2018 Tony Awards

This seems like it was kind of a weak Broaday season overall, as well as a fairly commercial one, but despite that, I did enjoy the Tony Awards last night.  A big part of that was the one-two punch of our hosting duo, Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles.  The rookie hosts did a terrific job – they were both charming and funny, had good banter, and seemed comfortable playing off of each other.  Over the course of the night, they performed several songs (which, from the end credits, it looks like they wrote themselves) which were all fun, my favorite being their opening number dedicated to the “losers” who would make up the majority of the night.  It was a song in which they poked fun at themselves – having both expressed shock that neither had ever won a major award – and it was a cheeky way to celebrate everyone there, rather than just the winners.

Every year, I take note of how many Best Musical nominees have both an original story and an original score (i.e., not based on a movie/book/whatever and not a jukebox musical,) and while it’s usually a very small minority, this year, the grand total was zero.  Three of the nominees were based on movies – although The Band’s Visit, the eventual Best Musical winner, is based on an artsy foreign film, so not exactly a commercial cash grab – while one was based on a cartoon.  On the plus side, though, most of them had original scores; Frozen was the only one with a lot of previously-known songs, and like all Disney musicals, it added new ones to its score.

Honestly, with many of the performances, I came away sort of ho-hum.  Some of them were outright unimpressive – nothing about this telecast made me want to hear more of Mean Girls – while others I think could’ve made better song choices – Alex Newell undeniably killed it performing “Mama Will Provide” from Once on This Island and I’m 100% pumped to see the show in NYC at the end of the month, but I greatly would’ve preferred more of a group number, or a medley that would’ve shown off more of the cast.  I will freely admit that one of my favorite performances of the night from a nominated show was SpongeBob Squarepants.  I’d heard that it was a lot better than people would think, and this was the proof – not only was the song entertaining and the performance lively, but the costuming was really vibrant, innovative, and impressive.

As for the awards themselves, we didn’t quite get clean sweeps, but on both the play and musical sides, there were clear themes.  For musicals, The Band’s Visit won nearly all the major awards, with the exception of Best Revival (duh,) which went to Once on This Island, and Best Featured Actress, which went to Carousel.  Given the show’s subject matter, about Egyptians and Israelis who are thrown together unexpectedly and end up making close connections, much was said in the speeches about Muslims, immigration, representation, and the American ideal of welcoming others, even if the American people haven’t often borne that out in practice.  Best Lead Actor winner Tony Shaloub had a lovely speech looking back on his father’s arrival in the States from Lebanon, while Best Featured Actor winner Ari’el Stachel apologized for the celebrations he missed with his parents for years because, after 9/11, he wanted his Arabness to go unnoticed and didn’t want to be seen with his immigrant parents.

For plays, the revivals were big winners, with both Actor awards going to Angels in America (along with Best Revival) and Three Tall Women picking up both Actress trophies.  But what about the new plays, you ask?  That slot was claimed by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which took home Best Director and Best Play, as well as most of the design awards for plays that weren’t given out during the telecast.  I don’t know how I feel about the Best Play win.  I’ve heard that the play is a technical masterpiece and an undoubted thrill of a theatrical experience, but while Best Musical looks at the production as a whole (with individual writers being credited separately with Best Book and Best Original Score,) Best Play looks at the production and the play itself, and I’m still trying to get through reading The Cursed Child.  As impressive and amazing as I’m sure it is onstage, did playwright Jack Thorne really write the best play of the year?  I have a hard time believing that.