Tonight’s Tony Awards (CBS, 8 p.m.) may end up being heavy on foregone conclusions, since, as our theater critic Jesse Green breaks down down in his predictions, the beloved juggernaut Hamilton is favored to win in nearly every category in which it was nominated. But that doesn’t mean the ceremony will be short on thrills: Impressive crops of play and revival nominees should yield surprises, and there’s the drama inherent in Hamilton’s pursuit of a record 13 Tony wins. Plus, the performances alone will be worth the price of turning on your TV.
As always, Vulture will be following the awards closely, with a real-time winners list, breakout posts about unforgettable performances and speeches, and, right here, a live chat with Green. Join him starting at 8 p.m. and hang around until random audience members with the name “Hamilton” have started receiving trophies.
Jesse Green: I am halfway in bed already!
JenniferFabulous: Tony Awards! Love the Schuyler Sisters closing! Thanks, Jesse, for a great live chat!
Jesse Green: Good memory! Both foreordained conclusions.
Dave Sikula: Button! (Thanks, Jesse!)
Jesse Green: Glad you enjoyed!
Jesse Green: Well, that’s the 2016 Tony awards, which went mostly as expected and was a pretty good show (and only 15 minutes late). I’ll have a postmortem tomorrow here on Vulture. Thanks all of you who followed and/or commented. Until next year, when the big winner will be VAN BUREN.
Julie: Thanks Jesse! Super fun Live Chat tonight. Best Tony’s ever? :-)
Suz: So wonderful!!! Many thanks!
Jer: Many thanks Jesse! You’re a pleasure to read and especially to see you spar with Reidel
Dave Sikula: Reminds me of 1976, when the Chorus Line cast performed after winning.
Jesse Green: A planned final celebration with the cast of HAMILTON: “Work!”
Linds: YES
Jesse Green: Hamilton has only three producers (plus the Public Theater.)
Jesse Green: Maybe she opened it offstage, because she’s Barbara, and she can do whatever she likes.
Thatgirl: and risk her nails?
Linds: lol can you IMAGINE?!
BdwayScott: She didn’t!!!
Jesse Green: I didn’t see it, but she must have.
Kel: Did she even open the envelop?
Jer: Least suspenseful award in the history of awards?
Jesse Green: That makes 11 for the show: a nice showing.
Jesse Green: Best Musical, surprise, goes to HAMILTON.
Jesse Green: Thanks!
BdwayScott: OOPS… you … Jesse…
Jesse Green: She is wearing Hamilton fashion.
Jesse Green: James Corden huffs on an inhaler to introduce Streisand.
Jesse Green: Me (Jesse) or Mueller (Jessie)?
Jesse Green: As to how long Streisand’s nails will be?
Nuyguy: That’s really a function of what was on Broadway this year.
Jesse Green: Diggs autocorrected to Dings!
Jesse Green: My mistake; I somehow was counting Miranda. Although I don’t presume to know how each of them identifies. (Dings’s mother is white Jewish, father black.)
BdwayScott: Thanks Jessie and everyone who blogged along… this was fun!
Jer: Oh the suspense…
Dave Sikula: #TonySoNotWhite?
Jesse Green: Black or Hispanic, that is.
Jesse Green: This is the headline of the event.
Jesse Green: This blocks HAMILTON from beating the record of The Producers.
Jesse Green: As much predicted, the award for best actress in a musical goes to Cynthia Erivo.
Jesse Green: Audra beaming as she announces a category she for once doesn’t have to contend in.
BdwayScott: Queen Audra!
Jesse Green: Classy Leslie Odom speech – as from al the Ham winners.
Ambrrr: Not surprising considering that he is in fact a baby deer
Jesse Green: Yes, I agree. It wasn’t as good as the original.
Jesse Green: Well there you go: Leslie Odom Jr. He was my “shoulda” not my “will” win.
Nuyguy: Most of that carpool karaoke was shown earlier this week.
