The Tony Awards return to tradition. Here's what's eligible...

by Nathaniel R

Shery Lee Ralph, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Beanie Feldstein at least season's Tony Awards

The past two years have thrown awards shows (not to mention the whole entertainment industry) for quite a loop.  Nowhere was that more true than the Tony Awards with Broadway entirely shut down and most of the presumed contenders never opening in 2020. The Tony Awards for 2019 and 2020 shows were finally held last September, just under a year after nominations were announced!!! With Broadway theaters reopened for some time now (proof of vaccination and masks still required) the American Theater Wing is resuming the Tony Awards as we know them, returning to their usual month (June!) and their usual venue (Radio City Music Hall) so we're getting the 75th Tony Awards just nine months after the 74th.

The Tony Awards will arrive on June 12th and the four hour show will air live, for the first hour on Paramount+ and the final three hours on CBS. from 7-11 PM EST.  Productions have to open by April 28th to be eligible and the nomimations will be announced on May 3rd, 2022. A list of eligible productions is after the jump...

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Why can't we have Jonathan Bailey in the movies?

by Nathaniel R

2022 is off to a great start for 34 year-old British stage and TV star Jonathan Bailey. We've had to love him on the relative quiet for a long time because he rarely does movies! Promo photos just came out for the new West End play "Cock" in which he'll co-star with Taron Egerton as gay lovers having a fallout when one of them sleeps with a woman (Jade Anouka). In addition to that upcoming run on the boards, the Season 2 trailer for Bridgerton just dropped. This season he takes the leading spotlight as the most eligible bachelor of the titular family... 

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Almost There: Rita Moreno in "The Ritz"

by Cláudio Alves

She just turned 90, but Rita Moreno is on the top of her game. The 1961 Best Supporting Actress champion is back on the silver screen thanks to Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. While not playing Anita this time around, Moreno still manages to steal the spotlight and deliver one of the movie's most impactful songs, the emotional high point of the entire production. As pundits argue over the nonagenarian's Oscar chances, it's a good time to look back at her filmography and consider the last time she was in the awards conversation. After the success of West Side Story, Moreno's most acclaimed movie role was probably that of Googie Gomez in the big-screen adaptation of The Ritz…

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Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)

by Nathaniel R

Back in the early days of the internet, when listserv discussions were the norm, I remember engaging in a robust discussion about what the best musical ever written was. Someone said "the one about the murderous barber and the meat pies" and online friends began riffing on that response. Answers followed like "fairy tale characters collide" "a commitment-phobe turns 35", "a French pointillist epic " and "the one about old showgirls reuniting / reiminiscing". It took a while before the spell was broken and a musical not written by Stephen Sondheim entered the discussion and even some of those, like "the rise of a burlesque star and her overbearing mother" and "two street gangs in New York City" had Sondheim's fingerprints on them. While the conversation began in a tongue-in-cheek way, the answers were genuine. It was hard to shake the realization that there were at least a half dozen shows by the same artist that could legitimately battle for the title of Greatest Show Ever Written. It was, quite frankly, awe-inducing.

I've never felt more spiritually transported in a Broadway house than during Sunday in the Park with George. And reverence is what everyone who knows what there is to know about musicals feels for Sondheim. Especially now. Nevertheless, a caveat: Reverence is not always the best way to approach art. Sondheim's work is complex and lively and varied enough to invite many moods in. Adjectives that are or should be frequently thrown at his work -- multi-faceted, polyphonic, panoramic, prismatic -- all suggest a difficult plurality...

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"Wicked" Movie announces its Elphaba and Glinda casting! What about the other roles?

by Nathaniel R

After years of fan-casting and online speculation we finally know who will be following in Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth's footsteps in that Emerald City of stage and screen legend. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will be taking on the iconic roles of Glinda and Elphaba in the big screen adaptation of Broadway behemoth Wicked which is, if you've been sleeping under a rock, about the witches before the events of The Wizard of Oz. The news was announced tonight by the film's director Jon M Chu. 

How are you feeling about this news? Well how am I feeling? Not even sure and I'll tell you why...

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