Neil Patrick Harris closed out last night’s Tony Awards with a two-minute recap of the ceremony in verse, and if the rap sounded sort of familiar in cadence and style, it should: In the Heights collaborators Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tommy Kail wrote it. How’d they manage to weave in the specifics of the night’s events, like Nikki M. James’s bumblebee metaphor, Brooke Shields’s flubbed lines, and Frances McDormand’s acceptance speech? How do you think? They wrote most of it during the ceremony. “I write really fast,” Miranda told the Wall Street Journal. The full transcript follows:
If anyone asks you what happened at the Tonys you can say this:
We straightened things out in the opening number; Ellen Barkin and John Benjamin Hickey took home awards for their hilarious performances in The Normal Heart.
Daniel Radcliffe kicked some butt and we were so elated
Even Vodemort was sad he wasn’t nominated
Norbert Leo Butz sang and danced and tried to catch you, comin’ atchu
Chasing Trey and Casey cause they nabbed a Tony statue
Commencing in the Chattanooga station
from the grand imagination
of the Kander-Ebb collaboration
It takes a lot for a recipient to humble me
But everybody cried for gorgeous Nikki James, the bumblebee
Andrew Rannells sang “I Believe” and he landed it
So well now he’s Mitt Romney’s VP candidate
All across the country from the North and to the South
Are saying “Brooke’s a hottie with a crazy potty mouth”
John Larroquette brought an elegant mood to the room
I’m still imagining him at home in his Fruit of the Looms
Spider-man and Mary-Jane gave us perspective here
They sang a ballad; we didn’t need our protective gear
Patina Miller’s nuns sang “Raise Your Voice” with cheer
And Memphis is relentless, they’re performing every year
The Normal Heart won, Larry Kramer made us weep
And War Horse dazzled us with a theatrical sweep
Sutton Foster never lost her knack for talking smack and tapping a full-on assault attack,
I’m awesome, Hugh Jackman take that
Go ahead and roll the credits if you need to,
I’m out of control, I’m on a roll, this is my Tonys speed through
Anything Goes took the best revival prize in stride
We didn’t see it, we were singing “Side by Side by Side”
McDormand loves her job, Sutton Foster won again
Paul Schaffer sang and suddenly it started raining men
Mark Rylance runs at fences, he’s won the Tony twice
That guy can do it all, his follow-up is Fanny Bryce
Norbert Butz and Mormon swept the floor, won even more awards than War Horse
Par for the course, someone get a car for the horse
And in the final analysis what survives tonight?
Theater, because it’s what we live
We’re changing some lives tonight
And theater thrives because we live to give it, so to speak
This isn’t reality TV, this is eight shows a week
Every chorus member that you saw tonight tappin’
Had to make miracles happen
For a chance to see you clappin’
And applauding in the audience
What’s next? Who knows
Anything goes
Now go see a mother [mumbled]-ing Broadway show
As great as the “speed-through” was, though, it can’t quite top Miranda’s acceptance speech from 2008.
And for good measure, Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton biorap:
How They Wrote Neil Patric Harris’s Tony Wrap-Up Wrap” [Speakeasy/WSJ]
