The great problem with the Tony-awards broadcast — which aired last night on CBS — is that, being a TV broadcast, it appears on television. Appearing on television means it needs an audience, and having that audience means people must want to sell things to the viewers. And those two inevitable concerns put unnecessary pressure to interest the rest of the country in what ought to be a night for people who actually care about theater — which is to say New Yorkers, gays, some Brits, and a small diaspora in places like Shaker Heights, West Palm Beach, and Encino — to celebrate what's gone on over the past year in one of 40 old buildings on the West Side of Manhattan.
Which is not to say last night’s show from Radio City Music Hall was a bad one. But it wasn’t terribly interesting. It was hurt, unavoidably, by a lack of suspense: There was wide consensus on most of the big awards. Billy Elliot won Best Musical (among its ten awards), God of Carnage won Best Play, Hair won Best Musical Revival, and The Norman Conquests won Best Revival of a Play. At least four of the eight acting awards were shoo-ins, too.
There were some fun moments. Neil Patrick Harris — a genuine Broadway actor and, not coincidentally, the star of a CBS sitcom — was a fine and affable host in a very shiny tuxedo, though he only really shone in a final song-and-dance number recapping the show to the tune of West Side Story's "Tonight." ("Chris Sieber, please, performing on your
knees/ dude, that only works to win Golden Globes.") Frank Langella, presenting the award for Best Actress in a Play, grumbled that he didn’t get a Best Actor nomination for his role in A Man for All Seasons: "But I thought Geoffrey Rush was nice in that play," he
condescended, jokingly, to the man who won for Exit the King.
Liza Minnelli, accepting the Special Theatrical Event award for Liza’s at the Palace … , performed what almost seemed to be an absurdist experiment: She's perhaps Broadway's most beloved living legend, and they’d never play her off, so how long could she get away with rambling? About 90 seconds, as it turned out. Carrie Fisher, the erstwhile Princess Leia whose memoir, Wishful Drinking, becomes a Broadway show in the fall, was unable to successfully read her Teleprompter. And Alice Ripley, who won Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of a manic-depressive mother in Next to Normal, proved herself to be perhaps nuttier than her character.
But, as usual, the performances from nominated musicals were badly shot. (Can’t they find a director who knows how to shoot theater? And who can tell the difference between Mary Stuart nominees Janet McTeer and Harriet Walker?) The performances from nominated plays were truncated to the point of incomprehensibility. And there were big musical performances from Mama Mia, which opened almost eight years ago, Jersey Boys, playing since 2005, and Legally Blonde, which opened in 2007 and closed a year and a half later. They’re irrelevant to this year’s Tonys, but they’ll help CBS draw viewers (maybe), and they’re all on tour, so they help sell the Broadway Experience, if not actually Broadway.
And, of course, the TV viewers won’t come, anyway. Just put the thing on Bravo, get a better director, and let Liza ramble for as long as she wants.
South Korean protesters rally in support of Ling and Lee.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, journalists for Al Gore's independent media network Current TV, were found guilty of "committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry" by North Korea's highest court this morning. The pair was arrested along the Chinese border on March 17, though the United States vehemently denies any wrongdoing. The verdict is the latest step in a confrontation that North Korea sees itself building with the entire U.S. Earlier today, the country threatened "extreme measures" if the United Nations moved to sanction them for their nuclear test last month. The Obama administration is publicly considering putting the nation back on its terrorist list, and is also weighing intercepting sea and air shipments from the country that may contain weapons or nuclear technology. In the past, North Korea has said it views such moves as acts of war. The verdict in the Lee and Ling case was even harsher than some critics expected, and conditions in the labor camps where the pair will be imprisoned are reported to be grueling. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has demanded that the government release the two women, and the Times reports that will likely occur, but not before Washington sends a prominent envoy to the nation.
DOUGLAS, Isle of Man, June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Players can now go up against the giants of the poker circuit, at this year's WSOP, and bag the bounty! ... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 8 Jun 2009 | 12:39 pm
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AP - "Relentless" (Bantam Books, 368 pages, $27), by Dean Koontz: In this latest thriller from Dean Koontz (a master at spinning dark tales), Cullen "Cubby" Greenwich becomes the target of Shearman Waxx, the most influential book critic in the country, after the publication of his latest novel.
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AP - Broadway's Tonys seemed a family affair this year, with an outpouring of generosity from winners to losers despite the domination of the evening by "Billy Eliot," which won 10 awards, and one actor bringing his wife to the stage to stand by him while he accepted his prize.
AP - Broadway's Tonys seemed a family affair this year, with an outpouring of generosity from winners to losers despite the domination of the evening by "Billy Eliot," which won 10 awards, and one actor bringing his wife to the stage to stand by him while he accepted his prize.
The Dirty Projectors' last two releases, "The Getty Address" and "Rise Above," were lo-fi concept albums built around inscrutable song structures. Given the Brooklyn-based indie band's track record, "Stillness Is the Move" -- the group's pop-confection first single from the forthcoming album "Bitte Orca" -- represents a jarring departure.
Rock singer Bret Michaels had a run-in with some stage scenery at the Tony Awards.
(Reuters)
Reuters - "Billy Elliot The Musical" swept the top U.S. theater honors on Sunday, winning 10 Tony Awards for a Broadway season that defied a recession with record ticket sales.
