Tony! Tony! Tony!
May 12, 2009Ok allow me a moment to “geek out” – the nominations for the 2009 Tony Awards where announced recently and I can’t help but comment. I’ve been a fan of theater (particularly musical theater) for the majority of my life so I’ve formed some strong opinions on the art form. Frankly the current state of Broadway makes me a little sad, not gonna lie. True, there have been
some great things happening as of recent (both West Side Story and Guys and Dolls revived in the same season?! ) but in the hopes of boosting fledgling ticket sales, I’m afraid that theater has signed a deal with the devil. Hollywood has moved in and taken over the Great White Way like bullies on the playground, and they don’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. Unless you are Disney (lets be honest, Lion King and Beauty & the Beast were pretty great) a film shouldn’t really be made into a musical – especially if it had nothing to do with music in the first place! Case in point – Legally Blonde: The Musical (I’m not even going to get into it…)
But in any case, looking down the list of nominated musicals, it looked more like the offerings of a video store: Billy Eliot, 9-5, SHREK (which was surprisingly a really entertaining musical, I’ll give it that)! But this is not new trend. This has been happening for some time, so perhaps that is why it gets me so annoyed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a truly original musical that hasn’t been retooled from another entertainment form (films, or – wait for it- the “jukebox musical”). But the final thing I find interesting is the amount of “film and TV” actors present on the list of nominees – Jeff Daniels, Geoffrey Rush, Jane Fonda, James Gandolfini,
Marcia Gaye Hardin, Constantine Maroulis (really?), Allison Janney and the list actually goes on! Don’t get me wrong, its not unusual to see television or film actors come to NYC to do a play or musical (in fact that’s how a lot of them go their start) it just seems to be a larger percentage this year than I’ve noticed in years past.
All bashing aside, I think all this should make for an interesting, and hopefully entertaining awards show. I will be parked on my couch with a glass of wine and some popcorn watching, thats for sure! For more on the Tony’s (in case I’m not the only one who cares…) visit their official website