Dave Sikula: I’m pulling for Danny.
Jesse Green: The large dog, you mean.
Jesse Green: Best performance by an actor in a musical. I gave up between Miranda and Odom; other say it will be Burstein.
Dave Sikula: Was eaten by the wolf.
Jesse Green: Haven’t seen him.
BdwayScott: Spit out my drink … laughing…
Thatgirl: They could have skipped carpool karaoke.
Jesse Green: They will first cut the Best Musical award entirely.
Ambrrr: Does anyone know if Ben Whishaw is there? I’ve been tricked by Josh Groban’s beard at least three times.
Jesse Green: Not that I can think of right now, or certainly not enough to have saved more than a minute.
Dave Sikula: See also, “Television direction of every musical number.”
Jesse Green: There seems to be an un-theater-like fear of the unmoving eye.
Jer: I think they are going to have to cut Babs. Watch out.
Thatgirl: Would it have killed them to keep the camera still and in focus long enough so we could read every name?
Dave Sikula: We haven’t seen it here yet. Was there any fat (skits, banter) that could have been cut?
Jesse Green: I agree.
Julie: Still moving along so much better than any other awards show!
Jesse Green: Not at only three minutes left before eleven.
Dave Sikula: I don’t think they’re going to finish on time.
Julie: Memories of Fosse in the latter part of the Broadcast tonight <3
Jesse Green: The in memoriam segment accompanied by a string quartet version of “Seasons of Love”
Jesse Green: Chita sounds more and more like Gwen Verdon, does she not?
Jesse Green: They can’t get all those Color Purple producers out of the way fast enough for Chita!
Jesse Green: As predicted. (Not just by me.) The other shows were lovely new versions of very good shows; this was a total reinvention of a mediocre show.
Jesse Green: Best Revival of a Musical. Almost certainly THE COLOR PURPLE.
Jesse Green: It just started out of-town tryout in Chicago.
Jesse Green: I agree it’ll be a big deal, but it’s a bit early to give it the Tony.
BdwayScott: Have you heard anything about War Paint?
Jesse Green: A tribute to CHICAGO, the longest running American musical in Broadway history.
Dave Sikula: Lin won the Conn Smythe Trophy
Jesse Green: Hardly.
Linds: yes lol
Nuyguy: She Loves Me is the only other musical to win an award so far and that was off camera.
Jesse Green: Did Hamilton win that too?
Jesse Green: Ruptured Aneurysm commercial. Coming to Broadway in 2017!
Linds: just had to switch to the NHL game for the final minute
Jesse Green: Considering that this has been the Hamiltonys, the broadcast has done a good job in sharing the wealth.
Jesse Green: Ha!
Jesse Green: And impish Chris Fitzgerald’s one big number. I’ve also got a soft spot for Keale Settle.
Nuyguy: Mueller saved the number. She’s just terrific.
Jesse Green: Four musical categories left: Best Musical, Best Revival, Best Leading Actor and Actress.
Jer: Wanted Sara and Jessie to sing together. That being said, Jessie is the main reason to see the show.
Dave Sikula: Yeah, but now they need a flying composer at every performance.
Jesse Green: I think that probably sold a lot of tickets to WAITRESS.
Brianne: Was just thinking that - this isn’t the Oscars, no one wants to see a “celebrity” float in to sing one of the songs
Jesse Green: Misleading and unnecessary. Mueller sings like Bareilles but better.
Jesse Green: Also: Mueller is wearing the pregnancy padding – wonder how THAT meeting went.
Nuyguy: Totally misleading way to sell this show.
Jesse Green: Uh, especially when they include the composer floating in with a piano to sing part of one of the numbers.
Jesse Green: Medleys are sometimes the only solution, but they generally aren’t satisfying.
Dave Sikula: Ah. Thanks
Jesse Green: Keri Russell, who appeared in the movie, introduces the number from WAITRESS.
Jesse Green: Producer Scott Rudin gave his Tony for THE HUMANS to director Joe Mantello.
