← Broadway Breakdown
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:14]
A
You say that neon lights are bright on Broadway On Broadway you say there's always magic in the air On Broadway hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is me and you. Because guess what, kids? We did it. We did it, Joe. We made it to the end of Tony season. Pudding season, as Amy Poehler likes to call it. And it seems as if we've all made it out in one piece. We've been doing predictions. We've been doing history. Your boy here has gone to three, count them, three award ceremonies before the actual telecast. Fun fact, we were invited to a Tony viewing party and then got disinvited for that story. That's another day. I did debate if I wanted to have a little glass of wine with this recording, but honestly, I'm just so exhausted. Starting with just, you know, the Tonys of it all end, doing this podcast and getting content back up on the Patreon. I also have a job right now that's just taking up a lot of time recording new episodes. I'll be recording another episode in two days with some special guests, editing the first episode back with the big move, writing. I owe my editor two reviews. One for the cast recording of six Some Like It Hot and one for the movie soundtrack for the Disney remake of the Little Mermaid, which I still haven't seen and honestly probably won't see until it's on Disney, for reasons that you can guess, because live action remakes are notoriously terrible. And as we all know, that is one of my favorite movies. And I will give them my time, but not my money. That is my choice. Such is life. But we digress. Sorry, this is all. I'm all over the place. It's also late. I've also been meeting with people about Laplay. Not many. It's not like we're going to Broadway tomorrow. But still, people. And this all takes up energy and time and mental space, and so we just are fucking fried. But the good news is we had a Tony telecast. We had winners, and I did pretty well. I must say, I think pretty much all of my number one or number two choices won. I think I got 20 out of 26 of my first choices, and the six that weren't my first choice were. My second choices, were my immediate alternates. So, I mean, with that, I think if we're doing one point for every one first choice that I got right and half a point for every second choice I got right, I got 23 out of 26. I think that's a solid number. We do pretty well here. I wonder what, how you guys did. More importantly, I'm looking forward to reading your guys hot takes because as some of you know, I posted a link to Instagram for you guys to write in your anonymous hot takes as you put in your anonymous predictions a month ago and then your predictions for winners last week with inappropriate Patty AKA Jonathan Hoover. And I'm looking forward to reading what you guys have to say. Before we begin, I just want to get some of my basic thoughts out of the way. Yes, Pluto was kind of stupid and they ended early and so they didn't have to cut off Jeanine Tesori with that speech. But I get it. They didn't know if they were gonna have enough time. As we've been mentioning on this podcast, when there's no time limit and there are no editors, actors and writers tend to go on for a very long time. So you want to kind of nip that in the bud. But overall, I really liked this telecast. You know, we really, we support the Writers Guild, we support this strike, but not having writers and not having bits and just focusing on the nominations and Broadway shows and the craft and giving time to the nominees. Just this was the kind of Tonys that I have mentioned in the past. One that felt like it was for the nerds that really explored all the aspects of theater that make it special. Maybe not everything got as much time as I would like. And a lot of the more in depth craft awards were, you know, displayed on Pluto, unfortunately. But they still got a moment and they talked about it and they, and they showed some of it and it was really nice. And apparently the viewership on Pluto was really, really fucking strong. So I'm hoping this sends a message to the Tony Committee and the Broadway League to let them know to stop trying to become the next MTV Movie Awards and just be a Broadway award show for nerds. Because that is, we're a dedicated fan base and it's only going to grow if you really cater to that. But we digress, we move on. I also really, I was happy with most of the winners. Obviously many of you reached out to me. Thank you for your condolences. When Sweeney Todd won sound design and a word we all agree was bullshit. And the funny thing is is that that is a category sound Design that is voted on exclusively by people in the sound design field. No other voters can vote for it. So I don't know what the fuck they were doing. Maybe the Sweeney Todd producers put them in the exact pocket of that theater where it all blended really well. I don't know. But that is the one element of that show that most of us are in agreement on is not good. So I'm going to start reading into some of your guys's reviews. This is probably going to be a shorter episode, if I'm being honest, because it's late, because it's. I'm tired. Because I'm tired and I got to go to bed eventually. And I will say the first episode back from the. The first episode back from the Tonys doing the big move again is a long one. So let's. Let's warm you guys is up, shall we? All right. The first hot te take from this year's Tonys. We have someone saying, oh, Jesus. So I should have also. I should have also said this. I love y'. All. I love those of you who choose to listen to this podcast, but sometimes you guys don't have a great grasp on directions. And to be fair, I don't know how many of you, the people who are doing these hot takes anonymously on my Instagram, are also listeners of the podcast. They might just be people who only follow the Instagram. Why? I couldn't tell you, but here we are. And I say this because the very first thing that popped up with this hot take wasn't about the Tony warts. It was about me. And it was something. Someone asking, how are you doing mentally? I'm doing okay. I'm doing just okay. Listen, we. I know I keep hinting at this kind of shit and I'm not going to get into it because this. This is not relevant to you guys. It is relevant to the play, though. Again, 2022 was rough. And the end of 2022 was rough, I should say. And 2023 has been really difficult because it's about getting back on the horse. It's about fighting to be happy, to enjoy yourself. And when you have been broken by a situation or by a person or a relationship or whatever, and you don't get closure and you don't get answers and you don't get something that you think you are entitled. Not entitled. Entitled is a terrible word. Something that you deserve as a human being. When you don't get any of that and you are not taken into account, that leaves a scar on you that Just takes forever to heal, if at all. For more information on that, you should listen to my guest episode on Kyle Marshall's podcast, Putting It Together. Talking about the song Everybody Loves Louie. That's all you need to know. But in terms of, like everything else, my mental state is perfectly fine. I am not doing any kind of self harm, if that was what you were wondering. I am not drinking to numb the pain. I drink because I like wine. And we are withholding from any wine tonight because, again, it's late and I'm tired. But, yes, mental state, it's just fine. Kid, what are you doing tomorrow? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Do you think the earth is flat? Y' all are weird. Okay, here we go. I don't think the earth is flat, but I think your mom's chest is. There we go. What am I doing tomorrow? That question was from yesterday, so I'm assuming they meant what am I doing today? Recording this podcast. Okay, here we go. Someone writes. I didn't realize the WGA strike meant the winners weren't capable of preparing acceptance speeches. So many going to the white room up on that stage. No people were allowed to prepare acceptance speeches. Just. A lot of people don't. Victoria Clarke had a speech written out. The Writers Guild strike doesn't mean that as an actor, you couldn't write anything down for a speech. The writers strike, it doesn't actually impact Broadway because the Writers Guild isn't affiliated with the Broadway League or with Actors Equity. The Writers Guild is affiliated with television. That is why the Tony Awards were affected, where the writers. The Writers Guild struck a deal with the Tonys, supposedly where they agreed not to protest the award ceremony, which was huge because that meant people who were nominees didn't have to cross a picket line to attend, which was going to be a huge problem. And one of the stipulations to not have them protest was that there could be no jobs taken on the telecast that would have been filled by a Guild member. So there were no actual writers for this ceremony. That's why we had no bits. That's why we had no original opening number and why it was completely silent. But, yes, I don't know if you're being snarky here, but people could prepare Tony speeches. That's. That's very different. Some just didn't, because people don't do that. As we've discussed about certain quote unquote, precursor awards this year. Am I right, folks? All right, next up, Susan Stroman was robbed. I'm assuming you mean this for choreography? Yeah, no, that's. That was her only nomination. Listen, I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I'm not the biggest fan of. Of Stroh's work for New York, New York or Casey Nicholas for Some Like It Hot. They're both pieces of choreography that have a lot of impressive moments to them. As I said, Susan Stroman's tap dancing on the construction beams is really lovely. She's got some beautiful scene transitions. I think Casey Nicholaw's tap dance chase sequence in Act 2 is so much fun. And, you know, there's some good stuff in Some Like It Hot, but I think that in the. As I've been saying with him for a while now, by kind of going for broke all the time trying to get that. That Tony win, sometimes I find his numbers not to be structured very well or honestly, like, a little sloppy, but it's. Is. Was Strowman robbed? I don't know. I think I said last week my vote would go for Jennifer Weber for N. Juliet, which isn't even choreography that I love, but it was the best for me in that category. This was sort of a weird one for me, guys, if I'm gonna be honest. I don't know if I thought Stroman was robbed. Yeah. I don't know. I'm sorry that you. I'm sorry that it upset you. And the good news is that I believe she has five Tonys, four for choreography. So, you know, she's doing just fine. But I feel for you. I feel your pain, kid. Next up, someone writes, I