The Tonys Return: A Year and a Half Late, But Right OnTime

by Patrick Ball

Hamilton, just celebrated at the Emmys, swept the Tonys six years ago.

Eighteen months after Broadway’s curtains dropped due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, they finally rose again last week as New Yorkers and theater lovers across the country welcomed their favorite witches, lions, and founding fathers back to Broadway. Correspondingly, The American Theater Wing and The Broadway League have set the 74th annual Tony Awards for the curtailed 2019-2020 Broadway season for this Sunday. Yes, you read that right, this weekend awards are finally being handed out for productions from an eligibility window that ran from the literal *summer* of 2019 to February 2020 -- a lifetime ago! (It's been two years and three months since the 73rd annual Tony Awards were held.)

Luckily, theater-related talent and content has been gracing our screens in abundance over the past year to help ease the wait...

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The Tony Awards will be on Paramount+ this year

Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo in "Moulin Rouge: The Musical"

Here's a twist we didn't see coming: the long delayed Tony Awards will be on Paramount+ streaming service this September 26th at 7 PM EST followed by a starry Broadway-celebrating concert on CBS (the usual home of the Tony Awards) at 9 PM EST (both shows are two hours long). That's great timing since the shows begin to return on September 2nd (as previously discussed).

All of the awards but three will be handed out on the Paramount portion of the evening...

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We're rejoicing over Broadway's Return

by Nathaniel R

Patti Lupone in "Company"

When Broadway was shut down on March 12th, 2020 the official story was "until April 12th, 2020". That one month time frame is hilariously optimistic in retrospect (and even raised some eyebrows at the time). Cut to mid May 2021 and Broadway is still closed but with notice that theaters can reopen at full capacity in September. 

But what gives with the Tony Awards? They announced a strange set of nominees after the Broadway closing culled from a very limited pool of shows since a lot hadn't yet opened (Broadway is typically busiest in the spring). Seven months later they still haven't uttered a peep about when those awards will take place. Aaron Tveit, the only nominee for Best Actor in a Musical, still doesn't know whether or not he won. All three of the current nominees in the marquee Tony category of Best Musical (i.e. the one that gets all the headlines and makes the box office difference) will be reopened by late October...

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Showbiz History: Ellen Burstyn's big month and Corey Stoll appreciation

8 random things that happened on this day, March 14th, in history...

1885 The Mikado, Gilbert & Sullivan's beloved comic opera, premieres in London. The Oscar winning film Topsy Turvy (1999) depicts its production in exquisite detail. Topsy-Turvy was a very late entry in the 1999 Oscar race and threw a lot of categories out of whack -- proving a formidable competitor to design heavy films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Sleepy Hollow. In the end it won Costume Design and Makeup and received nominations for Screenplay and Production Design. 1999 was a damn good film year, even if the actual Best Picture list was a sorry sorry slate... 

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Christopher Plummer (1929-2021)

by Nathaniel R

I thought Christopher Plummer would never die. Which is to say, I thought he wouldn't die for a long time yet. The last act of his career, running roughly from the one-two punch of his second Tony win in Barrymore (1997) and his much-praised Oscar-snubbed Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999) through his mischievously pleasing star turn as Harlam Thrombley the manipulative patriarch in the surprise hit Knives Out (2019), was like a gauntlet thrown down; dare to imagine the movies without me!

We'd rather not, thank you very much. But now we sadly must with the actor's death at 91 years of age...

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