Stage Door: Tony Predictions

We've already talked Tony Presenters & Performances so let's delve into predictions for the show this Sunday night on CBS.

Best Musical
Bright Star (REVIEWED) 
Hamilton
School of Rock
Shuffle Along
Waitress

Will Win: Hamilton in a cakewalk though Shuffle Along has ardent fans so it probably would have won in a year without a juggernaut like Hamilton. 

Best Play
Eclipsed by Danai Gurira -- closes June 19th
King Charles III by Mike Bartlett - already closed
The Father by Florian Zeller (REVIEWED) 
The Humans by Stephen Karam

Will Win: The Humans has been nabbing all the precursor prizes so it's got the momentum.
Possible Spoiler: ...if there's a surprise look to Eclipsed

more after the jump...

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Tony Awards Presenters & Broadway Carpool

The Tony Awards hit this weekend with James Corden, former Tony winner and current star of The Late Late Show,  hosting. Sundays ceremony will feature performances from the following musicals: Bright Star, The Color Purple (adapted from the film), Fiddler on the Roof, Hamilton, On Your Feet (the Gloria Estefan musical) School of Rock (adapted from the film), She Loves Me, Shuffle Along, Spring Awakening, and Waitress (adapted from the film).

But which stars of stage and screen will be presenting and which actually belong there?  Since the Tony Awards are televised they tend to give TV & film stars the honors of presenting even though they really ought to pair them with stage giants to make the festivities more attuned to the actual honors being handed out. That minor quibble aside at least the stars chosen to present generally have some sort of Broadway connection.

This year's presenters in the order of how much Broadway stage cred they have after the jump... but first the utter delights of "Broadway Carpool" with James Corden & Lin-Manuel Miranda. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Audra McDonald and Jane Krakowski absolutely kill it with the singing and comedy in the back seat once they get to Les Miz...

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Stage Door: Steve Martin & Edie Brickell's "Bright Star"

In Stage Door we talk theater, usually making some form of movie connection because that's how we do things...

I don't know anything about Bluegrass music but I wouldn't have connected it to the Melodrama form. If I tried to tell you the plot of Steve Martin's Broadway show "Bright Star," you wouldn't even believe it, so I shan't. Let's just say that if the plot were a movie it would be a silent film with wild eyed pantomiming it's so BIG with oversized emotional rug-pulling. I was just crazy about the music but the book not so much. (On the night I attended it was all worth it because Steve Martin made a surprise appearance. There he was as the curtain raised for Act 2, playing on his banjo. He was loving it and so was the very very appreciative crowd. How lucky that he picked our night to show up!)

Aside from the Original Score which just won the Drama Desk Award, the show's MVP is its Tony nominated lead actress Carmen Cusack who plays her character, beautifully, at two separate ages as a gangly uninhibited teenager and a much stiffer heartbroken woman in her 30s; when she fuses their temperaments at the end into the same woman, it's divine. Her voice can soar gorgeously and crash down to earth with equal potency. The Original Cast Recording is now available which might be the best way to experience the otherwise uneven night of theater. The highlight of this particular lucky night out on Broadway was the surprise appearance of Steve Martin playing his banjo as Act 2 began. He was loving it and so were his appreciative surprised fans in the theater that night. I was lucky enough to be among them. 

Bright Star is up for 5 Tonys: Musical, Book of a Musical, Score, Actress, and Orchestrations. 

More Theater
54 Below Molly Pope is doing a one night show in July based on A Star is Born. She's a stunning live performer -it's pricey but I have to be there
NY Times An ode to Broadway replacements Heather Headley & Marin Mazzie
NY Post Michael Riedel predicts a mini Hamilton backlash at the Tonys. It will lose in at least a few categories 
Theater Mania Once frequent Oscar nominee Marsha Mason is directing a production of Steel Magnolias in Pennsylvania (now running through June 18th). Jessica Walter is playing Ouiser which is great casting, don't you think? 
Broadway Blog Cheyenne Jackson has a new album out "Renaissance"

SEEING @APtheMusical AND THIS LOVELY LADY CAME PRE-SPLATTERED @dorsia_BATeMAN pic.twitter.com/5NULUdeJ4w

— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) June 4, 2016

P.S. Jason and I also caught American Psycho again the day before it closed and during intermission, while chatting with Pushing Daisies / Hannibal TV genius Bryan Fuller (who also enjoyed the show) we all met a crazy fan who was wearing an American Psycho dress . A second time through I'm even more convinced of its brilliance. The Tonys really stiffed it but at least it picked up 3 well deserved Drama Desk Awards (Lighting, Projections, Design) 

The Furniture: Decorating Madness in A Streetcar Named Desire

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

The 70th Tony Awards are in just a few days. I certainly can't be trusted with predictions, but I’ll make one guess. The award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play probably won’t be split three ways. That sort of near-impossible result has only occurred once, all the way back in 1948. The 2nd Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play was shared by Judith Anderson, Katharine Cornell, and Jessica Tandy. Tandy won for the original broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Of course, she didn’t get to be in the movie and so we will leave her behind. Elia Kazan’s film of Tennessee Williams’s masterpiece premiered less than two years after its Broadway run ended. Its success was that instant. It won four Oscars, though all but one was for acting. That fourth prize, of course, was for production design. [More...]

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Barbra Streisand Returning to The Tonys after 46 Years

Streisand 1970 Tony was for “star of the decade”

46 years is a long time. Richard Nixon was president in 1970 when Barbra Streisand last appeared at The Tonys. She’s coming back this year as a presenter. Who knows why? Maybe she has Hamilton fever like the rest of the world. Maybe she has a tour to promote (she does). Whatever it is we will get to see Streisand on The Tonys stage.

And we can’t wait. No details have been provided about her appearance. So let the speculation begin about which category she will present. The obvious choice is the night’s biggest category - best musical. But just saying "Hamilton" might rob us of her great Oscar ad libs. “I’m so happy to give this to you again, Clint”. “Well the time has come”. 

And as monumental as this news is, Barbra can't do it all alone. So there will be other presenters on the big night. Here are our category suggestions for a few of them:

Cate Blanchett - 'Lead Actress in a Play' because of her Oscar connection to the two frontrunners. She won her second on the same night as Lupita Nyongó (nominated for "Eclipsed") and, like Jessica Lange, Blanchett won Oscars on her 2nd and 6th nominations. Their second wins even share the same first word in the title, “Blue”. This would be a gift for Oscar nerds.

Oprah Winfrey - Any category that Lin-Manuel Miranda might win. Imagine Oprah saying his name the same way she says "JOHN  TRA-VOL-TA”.

Audra McDonald - 'Lead Actress in A Musical'. It might be mean to ask her to present the category for which she was snubbed, but she IS musical theater’s most honored leading lady. It fits.

Saoirse Ronan - 'Featured Actress in a Play' just because we need to hear her say “Pascale Armand, Saycon Sengbloh and Jayne Houdyshell” in her lilting Irish accent.

Carole King - 'Original Score'. Duh.

Other presenters announced include Steve Martin, Nathan Lane and Patina Miller. The Tonys will be broadcast on Sunday June 12th and we'll undoubtedly celebrate here.

Which category would you like to see Barbra present?