wish I could get behind the Life of PI love, but what that production did to such a beautiful novel is criminal and boring to sit through with. Okay. Tech effects. So fun fact. I have never actually read the book Life of PI. I've only seen the movie, but I did really love the movie. I hope you did too, the person who wrote this statement, because I thought the movie was really powerful and visually stunning and emotionally compelling. I agree. I do not like the stage play Life of PI for many reasons. I think a lot of the acting in it is kind of questionable. Haram. The lead is lovely. And in fact, I think I said this before, had the best speech of the night at the Theater World Awards because it was very short. There are elements of the design of Life of PI that are very gorgeous. The puppetry, for me, was very stunning at first glance. And it's not that I found them bad with more time to look at them, but unlike the puppetry in Warhorse, which never really lost its luster throughout the night. Life of PI's puppets kind of was like. Once they were shown, they stopped really being a marvel to me. You know, they became very sort of fine. But there are moments in that show that are great. The way they use the boat coming up and out, up out of the floor. There's a lot of lighting and projection work that's really beautiful. I think if I had my druthers, I would have given A Christmas Carol lighting and I would have given it Doll's house sound design and probably would have given A Christmas Carol set design. I don't remember what I said. I would vote for. With. With inappropriate Patty. I don't remember that. Don't make me remember it. But yeah, I'm not obsessed with the visuals of Life of PI, but I know a few people who really were taken aback by it. And I get it. But I'm with you. I'm not. I'm not in love with it. And I do think the script for the Life of PI play is quite bad. The. The investigators in that hospital. Cut them. Cut them right out of there, baby. And also make the play 100 minutes. Doesn't need to be an intermission show. Next up, someone writes Sweeney, best sound design in this economy. Oh, you guys know how to make me laugh. Good for you. And it's all in caps, too. Listen, that's. That I love. I also love. It's so fucking niche. I love that that's the number one win that everyone's just going, are you fucking kidd me? And it will go down in history as one of those wins that everyone just will question all the time. But also, listen, Nevin, the sound designer for Sweeney Todd, he's done some amazing sound design in the past. He did Hamilton, he did the original in the Heights. He's a good sound designer. And he's designed for the lunch before. So it's not him. He's not a bad sound designer. Clearly it was very important to the production team for it to sound a very specific way. I would assume it was to have the lyrics come out at the forefront instead of the music, which I think is understandable in theory. Except a, because of the accent work in this production, you still can't understand half of the lyrics. And also, it's Sweeney Goddamn Todd and you have a 26 piece orchestra. Fucking douse me at that music daddy. You know, and into the Woods. What I probably would vote for. For sound design. That or and Juliet, but. And, but into the Woods. My reservations about that production aside, the sound design, you felt like you were swimming in the music while also being able to hear every single lyric. So it can be done. I don't know what was going on with Sweeney, and I don't know what made these sound designers go, yep, that's the one. All right, next up, back to back, y'. All. Sweeney Todd for sound design. I've yet to hear of a single person who saw the show and actually heard everything. Did we change the definition of sound? Oh, God, I love catty people. It just can be fun. Listen, we're this. And this is all in the heat of the moment that you guys were sending this, so some of these might be a little bitchier than you would, you know, do 24 hours later, or if you were willing to have your name attached to it so Nevin could hear exactly who had an issue. And we can't take that Tony away from him. It's there. But, yeah, I would love to talk to some sound design voters and ask them the flying fuck. Next up. Interesting that they seem to be delaying featured actor for as long as possible. Let's hope it doesn't backfire a la 2021 Oscars. I'm assuming that meant featured actor in a musical, because I believe Brandon Uranowitz was pretty early in the CBS telecast. But I guess it didn't backfire because Alex Newell did win featured actor in a musical. And let's be honest, if it wasn't Alex and it was Justin, I don't think any of us could consider that a backfire. I think the only winner of that category that would be considered a backfire to me, artistically speaking, is Jordan Donica Camelot. But I guess in terms of the racial optics, if Kevin Cahoon had won, that would have sort of felt like a backfire. But, I mean, in what world would anyone consider Kevin Cahoon getting an award to be a bad thing? I know I wouldn't. So, you know, here we are. But, yeah, it didn't seem to backfire. So good on them. Next person writes currently through featured actress. And I wish there were some more exciting upsets. So, again, I don't know if someone wrote this at featured actress in a musical or featured actress in a play. But even so, the thing about this year's Tonys that's so interesting is it did kind of go how a lot of us expected. There were a lot of categories where it could go either way, and then it kind of went with the most likely candidate, or at least if you were Reading the trades. And if you were listening to this podcast, it went pretty much how we were predicting. And that's not a bad thing. A lot of the winners this year I thought were very deserving. There were a couple that, you know, weren't my first choice, but I get why they won. The only one where I'm truly like, guys, come on, we didn't have to. Is the Sweeney sound design. And if I'm being honest, I'm. I'm expecting like five more of these to pop up about Sweeney Todd sound design. I cannot stress this enough, everyone. I feel very loved and also very seen when they won. And on Pluto, no less. So this wasn't even on cbs. This was on the fucking streaming app. I got bombarded with text messages and DMs, and I just. It was a very lovely sight. It was a very lovely moment. But, yeah, I think the only things sort of that felt like an upset were Leopoldstadt for costume design, which again, were my second choice. And I think that might have been the including the puppets of Life of PI in the costume nomination. I think that might have backfired. I'm sure. I think a lot of voters felt how I did, which was putting the puppetry in there was kind of bullshit because it's not really the same as the puppetry in Lion King. Not really. So, yeah, but featured actress in a musical end play. I wasn't angry about either of those wins. And if I don't, I'm gonna hold off on featured actress in a play until maybe somebody mentions it. If someone mentions it, I'm gonna talk about it. If not, I'll have to wait till the very end of the of the thread. Here we go. Okay, next up, ignore my previous message on non exciting wins because Topduck Underdog just won a back to back. Yeah, no, that was really exciting. And it wasn't so much of an upset or even a surprise. I had it between Doll's House and Top Dog. Doll's House was my number one pick, and then Top Dog was my number two. And of the two revivals, Top Dog, Underdog was my personal pick. At least I know I changed it to that on Tony Knight. Again, I don't remember what I said with Jonathan Hoover, but I do know for a fact that I made Top Dog Underdog my personal pick when I was sharing my predictions on Instagram. It was really a very special revival. If I had one complaint, it was just the set design. But those two, Corey and Yaya were wonderful. Kenny Leon did a great Job with them Parks Play is fantastic. Yeah, that was an exciting one. And I think the only downside of it winning is that with Jessica Chastain being a producer of Doll's House, she didn't walk away with a Tony that night, and she did. But I'm hoping that she still walks away feeling very loved because she got a drama desk. I believe she got an Outer Critics Circle Award. And she got nominated for the Tony this time, which she didn't for the Heiress. So this was definitely a. Not retribution, but a do over. You know, she. She glammed up for this one. So happy for Jessica in that respect and very happy for Top Dog Underdog. A lot of people were predicting the Piano Lesson and I just, I refused to buy that. I really refused to buy that the Piano Lesson was a real contender, despite what Patti LuPone said on opening night. Next up, somebody wrote they need to institute a limit on the amount of people who can go on stage after a show wins. Well, here's the problem, bub, is there aren't a lot of actual producers of Broadway shows now. Definitely not leading producers. You have some associate producers, co producers. A lot of people get a producer credit for simply being an investor or knowing rich people who can sort of go in on a share of a show for them. I may or may not have people in my life who are those people. My mom certainly knows quite a few people of her age who are exactly that, who have money or know people with money and put it into a show and they get to be called a producer. That's the way that you get them to write the check. You get the title producer and you get to go on stage when the show wins the Tony. The when you see a large group of people. So for example, when Parade won the Tony and you saw like 50 people up there, first of all, there were some performers up there too. Although I think Ben Platt did act as a producer on the show as well. