Word: broadways
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...best and worst of times for Broadway. This season's revenue for the 30 or so theaters lining the Great White Way was an all-time record. And this Sunday's Tony Awards show was the lowest-rated ever. At one point the host, Hugh Jackman, said hello to the "6,000 people here at Radio City Music Hall and the the other 6,000 watching at home." That was a joke, but only by three zeroes. Six million people watched; that's fewer than the number of tickets sold, at prices up to $500, for Broadway shows this season...
...Still, for your hard-core Broadway devotees - basically old people, Manhattanites, Jews and homosexuals (I qualify in half of these categories, won't tell you which) - Tony Night possesses a cliquish glamour that the more popular TV ceremonies can't touch. It has the snazziest pace, the most articulate acceptance speeches and the most, and most tolerable, production numbers. On this year's show there were eight, one from each of the nominated new musicals and revivals, including "Wonderful Town," an Encores! concert that transferred to Broadway this season...
...Outside of Broadway, these performers aren't household names. Menzel, the winner, played a bridesmaid in the indie movie "Kissing Jessica Stein." Murphy has some minor currency for Trekkies as Captain Picard's beloved Ba'ku babe in "Star Trek: Insurrection" or, for TV cultists, as Stanley Tucci's scheming wife on the first season of "Murder One." Pinkins' only non-Tony nomination was for Best Supporting Actress in a soap opera ("All My Children" in the early 90s). Chenoweth and D'Abruzzo have been seen, fleetingly, on "Sesame Street" - the first as Ms. Noodle, the second as a puppeteer...
...late March and early May), that electricity is palpable - partly because each revival is done only five or six times, partly because of the symbiosis between the dedicated professionals on stage and the knowledgeable enthusiasts in the seats. Thus every performance has the panache and portent of a classic Broadway opening night. The commercial musical theater still has its appeal, but for me Encores! is the toniest show in town...
...Kern's 1985 centenary cued four glittery restorations of his early Princess Theatre musicals at New York's Carnegie Hall. These were the shows (with book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse) whose Held-girl-slim plots, witty rhymes and gorgeous scores created the form of the Broadway musical comedy. John McGlinn's meticulous orchestrations, and showstopping turns by Judy Kaye, Jane Connell and Paige O'Hara, restored these wonderful old shows to life, not as quaint artifacts but as living examples of a musical theater that had never lost its ability to transport and beguile...