Thoughts while watching the Tonys:

They are having ordinary New Yorkers in Times Square yelling out their Tony choices. How cynical am I that I believe that 90% of them were told what to say and that that guy in front of the McDonald's hasn't a clue as to who Brian Stokes Mitchell is? Though I believed the obviously gay ones and the people in front of the TKTS Booth.

This year they are having the entire show all on CBS rather than having the first hour on PBS, a convention that I really enjoyed since it meant that they really lingered over the smaller awards and made them fascinating. Do they think that because they are on network only that they have to appeal to the non-theatre-goers? Because they won't, no matter how hard they try! Give it up, CBS, nobody but the theatre geeks give a flying shit about the Tonys and they never will!

There's Mayor Bloomberg. Again, I didn't recognize him. He is possibly the least memorable looking mayor that we have ever had. Yeah, honey, we all wish you were Antonio Banderas, too.

There's Billy Joel singing "New York State of Mind" in Times Square. He and Peter Gabriel can have a contest over which one of them look more like Curly from the Three Stooges these days. Christ, this song has slowed down. We only have three hours, Billy, pick up the tempo!

It doesn't feel quite right that they do the show at Radio City, the Tonys should be at a real theatre.

Now they are showing a number from Movin' Out, the Billy Joel musical. Funny, I don't remember the song "In the Middle of the Night" sounding quite so much as though it were from The Lion King before. And frankly, it doesn't do them much good to have the song sung by someone who sounds kind of, mostly, sort of, but not really like Billy Joel. It sounds like Billy, but wrong, and it would have behooved them to have it be sung by someone who sounds entirely unlike him so that you could listen to the song and the singer rather than what didn't sound right. It's like seeing a picture of a relative of a celebrity, they look like them but wrong.

If that dancer in the red dress's skirt were any shorter, she'd be a shoo-in for a job at Show World just up the block. Have I used that joke before? It sounds familiar. Ah yes, here, just a couple of months ago. I must think of other ways to call women in short skirts prostitutes, I am losing my touch. How about: Man, all these girls look like whores. Or at the very least, Olympic skaters!

I really love Twyla Tharp as a choreographer, but in this show she seems to be relying a little too much on the tour jeté, as there seems to be one every thirty seconds or so. She seems to have been watching a little competitive cheerleading on ESPN2 as well.

And there's our host, the unfortunately clothed Hugh Jackman. Not meaning that he is clothed in an unfortunate outfit, but that it is unfortunate that he is clothed at all. Dig that David Cassidy circa 1973 hair he's got going for himself (apparently, Van Helsing will be set in the pukka shell era).

Jesus, was that a shot of Vanessa Redgrave or Jessica Tandy several years after her death? I just re-watched Vanessa on Inside the Actors Studio the other day and she looked fantastic, and that was from only a year or two ago. I guess doing Long Day's Journey to the Curtain Call seven times a week is aging her rapidly.

Hugh seems to be shoving in all of these little ad libs, mostly better than what he's reading off the prompter. And now he's singing. Beautifully. So he's basically up there saying, check me out, I'm smart, funny, talented, handsome, tall, straight, and married! This is turning into a depressing evening in front of the TV and we're only nine minutes into a three hour show.

Ooh, a little dig at the vocal problems Bernadette Peters has been having during the run of Gypsy!

Can somebody please explain to me why they are calling it Nine the Musical? When is was originally on Broadway, it was just called Nine, I'm sure of it, and I don't recall anyone getting wildly confused, standing in the middle of 45th St., shrieking, "But 9 is a number! How can I buy a ticket to a number?!" and then falling in a gibbering mess on the pavement.

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, the cutest couple in New York, are presenting Best Book of a Musical. The following is hilarious, partially because I swear that I wrote my geek comment above before hearing it!

SARAH JESSICA
We love musicals. We see every one and sing show tunes all day long.

MATTHEW
In other words, we're geeks.

SARAH JESSICA
Some prefer "theatre enthusiast".

MATTHEW
But who're we kidding? We're geeks and we're proud of it.

SARAH JESSICA
So it's great to be in a room with thousands of geeks just like us!

MATTHEW
Not to mention the millions of geeks watching at home!

Amour? What the hell was Amour? Must be one of those shows that closed early but are in the category to make up the numbers. I guess it was another one of those short years, musical-wise.

Hairspray wins Best Book. I cannot imagine that the group from Amour were any too shocked. And you could tell that these guys knew that they were going to win, since they immediately went into a little routine about collaboration. I far prefer that to false shock--anybody that doesn't know that Hairspray is this year's Producers and will be snatching up every award but Best Play, and it'll get that one too if given the opportunity, hasn't been paying attention.