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure I know he gets a percentage of the. Of the profit, as does Mikayla. But 95 of the percent of those people that you saw on that stage when Parade won really had nothing to do with that show's success. They were not in on any production meetings. They did not go to rehearsals. They maybe attended two or three advertising marketing meetings. They were not really there for Tony strategizing. The people who spoke are the people who actually did the thing. To quote Ms. Dubose, they are. They were the Angela Bassetts of the Producer groups. And so I agree with you. You know, having all those people on stage, it's just ridiculous. And they're. It's. It is an ego thing. The only reason people want to get up on that stage is because they want to be seen on TV. But when you're one of 9,000 people, no one's paying attention. No one cares. It's just. It's silly. And I do know people, not personally, like through my mother or through, you know, my grandma or whatever, who are the quote or who are quote, unquote producers, aka, you know, glorified money people. And I've seen them run down the aisle when their show wins and they all. And let me also be very clear, I'm grateful that they take chances on art and whatnot, but also they invest in like five shows a year so they'll say, oh, I'm so humbled and honored to be nominated this year. I'm like, yeah, because you. You put money in six of the nine new musicals this year. You were gonna get nominated, and now you're definitely gonna win something because, you know, four of the five nominees or shows you put money in. Again, we love that people take chances on art, but they are not. They're not actual producers. And we know this. People in the industry especially know this. If you're really in the industry, you know who the real producers are. Moving on. Somebody else writes shout out to all the advertisers who tried to sway us with their mini musicals of pharmaceuticals and mundane products. Yeah, they knew their target audiences. I guess we gotta. We. We stand an advertising queen. Next up, somebody wrote, pleasantly surprised at the way they decided to incorporate Phantom into the ceremony. Very fitting. Without taking attention away from the nominated shows. I am going to hard disagree with that. I found it to be very tacky. So what this person is referring to is the In Memoriam section, which I also kind of want to talk about as well. China sang wishing you were somehow here again during the In Memoriam, which is weirdly fitting for people's mentality when sitting through an in memoriam these days. Anyway, first of all, we cut off Jason Robert Brown speaking. When Parade wins best revival, Alfred Urie gets to speak, and that's great. And then Jason Robert Brown comes up and he goes, Mary Fagan. And then the music cuts him off and they have to go off stage and they start playing a montage of Phantom of the Opera with clips of people talking about, oh, it's. It's a legend. It's a New York institution. It's gone now, but its memory lives on and blah, blah, blah. And sure, like, I was like, okay, you know, we should acknowledge that the longest running Broadway show of all time is closed. A show that, you know, brought a lot of people to theater, got a lot of people to fall in love with theater, employed fuckton of people. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And then they go straight from there into the In Memoriam with candelabras everywhere and Jakina singing wishing you were somehow here again. So already we're like, you know what was a real tragic passing this year? Phantom of the Opera. It closed. Isn't that devastating? Anyway, here are some dead people. Applaud for the ones you know or at least the names you recognize. And first of all, applauding during an. During an In Memoriam is tacky and gross. It just is. You can say, oh, well, someone who I know, who touched my life was shown on the screen and it moved me to applaud them. Yes, Jan, except here's the thing. In memoriams are not about you. They are about the people who had lived, who gave contributions to this industry, whether huge or small contributions you can recognize or ones you don't. Sometimes it is an Angela Lansbury and sometimes it's an agent you never met but who represented a million people who did, you know, make contributions to the community that you would know. You know, we talk about how Broadway is a community and it's all these different moving parts. And that is so true, except people don't actually acknowledge it when it counts. These people gave their life to theater and made something of themselves and of the time they had on this earth. And all we need to do is sit still for three minutes and. And together give them a moment of silence to show that we respect each of their lives and each of their contributions. But what do we do instead? We applaud the names we recognize or the people we knew. And then there are people who get no applause indicating that some people's lives were less important than others or at the very least, less famous than others. And that's fucking stupid. And it's gross and it's tacky and it's on brand that. That Jakina sang wishing you were somehow here again because it makes their passing about us. You're dead and I'm sad about it. How about you lived, you did wonderful things. You were a very important person. Or you were a person that we didn't realize the importance of until you passed. But it's about you. It's about your life. And your legacy, it's not about how we feel about it. You know, that's what In Memoriams should be. So I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna go on Insta and say this too at some point. I don't know. I keep saying I'm gonna do things on Instagram and then I don't do them, but I feel strongly about this. Stop fucking applauding during In Memoriams because it's gross. It's so gross. And it also just, like, was Phantom themed, which. I'm sorry. I'm glad that this person thought it was, you know, nice. I found it very tacky. I'm glad they didn't do like a whole five minute segment on Phantom, but in a way, they kind of did. Sorry, that was a long tangent. And I just want to make it clear to the person who wrote that. I'm not angry with you in any way. I'm honestly angry at society for applauding during those things. I hope you didn't applaud during the In Memoriam. I hope at least none of y' all did that. Next person writes New York. New York's performance did not make me want to see the show. You know, I can't really argue with you on that. And the truth is that they did the number that's the biggest crowd pleaser from the show. They did the title song, which Anna sings, and she sings it, I think, rather well. She's a very good singer. I also love her shoes because she's thinking. I think it's. It's either a white skirt and red shirt or it's a white shirt and red skirt. I can't remember which, but it's red and white. Candy cane, candy cane colors. And she's got shoes that match. And I know. I just always love it when Broadway costumes have shoes that are specially made for the outfit. It's one of the reasons I love Greg Barnes costumes for the original sideshow is that Daisy and Violet's shoes match every single thing they're wearing. He's never like black Laducas, go. You know, be free, make. Make peace, make love. No, they're all. They're all unique to each outfit, so I like that. Yeah, no, I wasn't very into their performance either. I also wasn't very into the show, I'll be honest. And I know people who've really loved it and I can understand why, in theory, I don't think it's a good script. I think it's Way too long. I think they won the correct award. They won scenic design and now is the correct award. Possibly lighting design would have been a sensible one to give them to, but Sweeney's lightning design is the most successful element of that show. If you do decide to see New York, New York, I hope you let me know if the Tony performance undersold it or oversold it or was accurate to it. But, yeah, I mean, that's. It wasn't a very good Tony performance. But I do think it was a proper representation of the show. Next person writes, Parade is too sympathetic to the antagonists of the show. Get two thirds of. They get two thirds of the songs. And almost every character is unlikable in some way. Well, okay, first of all, let's. I really want to get rid of the criticism of characters being unlikable because guess who is also unlikable. All of us human beings fucking suck. We are toxic meatbags roaming this earth, polluting the earth, polluting ourselves and polluting each other. Okay? We're not great people. So I don't need my characters in musicals to be likable. I need them to be dramatically compelling. It would be nice to have, like, one or two people who you don't think suck completely in a show. But some of my favorite shows are people, you know, who just suck completely. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Every character in that show absolutely is awful in some ways. Honey maybe isn't violently malicious, but she is a dud of a person and that comes from her own upbringing. But, yeah, the thing about Parade and the Tony voter I went with had that same issue is that a lot of the songs go to the antagonists of the show. And more importantly, a lot of really awful moments, dramatically speaking, are given really amazing songs. And I think this production, if I have. I have two criticisms of this production. One is the Mary Fagan on the swing at the end of Act 1 and halfway through Act 2. I think both. I think that image is bad. I think it's a bad image. And it's a shame because I think Michael Arden, for the most part, has staged this production really well. I was very happy with his Tony win. The other issue I have is that they've continually made all these changes to Parade. Sometimes to make dramatic through lines clearer or make more ambiguity with stuff. I don't know. But they've also added buttons to a lot of songs, which really annoys me because that's what he said. Jim Conley's song, which is his false testimony, which ultimately Puts away Leo Frank, you know, solidifies his guilty verdict. It should be a terrifying moment in the show, especially watching this performer who's, you know, killing it, but also fully seducing a courtroom into going into mob mentality. And the original version of the song didn't end with a button, and the button was everyone shouting, hang him. And that's not a line you applaud on. But Jason Robert Brown has changed it. So it ends with Jim Conley going, that's what he said. Boom. And the audience goes insane. And the audience isn't actually paying attention to what's happening dramatically. They are lost in the chemistry of a performer sounding amazing. And. And the actor playing Jim Conley is also doing a good job acting it. I don't want to make it sound like he's all about the voice. He's not. Most of the performers in this cast are very good actors, but he's also a very good singer. And that song is written with vocal pyrotechnics. So I'm actually very annoyed that Jason Robert Brown gave that song a big musical theater flourishing button. I think that it is. I think it undercuts the drama of that moment and it allows audiences a second to breathe and relax. And they shouldn't in that moment. Not at all. So I hear you. I absolutely hear you. The unlikable thing. I don't love that criticism. Again, I think we put too much emphasis on that. It should not be about whether they're likable. It should be about whether they're compelling, whether they're complex, whether they're fascinating enough to sit with and try to understand. That score objectively is phenomenal. Just the music is incredible and gorgeous and exciting. Sometimes in the dramatic scenes that