Dave Sikula: What? (For those of us on the west coast.)
Jesse Green: Has that ever actually happened? People talk about it, but has anyone done it.
Jesse Green: Rudin generously acknowledges the Roundabout straight up. And then gives the award to Joe Mantello!
Jesse Green: And a slew of other producers.
Jesse Green: The Humans does win it. (Odd sentence, grammatically.) Here comes Rudin again, along with author Stephen Karam.
Jesse Green: We also had King George III this year.
Dave Sikula: Interesting how much both plays rely on their final images. It worked for me in The Humans and totally ruined it for in Eclipsed.
Jesse Green: Shakespearean poetry (blank verse) not prose in King Charles III.
Jesse Green: Makes no difference, I think.
Jesse Green: Best Play. Comes down to Eclipsed vs. The Humans. I’ve written about why I think The Humans will win but now I just don’t know.
Dave Sikula: If you didn’t know they weren’t using the muskets, does it have the intended effect?
Jennifer: This was one of the most powerful numbers visually, to me (my favorite to watch in the show), and probably the best ensemble choice. Especially since they already did Alexander Hamilton on the Grammy’s and parodied it in the opening.
Dave Sikula: Was in back of someone who ordered an Arnold Palmer and didn’t know who he was. He’s a drug spokesman, of course.
Jesse Green: You don’t like their uvulas?
BdwayScott: Toronto commercials: David Mirvish hawking shows on tour that won Tony’s in previous years… feels like a time warp.
Julie: It wasn’t great, I agree. Everyone sounded tired. But its the most impressive number for the ensemble besides ‘The Room Where It Happens” and I’m guessing they don’t want to give that away
BdwayScott: Although I haven’t seen it, I think it was a strange choice.
Jesse Green: Arnold Palmer in a pink sweater selling drug No. 7 of the evening.
Jesse Green: I agree. It’s not going to affect their sales one way or another.
Jesse Green: They seem to have chosen a number with only some very slow rapping.
Nuyguy: Not that it matters, but that was a just ok Tony number.
Jesse Green: More cross-promotion: Carnegie Mellon University
Jer: Where was the rap?
Jesse Green: He was shown briefly at the beginning of the number, was he not?
Jesse Green: “The World Turned Upside Down” – a real song sung by the British soldiers. Though not probably that melody.
Julie: No Leslie Odom Jr. performing! Punishment for rocking the boat with revenue shares? Or merely trying to honor a great ensemble cast?
Jesse Green: That was the missing muskets.
Jesse Green: This number effectively demonstrates the show’s method with history. And they bleeped it!
Jesse Green: Alphabetical?
Jesse Green: “The Battle of Yorktown”
BdwayScott: Interesting that the Waitress is last…
Jesse Green: Good point! I guess they are going last? And Streisand is giving the Best Musical award at the end?
Dave Sikula: “1776 and All That Came After.”
Linds: Is Waitress not going to perform a song?
Jesse Green: And … cut.
Jesse Green: OK, this is a coup: the final musical excerpt is introduced by THE OBAMAS. Suck that, Shuffle Along!
Jesse Green: It is at this point I want to thank Mr. D, who let me direct my high school’s shows. I think he later went to jail, for other matters.
Dave Sikula: “My name is James Earl Jones and I’ll be doing a speech from ‘Fences.’”
Jesse Green: A special award for education in theater.
Jesse Green: Those mini-scenes were sometimes excruciating.
Dave Sikula: I remember all those years where actors had to truncate plays into 90-second scenes like they were doing showcases.
Molly: Right on!
Jesse Green: And it’s A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Three of the revivals were from producer Scott Rudin, so it was likely he’d be getting up there this evening.
BdwayScott: Good call!
Jesse Green: I don’t remember the TONYs giving this much time to the plays in recent years. Not bad.
Jesse Green: And Mantello, again, for BLACKBIRD, did an amazing job with more difficult material.