They tried to play off the second guy, but he refused to go and just shouted over the music until they stopped. Good work, Best Book of a Musical guy! Don't let the bastards get you down!

MATTHEW
We have just been informed that some people were offended by our referring to theatre enthusiasts as geeks. We would like to apologize to the accordion players and members of chess clubs who took offence.

Everyone is all relieved, I'm certain, that the seventeen thousand writers of the score for Urban Cowboy didn't win, they'd have had to not just play them off, but in fact beat them to death in order to end in time for the 11 o'clock news.

Of course, Hairspray won. And the adorable composer and lyricist are a couple and there was some hot male-on-male action during their speech. Actually, it was some pretty tame male-next-to-male action but I'll take what I can get on network TV.

First Mel Brooks is the toast of Broadway and now John Waters? In twenty years, will it be Johnny Knoxville for Jackass the Musical?

There're Bebe Neuwirth and Ann Reinking, thinking I have no doubt, "Fuck you, Renee and Catherine!" Boy howdy, Ann's face is looking more and more mask-like every time I see her. I fear that in a couple of years she'll be a dead ringer for Jocelyn Wildenstein.

Best Choreography, Twyla Tharp, of course. When you are basically an icon of dance, you win the Tony, no matter how much you rely on the tour jeté. O, I'm sure the show is great, I'm just being mean, yay Twyla!

The number from Hairspray is lots of fun. However, they have been doing the show for a year, why on earth is the lead girl getting out of breath when they have just started? She has to be in relatively good shape no matter how chunky she is just from doing these dances eight times a week for as long as she has. Maybe she's nervous because she's on TV.

And there's Harvey, both the king and the queen of Broadway. Harvey is Broadway. What the hell are they going to do when he wants to leave the show, who on earth can replace him?

What a spectacular number! It's frankly impossible to sit through without dancing along. I'm rewinding to watch it again. I love TiVo.

The entire audience is cheering and going crazy. Except for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, whom they just showed in a big close-up, clapping politely. You could see the thought bubble over her head, "I'm going to lose the Best Actress in a Musical Tony to that fat midget bitch, I just know it!"

They're wheeling out Christopher Reeve. He's bald! He looks rather like a combination between Dr. Evil and Stephen Hawking. But I've gotta tell you, he really does sound an awful lot stronger than he did just a couple of years ago. He really is a scrappy fucking fighter, my admiration for him frankly has no bounds. Though I still don't think that he ever could act.

Best Director is Joe Mantella for Take Me Out. Wow, that's a surprise over the directors of Long Day's Journey and Joe Egg! Though I would have loved to see Deborah Warner win for Medea, that was a limited run and closed shows just plain don't win.

The squeaky-voiced child who plays the title role in Joe Egg is introducing the number from A Year With Frog and Toad. Christ, she sounds like every child ever forced to play Annie in the sticks, like a cheap version of Shirley Temple. Normal children don't sound quite so much like they've just taken a hit of helium. Good thing in the show she's mostly silent. Yes, I'm very mean, but as a former child actor, I have no patience with the mannered ones.

"Eating cookies, eating cookies/We're so happy eating cookies/Cookies, cookies, cookies we adore!" If that's an example of the lyrics, I'm not entirely shocked that they lost out to Hairspray. On the other hand, it's a sentiment that is hard to argue with.

Julianna Margulies looks rather as though she got confused and tangled up while getting dressed, but they called her name, so she had to just walk out on the stage and brazen it out.

Dennis O'Hare wins Best Featured Actor in a Play for Take Me Out over the Long Days Journey boys. And they didn't even show him when they announced his name, I thought that he wasn't there! Either the cameraman wasn't in place or he had no idea what he looked like and couldn't find him in time.

And again, Michelle Parks wins Featured Actress for Hollywood Arms without being shown when they announced her name! Apparently, that's really good luck, being missed out by the cameraman. "I have never ever in my life been more proud to be a member of this community! Men kissing each other onstage, drag queens, children, it's a perfect world!" Man, they practically had to get out the hook, she just wouldn't leave.

Hey! They're showing a bit from The Play What I Wrote! Does that mean that they will be showing scenes from the plays again? No, wait, I don't think that it was nominated for Best Play but for Best Special Theatrical Event, whatever that is. O, except they aren't so much showing a bit from the play as they are doing some silly stuff specifically for the Tonys. Which is very much in the vein of the play, excuse me, the Theatrical Event, so it works perfectly.

Apparently, Melanie Griffith and her face-lift will be appearing on Broadway this summer in Chicago. I guess they have used up every actress who can actually sing and/or dance and are down to her. Yes, Melanie, we know you're married to Antonio, can you back the hell off? I'll bet she has bitch-slapped every woman in Nine, including Chita Rivera, thinking they were after her man.