they're set in, it's too much energy for the task or it's too boppy for the task. And again, with some of the recent edits, they lean even harder into Showstopper land, which I don't love. I don't think the Parade is actually is sympathetic to the antagonists. I think I actually would argue that there are many antagonists in Parade that are created to be overtly evil. Yeah, I don't know. I think I actually. I find Parade to be very heavy handed with its. With its politics of all the characters, but maybe that's just me. I'm gonna do one more and then we are going to take a break. Next person writes, how fitting. I say, I'm gonna do one more, then we take a break. And this next question is yet Another personal one, and it is a silly one. So we'll do a silly answer for a silly question, and then we'll take a break. The question is, how tall are you? The real answer, 5 9. My silly answer, Tall enough to give you one of the greatest rides of your life. Ho ho, ho. I am five nine. I am of decent height, but amazing insight and features. And with that, everyone, let's take a look. A quick break. Billy, I'd beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. And we're back. I wish I could tell you I went and got myself a glass of wine, but I didn't. I am gonna stay professional and persevere nonetheless. He persevered, moving right along. Next person writes, colton ryan should not have been nominated for new york, New york. Oh, boy, these moments. Do I respond to that? I don't know. I listen. In short, I pretty much agree with you. The problem is I don't know who I would put in as really the fifth slot because he and I am convinced that he and christian borrell tied, and that's what got us six best actor nominees. Would I have kept christian in as the fifth? I don't know. I think ultimately I would have given the fifth slot to andrew burnap, and it's not just because I wanted to stand on my neck. I think burnap is one of the most exciting young actors we have coming up in the theater right now. I cannot stress enough how wonderful he was in the inheritance, and he's doing good work in camelot. He. For me, he's the most successful performance in the production. The problem is that this production just undermines all drama and sexual tension and heat every which way you turn. So he's got an arc that's really. That works, but he's just not very well supported. So I probably would have put him in there. Colton, you know, I will say this for Colton. When I saw the show, he made a very big choice, and I applaud people making messy big choices. I was actually just talking to a friend about this earlier today. Not to brag, but it is a Broadway actor and not to brag. I'm not telling you who, but we were talking about some of the Tony performances this year and the nominees and whatnot. And people who weren't nominated and performed. People argue like, oh, Broadway performers are not like how they used to Be. We don't have stars anymore. And that is kind of true. Part of that is in the training. You know, a lot of musical theater programs train you to get hired, not to become stars. So you work your way up through the chorus, and then you get to be a featured, and then you get to be, you know, a lead and whatever, and you. You become a machine, right? You become. You're trained to become consistent. And the demands of Broadway actors and musicals are. Have honestly become even more insane than they were 40, 50 years ago. And so there's not as much room to be weird, but also not a lot of room to be messy. And so I find a lot of younger performers in musicals these days are afraid to get messy. And it's a shame because I think that's where some of the interesting choices can come from. And I think Colton in New York, New York actually tries to go for some of the messy, especially because this character is, you know, as a drunk and has all these other issues. But so I applaud him for the choice. I don't think it worked. But also, I think a better director than Stroman could have maybe helped him shape it a bit. And maybe a better script than what he got would help. But alas, alack, I'm gonna let you have that one, sir or lady or in between, whatever you choose, next person writes. Sean Hayes plays an amazing piano, but Corey Hawkins had the best performance of the season. I'm gonna take a sip of water here. Okay. For me, the best performance of the season is Jodie Comer and Prima Facie, followed by Victoria Clark in Kimberly Akimbo and then probably followed by Corey Hawkins in Top Dog, Underdog. But I will say I'm very glad that you shouted out Corey Hawkins. So I saw Goodnight, Oscar. I saw everything this season other than the collaboration. Sorry about it. But, you know, and I love Sean Hayes. I think he's very talented. And yes, he plays a. He plays a wicked piano. Goodnight, Oscar is not a good play. Is not. And what Sean does is very much what a lot of people who are not actors call acting. You know, it's acting. You can see it's acting. You can measure, you sound. You look just like the person who was real. And, you know, you're doing all the things that I can recognize as mental illness or being vulnerable. And the thing is, I think that Sean is actually a better actor than the performance he's giving. I wish that there was. I don't know. I don't know what the. I don't know what the rehearsal process for this was like. I know he's been with this play for a while. I just wish that there was someone who could sort of, you know, challenge him a bit more because it's. For me, it's a very ticky performance. And honestly, it's. It was my least favorite performance of that category, which was overall a very strong category. If I had to pick my personal ranking of that category, it would be Corey hawkins followed by Stephen mckinley Henderson, followed by yahya Abdul Mahin ii, then probably Wendell Pierce and then Sean Hayes. Wendell Pierce I didn't like all that much in death of a salesman, but he had a very good second act whereas Sean, I was just sort of on the fence the entire time. I don't begrudge him as when he's very well loved. He's a nice man. He's very talented. I was really convinced it was going to become Stephen mckinley Henderson. I cannot stress enough guys at the drama desks at the drama league. The ovations that he got. It felt like a major swell in his direction. But it'll happen for him at some point. It's got to. It's absolutely got to. Next up, Miriam Silverman was great, but the least deserving of the nominees, to be honest. So it was Miriam Silverman, Nikki Crawford for so it was Miriam Silverman for the sign in Sydney, bruste's window, nikki Crawford for fathom, crystal Lucas Perry for ain't no mo, katie Sullivan for cost of living and Kara Young for cost of living. I'll be honest, of those nominees, I think Kara young is the least deserving. Kara did a very nice job in cost of living, but I liked her more in Clyde's. If I'm going with my own personal taste, Miriam Silverman I thought was just fantastic in sign and Cindy brustein's window. It's. That part is the part in that play. It always gets nominated Every time that production. Every time that play is produced on Broadway, the actress playing her role gets nominated. In fact, the actress who premiered that role in the 60s won as well. And I thought Miriam's win was very deserving. But also there's no one in that category who would have won that I. Who could have won that I would have been angry about. I'm thrilled Nikki got nominated. I would love to have seen her win. Katie also could have been deserving of winning. Crystal Lucas Perry could have been very deserving of winning. I think my issue with crystal lucas Perry and it's not her performance but Rather, it's a double edged sword of the fact that like she doesn't have much to do until the second half of Ain't no Mo. And even then, like it's really just those two scenes and they come late and usually that's like what makes you kind of go out on a high thinking about her. And I think ultimately that is what got her her nomination. But I think she needed like one more scene. And also Ain't no More needed to have run longer. Let's also just call that like it is. Ain't no More ran for three, four weeks on Broadway. Many voters did not see her. I guarantee you nominators did. All the nominators saw Ain't no More, which is why it got all the nominations. It. But I listened to a couple of Tony prediction podcasts leading up to the ceremony and it's fascinating how many people don't understand how the nominators and the voters don't line up. Nominators get for the Tonys do get to vote for winners that. But we're talking like 52 people out of 860. So you have to remember that they are not indicative of how the voters are going to rule. As we saw with the winners last night, I don't think Miriam was the least deserving. I'm sorry you thought so. But you know, I think everyone every. That for me was the most stacked category of the night. There wasn't a single person in that category who I thought did not deserve to be there. And this is coming from someone who also would have loved to have found a way to get Nancy Zammit in there for Peter Pan goes wrong, Faye Castello for Lea Polstadt. And neither got in. But I also looked at this lineup and was like, I don't know who I would cut. I really don't. So I think everyone in that category should just look at it and go, we did the thing. Moving on. Someone wrote Anna Graham was the worst possible choice for the award show performance. So many people will be turned off from that this time. Or a medley would have killed. I think Camelot proved that a medley wouldn't kill. Medleys are really hard to do. They. They are not as successful as people think they are. Really Think about this. How many times has a musical done a medley that really killed? And I'm not talking like two songs. I'm talking like three or more. So like I don't really count, you know, the revival of Once on this island performance. I would maybe count the original. No, I wouldn't even count that because that no 20 seconds of one song into another. I don't consider that a medley. Spring Awakening did a medley, and I think that medley is fine. Falsettos might be the best example of a medley killing on the Tonys. But also, like, what medley would you have done from Kimberly Akimbo? That show is very hard to sell to a mainstream audience. You really just kind of have to get them in the theater in general. It's like, just fucking show up. We swear you're gonna like it. I did hope they would do this time as it's such a lively number. It makes me happy. I cry every time I see it. What I've been told is that they wanted to do either better or this time. They couldn't do this time because they couldn't figure out the skating on that stage. It's a very specific procedure they do at the