Jesse Green: I think you’re gonna get Streisand.
Jesse Green: Best revival of a play category. I found this one almost impossible to figure. But van Hove’s win for directing A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE suggests that production may win.
Julie: I am partial to Hamilton - I loved the show and was deeply moved by it. Say what people will about it, they do have a great moral compass - I’ve been continually impressed by the way they handle things like this…They’ve got great advisors.
Jesse Green: I think Playbill.com has a lifestream, and possibly CBS.
Jesse Green: The last musical excerpt will be from HAMILTON, natch. This morning after rehearsal they decided to remove the muskets from the Battle of Yorktown number, in deference to last night’s events in Orlando.
Jesse Green: Eighteen categories down; six categories left. I’m 14 for 18, better than usual for me. I would do better with a dart board.
Jesse Green: Great point!
Dave Sikula: Guess they figured they couldn’t censor the ASL.
Jesse Green: I’m so glad they were able to get this excerpt on the show. It demonstrates part of what has made this season so extraordinary in its diversity, intensity, and (as commenter Molly said) lack of cynicism.
Kel: So uncensored compared to the original company’s performance ten years ago.
Jesse Green: It was very powerful and visually extraordinary – you only get a small sense of that here.
Julie: So sad I missed out on this production. I saw a clip of them performing “Touch Me” and I was in tears.
Jesse Green: Loved the ASL for “Spring Awakening.” Almost as expressive as the sign for “totally fucked.”
Jesse Green: Marlee Matlin introduces that SPRING AWAKENING segment I mentioned earlier.
Jesse Green: Not actress. Some say not actor, either.
Jesse Green: “Good,” that is.
Jesse Green: Some may call this a “career Tony” but if you see the play you know it’s more than that. Never seen him better, and I’ve seen him very very goo
Jesse Green: ACTOR in a leading role in a play. I say Jeff Daniels, but it’s likely to be Frank Langella, also great.
Jesse Green: Yes, but that represents about 7,500 people each watching it 1,000 times.
Jesse Green: No – it’ll win one or two more at most.
Jesse Green: It’s a re-edited version of the original, with more Hamilton at the start, and a few numbers cut.
Nuyguy: Hamilton needs to win 3 more to beat Producers record. It won’t.
Jesse Green: “We” equals a few thousand people. The Tonys equals 7 or more million. I guess that’s the thinking.
Jesse Green: Not how I saw it, but that’s why it’s a horse race.
Jesse Green: Yes, I like the original better … so far.
Jesse Green: I was going for Savion Glover, but this makes sense obviously.
Jesse Green: A different version of the Carpool Karaoke I linked at the beginning of this liveblog. It’s fantastic.
Julie: Blankenbeuhler wins for choreography for Hamilton!!!!!
Jesse Green: Someone dies. OOPS!!
Jesse Green: I think you’ve really put your finger on something.
Jesse Green: Though, to be fair, a lot of it is prerecorded.
Jesse Green: I liked the 2015 one even better.
Molly: I am so moved by the lack of cynicism in this broadcast, this theatre season…
Jesse Green: Autocorrects don’t count as typos do they? That was SPRING AWAKENING.
BdwayScott: Spring Awakening 2008 changed my life…
Jesse Green: The cast of SPRING AWAKING up next. A unique story – the show closed a while ago but they held a kickstarter campaign to fund a Tony appearance. (The shows have to pay the costs of appearing.) So they made it.
Jesse Green: Ana Villafane’s wig is a very good match for Gloria Estefan’s.
Jesse Green: They’re featuring both the kid samba dancer and his understudy!
Jesse Green: A number from ON YOUR FEET! which was skunked except for a choreography nomination for Sergio Trujillo.
amiableamy: Tonys are weird. Bryan Cranston got a standing ovation as a newbie a couple years ago; Jessica Lange gets nothing.
Jesse Green: Not merely that. She really is excellent in the play. So is Nyong’o, of course.