I love the way they keep emphasizing that Antonio is playing an Italian, that's Italian director--as though by repeating the fact that he is Italian we won't notice the fact that he's singing in the thickest Spanish accent ever heard off of Telemundo. "Top off da morning to ju, 'Uido!"

And one of the two nominees from Hairspray wins for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Man, it's just performance award after performance award. They are an hour and fifteen minutes into a three hour show, are they saving Best Lights, Sets and Costumes for the very end?

Hugh Jackman plugging his new show, "This fall I'm coming to Broadway in a new musical, The Boy From Oz!" And this fall he will be leaving Broadway after the show closes in eleven performances. I hope not, actually, I want it to be good. "I'll play the great Peter Allen, a fellow Australian entertainer who actually made history as the first man ever to marry Liza Minelli!" I could tell that he wanted to say, "The first homosexual ever to marry Liza Minelli!" but was talked out of it by CBS's lawyers.

Joey Fatone apparently was just in Rent. Speaking of running out of people who can actually sing and dance...

Jane Krakowski wins Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Nine over Mary Stuart Masterson and Chita Rivera. They look genuinely pleased for her, so either they are brilliant actresses or they are a fairly close cast. She specifically thanked Melanie for sharing Antonio with them. Against her will, one has no doubt.

Ah, there is Frank Langella. I don't care if he is an asshole, I worship him. Although he gets some points off for that fake tan. He said, "Whenever I watch the Tony Awards at home, the speech that I have been asked to present tonight is the one that always send me to the refrigerator." He must be giving the Regional Theatre award. O no, he's telling about the American Theatre Wing. Yeah, pretty dull, except when he swept the president of the Theatre Wing into his arms at the end and stalked off the stage. Yep, he's still dead sexy.

Apparently, when Def Poetry Jam opened last fall, Broadway hadn't seen anything like it. I guess they were so stunned, they never mentioned it, because I never heard that it existed. Hmm, that actually looked pretty cool. "I want to hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply that metaphors get jealous, where the subject matters so much that adjectives hold pronoun rallies at City Hall!"

Jackie Mason's still alive? And still doing the same act?

And the Def Poetry Jam wins Best Special Theatrical Event! That's pretty cool and emotional right after they did the performance. All the little poets are jumping up and down squeaking, it's very cute. Ha, Russell Simmons just thanked his partner, then realized that he was on the Tonys and quickly amended that he was his partner in production. Phew, that was a close shave there, Russell!

John Leguizamo is introducing La Boheme. Is it actually nominated for anything? Ah, it's getting a special Tony for Excellence in the Theatre. "I'm here to introduce an opera. Pavarotti couldn't make it, so I was next on the list, and I'm getting tired of covering for him, that's for sure."

Are they really singing "My shoe is too tight! Run quickly to the shoe store, I want another pair!"? Hey, it's in Italian, they could be saying anything. I've never been to an opera, not even once.

An hour and forty in and not a single non-major award has been given, except for choreography. I'm telling you, the last thing they're gonna do when they're about to get cut off for the news is shy them at the winners' heads in the audience. If they even invited them.

Edie Falco really needs to lay off the fake tan, she looks orange as a carrot. The giant earrings don't distract me. Ha, Edie, up there to present, just made a joke about it being an honour just to be nominated. She wasn't, you see. Nominated, that is.

Hairspray of course wins for Best Direction of a Musical. Even Twyla Tharp cannot stop the Hairspray juggernaut. And it's lovely that he won, since apparently he has directed over twenty-five shows and has been nominated five times and it's his first win.

Best Revival of a Play, finally Long Day's Journey into Night wins something. Maybe they'll mention the fact that another O'Neill play, Moon For the Misbegotten, which takes place later in the life of Jim Tyrone, will be going up at the end of the month and will only cost audiences $15 and 2 1/2 hours of their time! No, he didn't say a word about it. He must have run out of time before getting played off. I'm sure that's it.

Ah, a tribute to Al Hirschfeld, that's the right thing to do.

Marisa Tomei is Broadway's stunning and brave Salome? Man, they only call you brave if you show your snatch. I wonder how bored she is with hearing that she's brave?

Brian Dennehy wins for Best Actor in a Play for Long Day's Journey! I'm very pleased, I do adore him, I don't even mind that he beat Eddie Izzard. Brian's making a big fuss over everyone else in his category and they showed Eddie, who clearly hasn't gone through this enough to have a good "I'm so pleased you won instead of me!" face to pull out of his ass. He's gonna run out of time before mentioning anyone in his play. And he in fact did. He said, "The words of Eugene O'Neill, they've gotta be heard!" Well, they will be at ATA from the 25th through the 29th! If I ever learn them.