booth to make the skating happen. And it just was not worth the effort. And it would have been such a costly endeavor to do that on the Tonys. Better they wouldn't have been able to do without rewriting all the lyrics. And half of the humor of that song is the profanity. And also, it doesn't land as well out of context. You really need to set up the 20 minutes before Deborah comes on stage. I am gonna do a hard disagree. First of all, the worst song choice you could have done from Kimberly Campbell would be, like, Happy for her or the Good Kid. Those would have been the worst choices. I think Anagram was a very strong choice because similar to Ring of Keys, if not maybe quite as like Bullseye, it is a very strong representation of what Kimberly Akimbo the musical is. The tone, the sweetness, what the music is. Kind of like, if I had one complaint about it, it's the body mics for Justin Cooley and Vicky were kind of off. But I know I also love that song. I love that whole score. So I disagree. I don't think it was the worst possible choice. If it turns people off from seeing the show, so be it. Those people would have. If you. If you had sold those people on this time and they came to see Kimberly Akimbo, then they wouldn't have liked it. So if they see Anagram and they're like, that's not for me. Okay, then you probably wouldn't have liked the show anyway. But I think that people who are intrigued by the five Tony wins see that number and, like, that's sweeter than I thought the show would be. I think that's what you do, I don't know. It's so hard to market your show in four minutes or less on the Tony Awards. Next person writes, and Juliet was the weakest performance of the night, which makes sense given it's the worst musical currently on Broadway. Wow. He went in, kid. I don't think Aunt Juliet is the worst musical on Broadway. First of all, I don't know if you've seen Once Upon a One More Time. It definitely makes you have an appreciation for and Juliet. It's very similar premises, mashups, all that stuff. I don't even think and Juliet is the weakest of the five best musical nominees. But I do agree. I thought its performance is very lackluster. I am not an and Juliet Stan, so I'm not here to be like justice for and Juliet. The musical's amazing. Don't be mean. No, I don't. I don't love it, but I don't think it's the worst. And I. But I also agree. I think their performance was actually kind of weak. I'll admit, I think a lot of the performances on the Tonys this year were rather weak. I think that the best competitive numbers were Some Like It Hot, Kimberly Akimbo, Sweeney Todd. Parade was fine. Parade was fine. But we've also seen it before. I know people have gone on about, like, why wasn't Annalee involved in the Sweeney Todd number? And some people have theories because she's a guild member. That's why she didn't perform. No, she didn't perform because they just did the opening number, which is a good number to showcase for Sweeney Todd. It gets you excited about it. It's an amazing opening. It gets you intrigued. And also, as we've learned, you don't always include all of your Tony nominees. Betsy Wolf wasn't in the and Juliet performance. You know, Bonnie wasn't in Kimberly's performance. You can't always, you know, you can't always do it. And I think if you try to cram so much in, you're not gonna do a good job. It's one of my. That was one of my issues with the Shucks performance was they were trying to cover a lot of bases, and I would have preferred that they just did the opening because that opening is actually a lot of fun. Next person writes, oh, this is a long one. Okay. This person writes the musical song selections were so interesting. I think Shucked did the best of showcasing the show and showcasing the performers. How ironic that I just said what I said. Anagram was a Wonderful representation of the show and a moment for Victoria and Justin, but definitely wanted Bonnie to have a chance to sing on the Tony stage. Bonnie will get a chance to sing on the Tonys at some point. This is not her first nomination or even win, if I'm being honest. Bonnie's such a special talent and, you know, she's. She's gonna come back. And I hear you. I absolutely hear you, but even this time is not really a great showcase for Bonnie's vocals. It really is, like, better. Better does well by her. I agree with you on Kimberly. I think that they did a really good job of representing the show. Here's the thing about Shucks. I don't dislike the Shucks performance. I know people are sort of. If you go online, people are all over the place about what they felt about that number that they did. I thought it was fine. It was energetic, it was lively. It was. It was solid. My issue is, like, doing the opening and then I think they had two other, like, mini things in there and they did 10 seconds of independently Honed. And I. I see. I think, like, the Shuck performance is sort of why you don't do a medley for Kimberly, because you can't be all over the place. You need focus. You really need to know what it is you want to show and go from there. They could have even done the all Men Act 2 number, which I think is called Shucked. You know, show the silliness, show the energy and present it as professionally and cleanly as possible. And, you know, for some people, their Tony performance worked, as this person said. But yeah, it was an interesting selection of song choices last night. Next up, I'm British and just woke up and checked the winners. And I need you to know I immediately thought of you when I. When I saw Sweeney One Sound design skull emoji. Yes. Thank you for your condolences, guys. I really do feel so loved. Thank you so much. I can feel my mental state lightening as we continue with this episode. Next up, an incredibly diverse season capped by two non binary people of color winning acting awards. And yet I cheered loudest at grand wizard and the orchestra swell as JRB stepped to the mic to speak Shrug emoji. I don't know how to say this without sounding shady. There are a lot of people who probably had a schadenfreude laugh when JRB got cut off on the mic when Parade won best musical. People who know him, people who have worked with him. Let me be very clear. I am not in either of those categories. So I ain't talking about me, but there are a lot of people who reached out to me when he got cut off. But in his defense, there are other people who were on the Tonys that night who have similar reputations, some of whom might have been nominated. We won't get into that just yet. Moving right along. Most people who are mad at this year's winners need to do some self reflection and look at things holistically. Who's mad about the winners other than, like, children? I did. Well, I say I did see someone comment on Instagram at something. They're like, how did Mikayla diamond and Annaleigh Ashford lose? What they meant to say was, how did Mikayla or Annalee lose? Not. And because then they should have. That meant they would have wanted them to tie because either way, they would have beaten the other one as they're in the same category. And how did they lose? Because Victoria Clarke gave the best performance in a musical this season. And yes, everybody, that is scientific fact. I am not a flat earther and I believe that Victoria Clarke was the best musical performance of the season. I trust science. Next question. Oh, hey, personal question. When was the last time you cried? Today's Monday, Sunday, Saturday. Let me look at my. Huh? You know what? Let me look and see what I did the past couple of days. It's been a. It's been a time. Haircut. No, not that. I got misty when recording the episode of the podcast that is our return back to the big move. I didn't fully cry, but it got misty. Let's see. No, not that. The last time I cried. Cried. No, no. I also was just at a memorial dinner for a friend of my grandmother's who passed and nobody cried. It was a very joyful time. But you would have thought, like, that would have made me cry, but I didn't. Oh, I saw. Sorry. No, I. I saw a show on June 3rd and I can't remember what I saw. Oh, that's when I saw Once upon it one more time. Friday, June 2nd, I had coffee and then eventually with one Ms. Natalie Walker, best friend of Bonnie Milligan, by the way. We were talking about my play, the events that happened to my play, who the play's about, which turns out she knows about. And it was all very fascinating and we just talked about it and talked about our emotions and I cried. But it wasn't like a sob. It was, you know, sometimes when I just talk about, you know, being sad or feeling still like I haven't fully moved on, and then I kind of get someone who understands and doesn't judge. It just, you know, when. When you're. When you are greeted with kindness and not judgment and you expect. And you don't expect. I don't know, it can. It can get you. It can get you. So that was the last time I cried for realsies. Oh, I also wanted to say I had mentioned on the predictions episode with Jonathan Hoover inappropriate Patty, that I had it on good authority that if Parade won best revival, they were going to extend literally the day after that episode dropped. That person reached out to me and they're like, okay, so change of plans. So fun fact, I'm not gonna say who that person was because I also have another source from the Parade side who listened to that. That episode and reached out to me was like, who are you talking to? And I just don't want there to be any infighting. And like, this is the thing about theater, right? Like, plans change all the time. People's schedules get fucked around and things happen and then they don't happen. So the word I'm hearing now, and take this with a grain of salt, everybody, and I'm saying this on Monday night after the Tonys, so things could change between now and when I release the episode on Thursday. I have heard that there are talks to do something with Parade in the future. Not an extension and not a tour. But they are trying to find a way to do it again. So keep that in mind. Not an extension, not a tour. What else could that mean? All right, next up, Akimbo screwed their moment in the sun and performed the wrong number on the telecast. None of my casual theater friends wanted to see the show after watching Anagram. Uh, okay then. We've already talked about this. Also, let me just say this, guys. Casual theater goers rarely take risks. You know, no one's adventurous with their theater choices, even like so called fans. So I'm sorry that they don't want to see it after seeing Anagram. Also, I don't know why people don't like the song Anagram. I think it's so fucking delightful. I don't know what's like, why are we against being delighted? You know, what's wrong? What's wrong with that? Why don't people like that shit? I don't know. I think that song is so sweet. Next message. I feel guilty admitting this, but I really enjoyed the Tonys without a script. I support writers and creatives and I don't want anyone to be out of work, but this ceremony felt exciting and authentic. 