How’d We Do? I wouldn’t call 60% accuracy very good, but there you have it. I took some chances and figured some obvious choices would be excluded because they were obvious, but I was mistaken.
Here’s what we got WRONG:
Best Revival of a Play went to The Boys in the Band, not The Waverly Gallery. Frankly I figured the show closed quite some time ago and ran the risk of being forgotten. Clearly it wasn’t. Congratulations to playwright Mart Crowley.
Featured Actress in a Musical: Congratulations to Ali Stroker in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! I thought she could upset the presumed favorite, Amber Gray in Hadestown, and she did just that.
Scenic Design of a Musical: The juggernaut that was Hadestown won the award here. No complaints. I figured Tim Burton’s hands loomed large on the look of Beetlejuice and that would take the prize.
Costume Design of a Musical: This one kind of puzzles me. Bob Mackie won for recreating and/or re-working costumes he had already designed for Cher for The Cher Show. Sure, he’s a legend and it is nice he has a Tony Award. This award, however, feels like a lifetime achievement (not necessarily on Broadway even with nine Broadway show credits) and less like the true Best Costume Design of a Musical. I still stick with Beetlejuice as the work that should have won.
Costume Design of a Play: I picked Bernhardt/Hamlet (which is part of the upcoming Geffen Playhouse season – casting TBD). Instead this award went to The Ferryman.
Lighting Design of a Play: I picked The Ferryman and Tony voters picked Ink. Who knew?
Lighting Design of a Musical: I am personally glad to be wrong on this one. I picked Ain’t Too Proud because that is the kind of musical that impresses with its “concert” lighting. Hadestown, a musical with a much more nuanced lighting design won here.
Sound Design of a Play: I picked To Kill a Mockingbird because the sound & music are key in moving back and forth between the Finch household and the courthouse. Choir Boy, which Los Angeles audiences had a chance to see several years ago at the Geffen Playhouse, won here. Ultimately that makes sense. The mix of music and dialogue in the show is a great achievement.
Best Choreography: As much as I love the work of Sergio Trujillo, he was doing modern-day adaptations of previously established choreography for Ain’t Too Proud. The second act opener of Kiss Me, Kate – “Too Darn Hot” – stops the show cold. A truncated version was performed on the Tony Awards broadcast. That was my choice, but not the choice of Tony voters.
Best Orchestration: I picked that the completely re-worked arrangements for Oklahoma! would win here. No complaints that Hadestown, which sounds great, is the winner here.
The other 15 awards we got right. That’s not going to win me any prizes, but it’s all for fun anyway. And now the 2019-2020 Tony Season is up and running. Want to make any predictions for next year’s awards?
Photo by Craig L. Byrd