Linds: You’re human, we get it :)
Jesse Green: She thanks Ryan Murphy, who helped to fund the Roundabout production.
Jesse Green: This is live liveblogging, folks. I make mistakes.
Julie: ehhh…career tony
Jesse Green: Well deserved. Her best stage performance to date.
Jesse Green: Nathan Lane gives out the award for leading actress in a play. I expect Lupita Nyong’o but perhaps it will be … Jessica Lange.
Jesse Green: The animatronic Andrew Lloyd Webber performed a “smile” function.
Jesse Green: Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. He was in THE GIN GAME this year. She’s returning to Broadway in THE CHALK GARDEN next year (or the year after). Amazing.
Jesse Green: But it seems to have worked in the theater better than on camera.
Jesse Green: Hard to sense the power of this song without the context of her two hours of oppression before it.
Jesse Green: Yeah, well, you’re too late.
BdwayScott: I want the fabric from Oprah’s dress… to upholster a chair in my living room.
Jesse Green: Replacement Heather Headley as Shug Avery getting lots of love after unfortunate parting words from JHud.
Jesse Green: Sophia is wearing her Miss Celie’s Pants from the end of the second act.
Jesse Green: But the competition is pretty good, too.
Jesse Green: Oprah introduces segment from THE COLOR REVIVAL revival. I’ve called it, and don’t regret it, one of the best revivals ever.
Jesse Green: Marvelous aria to Law & Order, the theater’s pension system.
Dave Sikula: He should have plugged a pharma company.
Jesse Green: Apparently best book of a musical went to Hamilton off air. To my taste, that was Miranda’s greatest achievement. Would like to have heard what he said.
Jesse Green: They needed 15 seconds for the accountants.
Jesse Green: They did Best Book off air! Despicable.
Linds: I’m surprised that they aren’t airing some of these awards/speeches
Jesse Green: They seem to have split up the likely Hamilton categories so that we wouldn’t have them all happening in a swoop. Good idea, if so.
Linds: Hamilton won best book of a musical
Jesse Green: Edie Brickell, Edie Brickell, Edie Brickell.
Jesse Green: Well deserved.
Ally: That wasn’t Sara Bareilles
Jeff: Annoying that the crafts get shunted off camera. But yay Clint Ramos!
Jesse Green: Cross promotion big tonight; see also: diuretics, alzheimer’s drugs, etc.
Jesse Green: And here’s another pharmaceutical ad geared to people my age and older. What are they saying?
Jesse Green: Halfway through, I’m thinking this is a pretty good show. Certainly no disasters yet.
Julie: First Moana Teaser! It was only a matter of time…
Jesse Green: Martin and Brickell are pumping money into it, so it might just make it through the summer.
Jesse Green: Sara Bareilles is of course the songwriter for WAITRESS.
BdwayScott: Loving this number. I would like to see it but I doubt I will be back in NYC in time.
Jesse Green: Oops, right, I meant Edie Brickell!
Linds: Edie Brickell? lol
Jesse Green: Does she not look like Donna Murphy’s double?
Jesse Green: “If you knew my story you’d have a good story to tell.” How’s that again?
Jesse Green: Carmen Cusack makes a terrific debut in the lead, and the musical arrangements are lovely but the show just isn’t that good.
Jesse Green: That is, he and Sara Bareilles are trying to sell their musical BRIGHT STAR.
Jesse Green: Doing what they can to sell his musical BRIGHT STAR.
Jesse Green: If you hear a banjo, it’s Steve Martin.
Jesse Green: 35 of his 42 years as an actor were “pretty bad.” That should be on the front page of all acting school catalogs.
Jesse Green: Birney gives “full credit” to Joe Mantello for his performance.
Jesse Green: Reed Birney in THE HUMANS joins Jayne Houdyshell as a New York theater treasure finally acknowledged.
Jesse Green: Featured Actor features Reed Birney, in what amounts to a leading role; he should win. But the other were all excellent as well – David Furr hilarious in Noises Off.