1000% agree with you. I think, honestly, that's the takeaway from everybody. And you can read a lot of reviews about this Tony's that sort of say the same thing. They're like, we support the guild on the strike, but this was the best Tony ceremony in many a year. So. Whoops. All right. Oh, great. Another one Is a personal question. Do you have any tattoos? No, I do not. I will be getting one at some point. Next one. Jesus Christ. Sweeney is the worst Broadway production I've seen since the last Carousel revival. Okay, well, okay, that's your. That's your hot take. Listen, this Sweeney Todd is not bad. At least in my eyes. It's not bad. I just don't think it's terribly exciting. But it's, for the most part, very well sung. The lighting is neat. God, I sound like Liz Lemon when she's trying to think of nice things to say to Jenna Maroney during all of her shows. The lighting was really neat. You looked beautiful. This is not nearly as bad as the Carousel revival. The revival of 1776 this season, I thought was pretty fucking bad. I did not like this production of Dancin. There are new musicals this year, New musicals last year that I think were a lot worse. But, you know, that's your opinion. But I'm glad we are in agreement on the 2018 carousel, which was indeed garbage. Next up, best Tonys since the Rosie years. But camera work was lousy. To accept an award in profile is wild. And it seemed like a ton of auditorium up, down. Chit chat activity was going on throughout. Be the audience you want to perform to. Broadway fair. That's absolutely fair. Listen, I had some friends who were there, some who were, you know, part of shows, some who were seat fillers. And I think a lot of the chit chat came from restlessness because the AC was not working in there. So people were just extraordinarily uncomfortable. But I hear you. Camera work, I thought was okay. I would say the camera work for the performances were actually quite strong. But yes, during the acceptance speeches, they, like, didn't know what to do. But I hear you. Next up. The theater industry pretends that they value writers more than Hollywood, and yet theater writers have no union and are paid shit. Yeah, I have no response to that. It's a shitty gig. It's the least glamorous gig. Unless you're like a Lin Manuel or a Harvey Fierstein where you write and perform. People don't care about you so much. And it's a shame because we have some amazing writers. That's why I intend to act in my play. Also because I love attention, as we all know. And I love to talk, as we all know. Moving on. Oh, another long one. Okay, I get the urge to say, lol, no writers for the Tonys ever. But that comes across to me as completely not in solidarity with the WGA at all. All this means is when there are writers, they should be ones who lean into sincerity and earnestness and trust in the material being presented at the awards. I think we're gonna start seeing a theme here, guys. And I'm hoping that if you heard your hot take said out loud and you were feeling guilty about it, know that you're not alone in this. No one is alone. You are not alone. No one is alone. That's my Jordan Donica impression. Yeah. No, listen, it's not about the wga, and it really is the fact that this ceremony ended up being wonderful and reminded us why we do, why we watch the Tonys to begin with. It's not about trying to make it the most spectacular and breaking the Internet awards ceremony. You know, it's never going to be a ratings juggernaut. Just really embrace what it's about and really cater to the audience of theater nerds, because that audience will grow the more you cater to them, as we saw with this year. So. Yeah, no, I agree. It's less of, like, no writers ever and more just sort of, you know, no bits anymore. No more bits. No more, like, montages about, you know, all the times we did a musical about ABBA or sometime just showcase the fucking craft of the season. That's what it's supposed to be about, you know? And people go, oh, no, it's. It's a commercial for Broadway. I'm like, yeah, what better commercial than showing the craft of Broadway, supposedly. All right, next up, would you leave your S.O. for a celeb. Oh, significant other? Would I leave my significant other for a celeb? Well, if I had a significant other, maybe I'd answer this question and I guess. And just because they're a celebrity or does. Is it a specific celebrity? Am I in love with this celebrity? Is this celebrity in love with me? What's my history with my significant other? Is it toxic? Are my friends telling me that I shouldn't be with them? Is it violent? Are my friends telling me I should be with my significant other even though I'm not feeling the spark anymore? No. These are questions you ask in a real scenario. Next up, performances this year seemed extra targeted at boosting sales compared to prior years. Anyone else agree? Performances are always targeted to boosting sales. It's like it's a, it's your last big shot, you know, outside of performing on late night and the Thanksgiving Day Parade. But even then, like, you know, I every, the way I look at it is every time you go on tv, it's a chance to sell your show. And the Tonys is technically the biggest night because it's the most cumulative of your target audience watching. But yeah, no, you're always doing it to boost sales. How you go about doing it is up. Is up to you and your creative decisions. So, like, again, as I said, Kimberly Akimbo is like, well, let's just, you know, sell what the show actually is. Let's, let's be honest about what kind of show this is. If this intrigues people, great. They'll buy a ticket and they won't be upset when they see the show. We didn't bait them. Bait and switch them. If people watch it and don't like it, then they won't have to come to the show and they won't be angry sitting through it. And then other people are like, no, just do all the big stuff. Next up, Andrew Burnap's eyes deserve their own onlyfans account. They sure do, honey. That boy is a gift. All right, next person writes. Any theater gay knows the full Hot Honey Rag choreo. Why do a half assed version with new steps on the Tonys with two performers who could probably do the real version full out? I honestly don't know. Maybe they couldn't get the. Maybe they, I don't know, maybe they couldn't because that, that, that choreography is copywritten, right? Is that, is that the right term for it? Like, it's part of the Fosse estate. So maybe they couldn't do it in the same way. Like, you can't just do Jerome Robbins choreography for west side Story and call it a day. I don't know. I don't know why. Or maybe they're like, no, we want to do something fresh and new for the Tonys. But yeah, that was another one that everyone was like, why? Why do that? And also, not only that, but like you're doing a hot honey rug to honor Joel Gray and John Kander. John Kander, Yes. He wrote the music for Hot Honey Rag and Joel Gray was in the revival of Chicago, but neither of them danced Hot Honey Rag. It's like, it's a weird thing to do. But this, again, this ceremony wasn't perfect, but it was the best one in a long time. Next person writes. It was mostly what I'd hoped they'd do. More performances, less dumb banter and bits, longer speeches, more clips, even weird choices worked. Like showing musical acting nominees only doing book scenes. The only thing I'd add back is an announcer just to say the who and why. But overall, great. Well, I don't think we had an announcer because they couldn't have one because the announcer would have had to have read copy that was written by a writer. And so that was that. And you can't have an announcer like, you know, improvise shit. But yes, should the strike be over next year, I hope that they insert the announcer. But keep a lot of what we did this year, the book scenes for the musical nominees. From what I understand, that was another thing where it was licensing, you know, I guess with musical licensing for those shows, they only can pay for the performance itself, not for clips for the nominations. I don't know, it was. There's all this shit going on online that people are saying about it, and I don't know who to believe because I'm not a lawyer, you know, I watched all of the Good Wife, but I'm not a lawyer. Yeah, most of the clips they picked were solid ones. Everything except for Ruthie and Miles. I think we all can agree that one was weird. It was like Sondheim death poetry. Next up, irritated that Funny Girl had the final performance slot. Why not give it to a show of this season? Ratings, ratings, ratings, ratings. And if I'm being perfectly honest, I thought Funny Girl was the best performance of the night. A little rushed in tempo, but I mean, it's a. It's a big baller, famous song. It's Leah. And I can't begrudge them. I really can't. When, when it, when it's that good, you're sort of like, okay, sure, here you go. But I hear you on like a, you know, moral level. You wanted to have it go to a show of the season, but they usually would hold the final performance slot for like the big hit, you know, producers gets to perform last, you know, wait to see it or something like that. And finding Girl is a big hit and they want people to see the Leah of it all. On that note, let's take one more break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble and we're back. Okay, next person writes. Anybody else notice that Sarah and Brian Darcy James didn't have mics on during the performance? They had mics on. You might. You maybe didn't see it, but they had mics on. You wouldn't have been able to hear them if they didn't have mics on. Or at least, I mean, listen, I wasn't there backstage. Maybe they didn't, but that's. You can. When someone is unmiked on that stage, you can tell, you know, watch the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Tony performance, and you can hear when someone's mic is getting fussy and when someone's mic is super loud. Next up. Oh, okay. Another long one. Someone writes, here's a hot take. I sent in a Discord server. And I would be interpreted. I would be interested. Interpreted. I would be interested. Jesus, it's almost midnight. I would be interested to hear your take. Of the four wins, Some Like It Hot got only two seem 100% fair. Best lead actor and choreo. One is understandable. Orchestrations. It sounds impressive even though it's kind of basic. This is this person's writing, not mine. And one makes no sense. Costumes, in my opinion. I get why they won costumes. If I had one major caveat to the costume wins is that I don't think Adrianna