Stephen Colbert left no doubt about his solidarity with American troops when he taped the first of four Comedy Central shows he'll produce in Iraq this week.
The stars came out in droves to this year's Tony Awards, but it was the Broadway babies who took home most of the awards.
A trio of teenagers from Billy Elliot bested American Idol...
God of Carnage
Musical Billy Elliot the Musical
Book of a Musical Billy Elliot the Musical
Book of a Musical Billy Elliot: the Musical
Original Score Next to Normal
Revival of a Play The Norman Conquests
Revival of a Musical Hair
Special Theatrical Event Liza's at the Palace
Lead Actor in a Play
Geoffrey Rush, Exit the King
Lead Actress in a Play
Marcia Gay Harden, God of Carnage
Lead Actor in a Musical
David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish, Billy Elliot the Musical
Lead Actress in a Musical
Alice Ripley, Next to Normal
Featured Actress in a Play
Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit
Featured Actor in a Musical
Gregory Jbara, Billy Elliot the Musical
Featured Actress in a Musical
Karen Olivo, West Side Story
Direction of a Play
Matthew Warchus, God of Carnage
Direction of a Musical
Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot the Musical
Choreography Billy Elliot the Musical
Orchestrations Billy Elliot the Musical, Next to Normal (tie)
Scenic Design of a Musical Billy Elliot the Musical
Scenic Design of a Play Mary Stuart
Costume Design of a Musical Shrek the Musical
Lighting Design of a Play Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Lighting Design of a Musical Billy Elliot the Musical
Sound Design of a Play Equus
Sound Design of a Musical Billy Elliot the Musical
Lifetime Achievement
Jerry Herman
Regional Theatre
Signature Theatre, Arlington Virginia
Isabelle Stevenson Award
Phyllis Newman
Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre
Shirley Herz
(Reuters) Reuters - In his latter-day career in family movies, Eddie Murphy has seen decidedly mixed results, but "Imagine That" is pretty much in his wheelhouse. It plays to his strengths as a performer, giving him solo bits that do not diminish the ensemble work, and pairs him with a child actor who gives as good as she gets. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 8 Jun 2009 | 2:44 am
If you're watching the Tonys on TV — and let's face it, the odds aren't great that you are — you just saw Bret Michaels get taken out by a stage set as he tried to exit after performing with the cast from Rock of Ages. It's already on YouTube, and you can watch it below. We hear that Michaels has been rushed to hospital with a possibly broken nose (update: it's not broken), and tonight's Poison performance at the Rock of Ages afterparty is in jeopardy.
Front Page: Actor in negotiations for Murphy-directed adaptation -- Javier Bardem is negotiating to star in "Eat, Pray, Love," the Ryan Murphy-directed adaptation of the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir for Columbia Pictures.
Reuters - No doubt "humble" and "contemporary art scene" rarely inhabit the same sentence, but debuting filmmaker Megumi Sasaki's wonderful portrait of Herb and Dorothy Vogel summons these words. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 8 Jun 2009 | 1:40 am
Front Page: Notes from behind the scenes -- On Sunday afternoon there was a typical Manhattan street fair all along Sixth Avenue -- right in front of Radio City Music Hall, already bustling with arrivals for the 63rd Annual Tony Awards.
Front Page: Crowds go wild for 'Carnage' thesps, Dolly -- Fans were plenty excited to see "God of Carnage" thesps James Gandolfini, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeff Daniels outside the 2009 Tony Awards, but the really hysterical screaming was reserved for one woman and one woman only: "Dol-ly! Dol-ly! Dol-ly!"
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If you thought all the stars singing and dancing at the Oscars was impressive, wait until you see the star power in tonight's Tony opener.
Pretty much all we can tell you is that...
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Front Page: Disney-Pixar pic tops box office with $44.2 million -- Warner Bros.' comedy "The Hangover" grossed a boffo $43.3 million in its domestic B.O. debut, nearly edging Disney-Pixar holdover "Up," which remained No. 1 at an impressive $44.2 million.
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The stars came out in droves to this year's Tony Awards, but it was the Broadway babies who took home most of the awards.
A trio of teenagers from Billy Elliot bested American Idol...
Where in the world is Kate Gosselin? Not in Pennsylvania with her husband and eight kids.
After vacationing with their mom in North Carolina last week, the rambunctious bunch...
Were Spencer and Heidi Pratt deprived of food and water for almost three days while being forced to live in blacked-out seclusion on I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of...
If you thought all the stars singing and dancing at the Oscars was impressive, wait until you see the star power in tonight's Tony opener.
Pretty much all we can tell you is that...
Brad Pitt's Inglourious Basterds costars really wanted to meet all of his and Angelina Jolie's kids.
Unfortunately for them, only one of the six children visited the...
Who does Zach Galifianakis think he is—Ed Asner?
The box-office year of Kevin James (alternately titled "Movie Stars Not Necessarily Required") continued unabated this...
With the body of David Carradine en route to the United States, his family is calling for an FBI investigation into his death and plans its own autopsy.
The remains of the Kung Fu...
Don't panic, we did say Spidey as in Spider-Man—not that other Speidi.
After Spider-Man director Sam Raimi said last month that he was unsure of Kirsten Dunst's plans to...
Whether by choice or by act of God, Speidi keeps getting out of I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
Heidi Pratt was hospitalized Saturday in Costa Rica during her and...