE AWARD GOES TO ...

13 June 2022

I remember when they announced the "winner" of awards, but somebody decided that all the nominees were winners so now they announce who gets the award.

I have been an award show junkie ever since I saw the very first Oscar award broadcast the year we got our first television set.  Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, People's Choice ... I watch them all, though don't like the People's Choice much. 

Of them all, the Tony Awards has consistently had the best show, which makes sense, since they live for live stage performances. I almost missed last night's show, the 75th award show, but happened to catch it about 10 minutes into it.  I don't know why I like the Tonys so much since I have seen exactly ONE Broadway show and have not heard of most of the nominees and most of the nominated shows.

 Ariana DeBose was the hostess.  Someone I didn't now until I found out through the show that she was Anita in the recent West Side Story.  She did a wonderful job.

The first award given out was one of the few performers whose name I actually recognized, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, whom I know from Modern Family.  He got the award for actor in a supporting role for the play, Take Me Out, about a player on a major league baseball team who announces he's gay.  Ferguson's speech was very moving and I always love men who thank their husbands!

There were several musical numbers, one of the most amazing from the musical MJ about Michael Jackson (introduced by Jackson's two children).  But the one that got me was, not surprisingly, was the number from The Music Man, which is now being replayed on Broadway

I don't know if excerpts from The Music Man bring me to tears because of the musical itself or because Paul played it three times, got an award once and did bits of it in his last one man show.  I'm probably the only person who hears "Wells Fargo Wagon" and has tears.  But the number they did was great and I'm very picky about who plays Harold Hill, but I could see that Hugh Jackman is very good.

As the show moved along, I was getting nervous.  I remember the year that there was no Oscars that went to any person of color and what a scandal that seemed to be.  The Tonys kept being announced,  3 black nominees and 2 white and the white always won, until Phylicia Rashad took home the award as actress in a featured role in the play Skeleton Crew, playing  one of the four Detroit auto workers full of struggles and secrets who share a workplace about to be shut down.

Whew, I thought.  At least one African American has taken home an award.

But then playwright Michael R. Jackson took the award for Strange Loop, which also won best musical.  It's the story of a Black gay man writing a musical about a Black gay man writing a musical. It already captured a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 after it played off Broadway. In his acceptance speech Jackson talked of a low period in his life when he just kept writing because he didn�t know what else to do.

Then Myles Frost won leading actor in a musical for channeling pop star Michael Jackson in MJ, while the best leading actress in a musical prize went to Paradise Square's Joaquina Kalukango, whose performance of the show's anthem 'Let it Burn' was an emotional highlight of the ceremony. Paradise Square examines the conflict between Irish Americans and Black Americans during the Civil War, a piece of history that Kalukango acknowledged in her speech.

Kalukango also had the best hair of the night.  I'm sorry this photo doesn't show the design on the flat part of her head, which was amazing.  I wondered how many hours it took to finish the hair.  It was definitely worth it

I was surprised at how short the memorial section of the show was.  You'd think with all the deaths from COVID since the last award show there would have been a lot more and the song "On the Street Where You Lived from My Fair Lady was an odd choice, but sung well.

I didn't think I fell asleep during the show, but somehow I missed the lifetime achievement award for Angela Lansbury.  Lansbury was not in attendance to receive the honor, but the New York City Gay Men's Chorus performed a tribute to the star, as audience members in attendance cheered on the actress.

So once again, I've made it through another Tony award and now have all sorts of name and titles in my head, none of which I will see since we will not be in New York any time soon, if ever again.  But I thoroughly enjoy this show and look forward to it each year.