is dressed well as Sugar. I don't. I think Jay is dressed incredibly well as Daphne. But I. I mean, I get it like the other. So the other options for costumes are New York, New York and Juliet Parade. And K Pop Parade, I think, actually has really lovely costumes that work for the period and for the style of show. They're just not, like, overall impressive, I think. And Juliet's costumes are very creative and inventive. K Pop's costumes are fine. I'm. I'm. I am not on the K Pop train like some people are. I think that show was quite bad, but whatever, if that's what floats your boat. And then the other. Oh, New York, New York was the other one. And New York, New York had some really lovely period costumes. Lead actor in choreography. Honestly, I would probably swap choreography and orchestrations as like, the two. And I'm like, yeah, that makes absolute sense. I would probably have given orchestrations to end Juliet. And I think even the orchestrations for Kimberly Akimbo are pretty fantastic. But, yeah, no, I don't begrudge something like it had any of its wins. I don't love Some Like It Hot, but they didn't have any Wins that where I was like shenanigans again, as everyone knows, that was the Sweeney Todd sound design. Someone writes. I love when they nominated four black men for best actor and the one white guy still won the award. So again, you can't think of this as like 10 people sitting in a room making these decisions. These are over 800 people on their own voting. There are a lot of optics at play here, guys. There is the fact that all of the other nominees were in shows that had closed. Sean Hayes was the only currently running production. He is a very well known name and he is giving a performance that, as I said, is a kind of acting performance you can measure. But also the problem about like making these wins about race is that you're then making someone's nomination about race and you're not looking at the craft of what they're doing. You're looking at their ethnicity and defining their value based off of that. It's not that they're a good actor, it's that they're a bipoc actor. And that's more important than. And representation absolutely matters and equity matters. And I think the fact that we had four nominees in that category who were not Caucasian speaks volumes. You know, we had two bipoc non binary winners in the musical categories. Victoria Clarke won best actress and she's over 60 years old. And we haven't had, you know, a leading actress in a musical win of that age in quite a while. You know, diversity is not just black. First of all, there are so many other ethnicities. We didn't have a single Asian acting nominee in the play categories or I think in any of the musical categories either. We didn't have any. We didn't have many Hispanic nominees. I think we only had David Zayas for Cost of Living, you know, and we, we did have Katie Sullivan who made history with her nomination. We had of all the four actor winners this year, they were all openly queer winners, either gay or bisexual or non binary, what have you. And I think that's also very special. You know, we, you can't just limit diversity to that one thing. And also we need to stop valuing performers based on not being Caucasian because there are so many amazingly talented bipoc performers out there. And the moment you make it about their race, you are undermining the talent and the craft they're bringing to the table. If an actor is winning a Tony, they want to win on the merit of their work and not the optics of their race. I hear you though. It never looks great when we have a room of non Caucasian nominees, and the one Caucasian wins. You know, that doesn't look great, but you also have to look at other major moments of progress. You know, these things don't happen overnight. And it's also a larger conversation of what's available. You know, we keep talking about how Broadway needs to be more inclusive and have more diversity and all that. And that is. That is true. But again, I keep arguing when people say that they don't understand that diversity means so much more than just that. But it's more than just having, you know, more bipoc writers or having more bipoc stories or queer stories or disabled or more having, you know, disabled actors. There's a. There's a craft that has to go into it. It has to be good. We have to put in the time to have these artists develop their craft and create works that are strong and profound and cross over to the mainstream. And that takes time because a lot of these artists haven't had that time or they only recently broke out. You know, it's. It's. There is so much groundwork that has to be set in order to win these kind of awards, and a lot of these performers are sort of just getting their groundwork in this community. The one actor nominated and best actor who has done that is Stephen McKinley Henderson and I thought would win. So I'm a little disappointed in that respect. But again, on paper, Shawn just has that kind of performance that everyone's like acting. So for me, I'm like. I'm more annoyed by that. That like we're. That we are giving that kind of work credit. But elastic lack. Next up. Never need the canned bits ever again. If they can tweak a few things, this formula is exactly what the night should look like. Agreed. I love that people are really into this next time. First time ever that the best score winner lost best orchestrations to another best score nominee. Trends are fun to break. So it's actually not the first time that's happened. I was asking about this the other day. By the other day, I mean yesterday, although it is now actually after midnight. Not the musical, just in real time. So it is the other day, Billy Elliot and Next to Normal tied for best orchestrations, even though Billy Elliott lost score to Next to Normal. And also Thoroughly Modern Millie lost best score to Urinetown. But it did win Orchestrations, ironically a Tesori musical. So this is not the first time this has happened. And I think it might have happened one other time, I can't recall, but that's the one that immediately comes to mind. But, yeah, I mean, it's. It's rare. Usually it goes to a revival or a catalog jukebox musical that's doing something interesting with the music or whatever. The best score winner is. Next up. Oh, sorry. I hope they permanently get rid of the banter, but hire a host next year who's a skilled, funny improviser. I thought Ariana did a solid job. You know, she's not really an improviser, but she did a good job. Next person. We won't look back to this year's Tonys because of the performances, the wins and some of the speeches. Yes, but not the performances. That's fair. The tiny tastes of clips from plays were so random and so great. Made me want more. Absolutely. I have been saying this for a while now. We need more of the plays represented. Next up, Ariana DeBose was such a great host, so at ease and loved seeing her get to dance. I agree. I thought she did a really lovely job and I did not like her as a host last year. I thought she did a much better job this year. Next person. Ain't no Mo should have won best play. But because the Tony voters are overwhelmingly white, Leah polished out won instead. So you're allowed to think that Ain't Nomo should have won best play, Leopolstadt. Winning is a number of things. And also, let's please not undermine the potency of Leopolstadt being about the Jewish people as they deal with the rise of anti Semitism in their country leading into the Holocaust, which is very powerful right now. Okay? So let's just not do that. I know you think you're being profound by talking about the whiteness of Leopold, and in a way, you're right. Tom Stoppard is British and high profile. He's won before. And it is one of those sort of cultural plays. We've had a lot of British imports come in and win best play over the last couple of years, honestly, in a row. But really, let's not do that. Let us not. Let us not cast aside the importance of the themes of Leopolstadt by simply saying, well, it's the white piece, so of course it won. Okay? We can't talk about how we're there for our Jewish friends and brothers and sisters. And then when a play that talks about all the things that's happening right now wins, we go, ugh. Well, it's the white play. Of course it won't. All right, that's really fucking cunty. And you and you know that. You all know that. I don't think Ain't no More deserved best play. I think Ain't no Mo was a solid piece. I'm glad it got nominated. I liked the concept of it more than I liked the execution. I thought every sketch was. Went on a little too long. My vote is for Fat Ham and not in relation to Ain't no Moe, just in relation to the nominees. I thought Fat Ham was the best play of that category. Followed by Honestly Leopoldstadt, followed by Between Riverside and Crazy and then A Nomo and then Cost of Living. But y', all, please don't with that. Like, especially with something like Leopoldstadt. Okay, I'm not. And I'm not here to overwhelmingly defend that play. I liked that play a great deal. It's not perfect, but it's very good. But, like, again, don't. Don't say one thing on social media when you know, someone spray paints a swastika on the subway and you say, I'm here for my Jewish friends. I support you. I'm here to, like, help you. And then when a play about this very thing happen, wins, and you cast it aside, that's fucking shady. Okay? You can. You can say you didn't like it. You can say you wanted something else to win, that that's what you thought deserved it. But don't do the. Don't do that. Don't do that. Next up, I wish Parade would have done something with the whole cast or a combo. I think we've heard this is not over yet. A few too many times. And then the gritted teeth emoji. Yeah, I was with my friend Brian watching it and they began it and he was like, oh, they're literally doing the 1999 Tony performance. And I said, yes, but they're not going to do Old Red Hills of Home with the whole cast like they did in 99. Because that song is uncomfortable out of context. It's also uncomfortable in context, but more so out of context. I would have liked them to have had done something with the whole cast, but they really are kind of marketing this as the Ben and Michaela show. Next question. How many kids do you want to have? Next question. The WGA shot themselves in the foot. Because now we know the awards shows are much more enjoyable without the pesky banter getting in the way. At least for the Tony Awards. You really can't do an Emmys or Oscars without writers. That's the problem. Next question. Sad that Bat Cinderella didn't get its moment in the sun. At the Tonys. Well, what would you have had them do? They. First of all, they're closed already. They didn't get nominated for anything. I don't know what