Jesse Green: Winner of the skinniest presenters award.
Jesse Green: Expectedly, though I voted for Daryl Waters (for Shuffle Along.) Still, fair enough.
Jesse Green: Better than her performing in A Chorus Line.
Julie: Lacamoire won best Orchestrations for Hamilton!
BdwayScott: Barbra… hmmm… Is it just me… but… a 70 year old singing At the Ballet? Several of my friends would disown me and accuse me of heresy…
Jesse Green: Dear Sir …
Jesse Green: If they don’t do the bottle dance I am writing a letter to the editor.
Jesse Green: And Hofesh Shechter’s new dance for the wedding. The Robbins estate allowed new choreography for the first time on Broadway.
Curmudgeon: Thomas Kail thanked the designers! And right up front, not as a tag-on!!!!!!
Jesse Green: Even in this adapted version of it, you see here the beauty of Bart Sher’s staging.
Jesse Green: Now the real cast of FIDDLER. Danny Bernstein???
Jesse Green: “Josh Groban” auto corrects to “Josh Groan.”
Jesse Green: Josh Groban in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF in high school is spot on.
Jesse Green: “There are stories to be told and people who want to hear them.”
Jesse Green: Karl wins it, of course. Some of the staging – the duels, the meeting of Hamilton and Eliza, etc. – was astonishingly good.
Jesse Green: Directors of a musical comes down to Thomas Kail vs. Thomas Kail, though all five did extraordinary work.
Jesse Green: And Mantello has won twice for directing.
BdwayScott: That’s a shock… though I loved The Crucible…
Jesse Green: … self consciously so. Well, the category was very well stocked.
Jesse Green: And the winner is Ivo van Hove! For A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. A wonderful staging but …
Jesse Green: But that cheer for Liesl Tommy …
Jesse Green: Lucy Liu and JTF present directors of a play. I expect Joe Mantello for The Humans.
Jesse Green: SHE LOVES ME and CABARET share book writer Joe Masteroff.
Jesse Green: WINNER!
Jesse Green: Just want to note here, as always, the weird preponderance of pharmaceutical commercials during the Tonys. Average viewer age = Alzheimer’s patient?
kmiller: =Annie Are You Ok On The Roof?
Jesse Green: And Cook is still performing!
Jesse Green: That must be it.
BdwayScott: Couldn’t help but to think of Barbara Cook when Laura B. was singing..
Suz: Shakespeare’s birthday anniversary
Jesse Green: The show works beautifully live in a regular theater, of course.
Jesse Green: So far I’m 7 for 8 (including the tech awards I know about). Only one I missed was lighting design for a musical. Anyone 8 for 8?
Jesse Green: FIDDLER + ANNIE GET YOUR GUN = ???
Nuyguy: This is coming off as very old fashioned
Jesse Green: I worry that SHE LOVES ME is the kind of show – perfect and of its time – that won’t make sense on TV today. Thoughts?
Jesse Green: Will he do the cartwheel?
Linds: yeah, that took me a sec too
Jesse Green: There’s that wholly appropriate early 20th century fuchsia dress cut to the crotch.
Jesse Green: The musical selection from SHE LOVES ME will have to be a medley as there are few ensemble numbers.
Jesse Green: Meg Ryan because why not? – Ah “You’ve Got Mail.” That’s a thin connection to SHE LOVES ME.
Jesse Green: That man knows how to take the moment.
BdwayScott: Sobbing… Love him.
Jesse Green: A sonnet instead of a rap, on the theme of taking the moment.
Jesse Green: He better save some for later in the show, though.
Jesse Green: As expected. Will he rap his acceptance as he did, so memorably, last time?
Jesse Green: Not much of a competition here.
Jesse Green: Carole King, subject of last year’s Tony-winning BEAUTIFUL, presents composers/lyricists.
Jesse Green: Daveed Diggs also wins for best smile.