Maybe I'll invite the cast of Long Day's Journey to come see us in Moon, do they have a Sunday show? Ah, they do and it's at 3p, so they actually couldn't make our 7p show in time, since they run 4 hours. Darn it, it would have been a nice gesture. And I'll bet one of them would have come, I know I would if I were them.

Bernadette's singing Rose's Turn. Here's hoping her voice holds out! Ooh, live TV is so exciting! And she made it.

Leading Actress in a Play. Yeah, like it's gonna be anyone other than Vanessa Redgrave. Of course it's her. Christ, she does look 100 years old. I really think that it's the grey dress that makes her look so elderly. Also the hair colour. I love her overbite, I find it so charming.

They're doing "Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha. The problem with anyone playing that role is that no matter how brilliant they are, they cannot escape the shadow of the perfect Richard Kiley. On the other hand, the original Aldonza sucked so egregiously that anyone is glorious in comparison.

Barbara Walters is presenting Best Revival of a Musical. "So why am I here tonight? You're right, I've never appeared on Broadway. I was asked to present the award for Best Revival of a Musical because people think I saw the original productions of all of the shows nominated! Well, for your information I did not attend the original production of La Boheme in 1896! I was out of town."

This is actually a pretty hard category to call. And the winner is Nine! Excuse me, Nine, the Musical. The producer accepting looks like my cat, Monty. I don't know if it's a weird perspective or if he really does have one puffy cheek but the resemblance is uncanny.

They say that Billy Joel is a Tony Award winner earlier this evening? That means that he must have won for orchestrations, I can't imagine that he was nominated for doing the costumes, which means that they did do the smaller awards before the network show! But I checked to see whether there would be a PBS portion of the evening, and there wasn't, I'm sure there wasn't! So this year we get three hours on CBS and fuck the smaller categories? That's not right.

Best Actress in a Musical is Marissa Jaret Winokur for Hairspray. It must be really something to be totally a non-traditional leading lady and not only to win a Tony but to beat Bernadette Peters! And there you go, she said, "If a 4'11" chubby New York girl can be a leading lady in a Broadway show and win a Tony, then anything can happen!" Hopefully, a 5'10˝" chubby girl from Weehawken via Los Angeles can do the same.

Ah, there's Alan "Bisexual Men Are Totally the Hottest" Cumming. Apparently, he was the host of the non-televised portion of the evening, aka the Tony Ghetto, which is totally not fair as there isn't anything like enough Alan Cumming in my life.

Harvey wins for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, of course. Even with Brian Stokes Mitchell in the same category, Harvey couldn't possibly lose. He says that he adores each and every member of the theatrical community. Well, that includes me! Right back atcha, Harvey.

They couldn't bring themselves to have the smaller awards on TV but they're having Def Poetry Jam on twice? That is all kinds of wrong! I cannot even begin to list all the ways that is wrong! And if they are going to do it, why not have it miked properly?

Best Play, Take Me Out, of course. After winning Best Director and Featured Actor, there wasn't a chance it would lose.

Another time-waster, they had a website poll for Best Tony-Winning Play Ever, which was won by Death of a Salesman. And a big "who cares?" resounds across our great nation.

Martin Short and Jason Alexander, live via satellite from the Pantages in Hollywood where they are performing in, as Martin Short says, Puppetry of the Penis. No, no, they're doing The Producers, of course. I wonder what on earth could possibly win? Well, it ain't gonna be Amour.

Yes, it's Hairspray, natch. I wish John Waters was there, taking over the room like Mel Brooks did back in '01.

It's 2 hours and 58 minutes into a show that cannot last one minute longer than 3 hours and the announcer says "Don't go away! The Tony Awards continue on CBS with Hugh Jackman!" What in hell will they continue to do after the commercials? Well, I'll never know, because my TiVo switched channels at 11p to get a Law and Order Criminal Intent rerun instead of whatever golden words were going to come out of Hugh Jackman's neck. Presumably, "Goodnight, everybody!"

Lenten entries missed:

Mary-Ellen redesigned her site, discovered that there is such thing as a free lunch, marched for peace, and watched nature in action.

Today's horoscope:
By involving yourself, you might complicate the situation. For now, you're here on a mission of mercy. As time goes by, your own needs will become part of the equation.

One year ago today:
Excuse me while I hold my sides that are aching because of all of the laughter that is forthcoming from my mouth.

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Last Updated Mon 9 June 02:55:09 2003