they would have done that would have showcased them in a way that would have gotten people to enjoy it. They tried to do like a live stream of the opening of Act 2 online while they were still running. And people were not into that either, I guess. I'm glad you liked Bat Cinderella. I didn't, but I know that it has its fans and that's lovely. Next up. Loved that both musical actor categories were won by gender. Non conforming individuals in dresses. Eliminate gendered categories. I'm still sort of on the fence about it myself. I love. I'm not. Not about Jay and Alex winning. I'm not on the fence about that. Congrats to those two. Jay is a very lovely, talented person. I saw Jay, I think, do Kinky Boots on the road and they fucking slayed. And then Alex, of course, has that voice sent from heaven. Eliminating the gendered categories is tricky, and it's something that I don't think we can just do overnight because as we saw with the Outer Critics Circle Awards, that was a mess. And the drama desks tried to do it better, but it still tricky. You run the risk every year of, well, what if all cisgendered men win? Because you have no control over how people vote, you know? And also it's. It's just. It's just very. It's very different. I like what's happening right now with the Tonys where they are leaving it up to the performer to decide what category they want to go in. That's a very good first step. And then I think we go from there and sort of see how we do, you know? But if we just do it overnight, y', all, that thing is gonna blow up in our faces and look ugly. Next up, having no scripts was much more enjoyable. I love unscripted actors. It's a mixed bag. Yup, yup, yup. Cutting off JRB for Phantom side Eye. I mean, cutting off JRV in general, I found quite funny and also Shady. And then Phantom Woof. All right, but we talked about that. Next message. Biggest regret starting this podcast, apparently. Next up, Sean Hayes wouldn't have won had any of the other three shows still been running. Recency Bias. Honestly agree. I think if Between Riverside and Crazy were still running, that would have helped a great deal. People have won acting awards for closed shows in the past. Fuck, it happened last year with Phylicia Rashad, Deirdre o' Connell, and Simon Russell Beale. But first of all, Deirdre and Felicia were kind of upsets, and Simon was in the best play winner that also won a whole bunch of other awards. You know, it had the esoteric clout, but yeah, I don't know. I think if Stephen McKinley Henderson were still in between Riverside and Crazy, he would have had a really strong shot at winning, or at least more so than he already did. And he had a strong shot with his show having closed. But, yeah, recency bias is a thing. It's something to think about. I mean, if you doubt me, guys, think about the last time a performer won for a musical that had closed. I am pretty sure it was Martin Short in little me in 1999. That was 24 years ago. And that was Martin Short doing Little Me. Next up, the Best neckwear award goes to. Wait, it was a tie. So stupid. That's fun. Good for you. Next person writes, I loved Shucked, but that performance was meh. You know, I didn't love Shucked on Broadway. I liked it. I had a very fun time and I would recommend it, for sure. Yeah, that performance was just sort of okay for me, too. But as we've learned, some people really loved it. I read some people really hated it. That I don't understand. I don't think it was a mess, nor was it bland enough to be like. But yeah, I don't think it was the best representation of that show. Again, as I said, I think they tried to do a little too much all at once. Next up, what's your toxic trait? Over talking. Yeah, over talking and being maybe a little too confident in my opinions. It has gotten me in trouble with friends in the past and probably will in the future. Next up, Gina de Waal got to perform on the Tonys, but Annaleigh Ashford, Betsy Wolf, and Bonnie Milligan didn't. Gina de Waal got to perform on the Tonys. Was she in the ensemble for Sweeney Todd? Is that what you're referring to? It's not about who didn't. It's just what the show chose to do. First of all, Betsy Wolf performed on the Tonys with Everyday Rapture. That is Everyday Rapture. Erasure. Analie Ashford. Actually, I don't know if Annalee Ashford has performed on the Tonys in a musical she's in. She didn't perform with Illegally Blonde. She didn't perform with. No. Well, I guess she performed with the cast doing Everybody say yeah and Kinky Boots. But yeah, she like Wasn't featured in that number. I don't know what would you have had Sweeney Todd do? Little Priest. That's a seven minute number. They would have had it to cut it down. It wouldn't have been good. Worst pies in London. No. Angela Lansbury did it in 79 and it didn't work. Then I guess Betsy, I think what if I would have had Angelia do would be blowing. I think that number would have been good and it would have showcased some of Betsy Wolf. The problem with and Juliet is some of my. Some of the numbers I like the most have the turntable and they couldn't do the turntable so they would have to completely restage it. But yeah, I don't know. I wasn't pleased with what Angelia did. Or they could have done, honestly. They could have done the opening. Give me some of my stark baby Bonnie, you know, keep her a secret and have people just be blown away by her when they come see the show. Next up, Alex Newell sings the fuck out of Independently Owned. But Justin Cooley should have won best featured actor. He showed so much range and vulnerability and is absolutely incredible in the role. You know, Justin had my vote. That is who I would have voted for. And as I said last week was very possible to have an upset. I wonder what the tallies were like. Listen, there's a reason why we don't get the percentages shown to us. I don't think that this was super close, but I think Justin was very much the second place of votes for this category and. And has my vote. I will say Alex does more than just sing the fuck out of Independently Owned. Alex actually does some really lovely, funny, cheeky scene work. But yeah, no, Alex had my vote. I'm not mad about. Sorry. Justin had my vote but I'm not mad about Alex's win. That was also a very good category. Not much I would have done to change in that category. And our final one. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories? That's the second time someone has asked me that and I don't know if I answered it last time. No, I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I think that they're stupid and very convenient. People come up with conspiracy theories that are convenient to how they want something to go. And it's not just, you know, there are aliens or Lea Michele can't read. People come up with conspiracy theories for their own everyday lives, for their relationships, for their work ethic, for their lack of success. Oh, I didn't get this because of this. Oh, you know, we've gone through this hurdle, but we're coming, we're overcoming it because of xyz. It's like we choose to believe the things that line up with the narrative we want for ourselves. You know, I'm not untalented. It's because of this or it's not that I am not auditioning enough or I'm not writing enough or anything. Like, you know, I am very. I'm not at peace. But I am very self aware about all the things about myself that need improvement, that I can continue to work on, that I should be fighting for, that I've. The mistakes I've made, the things I've said that are. That we're not right, that I, you know, hurt someone's feelings or someone hurt my feelings or anything like that. We have to remember that we are not perfect and we don't accept our flaws and don't work on them. We forgive ourselves for having flaws while still trying to be better people tomorrow. That is what we do. And that comes from talking about conspiracy theories, because I think another conspiracy theory is saying, you're perfect. Never change. I am a goddess. I'm a diva. I'm the moment. It is me. That's what it is. Well, guys, that has been our episode on our reaction to the Tonys. It's actually a lot longer than I expected it to be. We have a new review. I would really like to read it because y' all have been fucking crushing it and I love giving you your due. All right, here we go. Five stars. Oh, sorry. Cue the light on the Piazza Overture. Five stars. This must be what regular people experience when they watch SportsCenter. Look, if you're into football, you can find someone to talk to about that pretty much anywhere. I'm now far from New York City, far from anything associated with the industry and catching shows only on tour and trips. Even when I am talking Broadway with a fellow fan, I am not learning new things from those conversations. Conversations. We're rehashing what little we know together. With Matt, I am challenged. All in caps. I am challenged to think harder and learn more about something I love. The detailed breakdowns of shows have introduced me to new material and encouraged me to engage more deeply with the familiar. Both he and his guests are electrifying and also welcoming. When they share opinions and insider info. You feel like you are being included as part of the conversation. Conversation. As someone forced by geography to love Broadway from afar, this podcast transports me to 42nd street once a week. Thank you very much. That was a wonderful review, you guys. Again, I keep saying this. You guys are fucking crushing it. Keep them coming because, my God, they are giving me all the life in the world. Yeah. I am just very pleased. I am very fortunate to have you guys choose to listen to this podcast. Thank you so much. And I hope you continue to listen, and I hope I continue to give you reasons to listen. And that's it for this week. Join us next week for a special episode. It is not the big move just yet. It's a bonus episode involving either a person or two people involved with one of my favorite musicals this season. Not Kimberly Akimbo, but another one. And I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. We haven't recorded it yet. It's. We're recording it before this episode comes out, but after I've recorded the episode. That's a mindfuck to think about. And, yeah, that's it for this Tony's recap. I'm trying to think of a diva for us to close out on. You know what? Because y' all were so. So many of you were annoyed that Annalee didn't get to perform with Sweeney Todd. Let's close out with Ms. Ashford, give her her moment in the sun. I think that's only fair. Yeah. Okay, so that's it. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening, y'. All. Take us away, Annalee by the History of Chapter one, he's a bum Two, he's not into you Three, he's a sleeve Four, love the girl next door.