BdwayScott: I agree - would love to have seen Christopher Fitzgerald win… love J. Groff also… spent time with him backstage years ago during Spring Awakening.
Jesse Green: Looks like my bar mitzvah suit crashed into my mother’s mother of the bar mitzvah dress.
Jesse Green: His jacket wins the night.
Jesse Green: The three HAM men up against each other for supporting actor in a musical. Plus Brandon Victor Dixon and Christopher Fitzgerald (who was a hoot). I think Diggs.
Jesse Green: Both costume design winners – Tazewell and Ramos – are men of color. A first.
Jesse Green: I can only say what’s going on in my house. I suspect at the Beacon some of those tech awards are being given out. And sets being reset!
Linds: She Loves Me got Scenic Design
Nuyguy: Lost sets to She loves me. Orchestration not given yet.
Jesse Green: cross-promotion is worth it. (Tituss is a Broadway performer.)
Chuck Hardy: What’s going on in the theater during the ads?
Julie: Set Design went to She Loves Me
Funjamin: This Kinmy Schmitt commercial with Titus and Hamilton is great. Also, weird for a Netflix show to advertise on network.
Jesse Green: So Hamilton has its first two awards (in tech categories). Maybe more, but I don’t know about them. Set design, anyone? Orchestrations?
Jesse Green: Already lost costumes.
Jesse Green: These bumpers? Working? Not working?
Jesse Green: The work of Savion Glover, of course.
Jesse Green: I still hold out the possibility of SHUFFLE ALONG’s winning for choreography. That opening number is the least of it.
Funjamin: Hahaha yes, BdwayScott.
Julie: Performing, arguably, one of the weaker dance numbers in the show…and I would imagine their biggest shot for an award (besides costumes) is choreography.
Jesse Green: Amazing dancer Philip Attmore. And Jared Grimes.
Jesse Green: Of course Shuffle Along has virtually no chance awards tonight with Hamilton in the room, but this is a chance to sell the show.
BdwayScott: It will cost them a fortune to keep remaking her costumes until July…
Jesse Green: Here’s Audra, four months pregnant, her costume let out as far as it will go. Give her another Tony, just cause.
Jesse Green: No – a gorgeous purple and black diagonally striped gown!
Jesse Green: Second musical presentation: SHUFFLE ALONG. Sounds like the opening number: Broadway Blues.
Jesse Green: Good on Goldsberry for bothering to put together and deliver a proper speech.
BdwayScott: Was she wearing a cape or coat?
Jesse Green: Hamilton’s first (on air) win. Goldsberry has changed her gown since the red carpet!
Linds: YES!
Jesse Green: I expect Goldsberry to win for Supporting Actress in a Musical but it’s a tough category.
Jesse Green: BEACON THEATER! Smaller but more Broadway liked that Radio City, where the Tonys normally performed.
Funjamin: Here here
Jesse Green: As expected.
Chuck Hardy: We ex-Upper West Siders would enjoy a Shout out for the Beacon Theater.
Jesse Green: You’re watching the wrong show if you don’t want political comments!
Funjamin: Loving this Ham4Ham-inspired stage.
Linds: Scenic design of a musical: David Rockwell, She Loves Me
Jesse Green: Clint Ramos, costume designer of Eclipsed, was a gimme. Fantastic, witty, tragic costumes for the Liberian women – mostly wearing American castoffs, like a Tweety Bird T-shirt. Making constant metacomments on the play.
Molly: Shuffle Along deserved it for costumes, absolutely.
tonyashamed: Again Hillery and Obama praise and Trump bashing. Turning it off now. P.S Can the people on t.v. keep their political and racial views to themselves. I want to see the Tony awards not get a political speach!
Linds: Costume design of a play: Clint Ramos, Eclipsed
Jesse Green: So Hamilton won for costumes and lighting, apparently – I’ve already got two wrong! (I went for Ann Roth and Fisher/Eisenhauer in Shuffle Along for both.)
Funjamin: Haha. Peabody?
Linds: Best design of a play: WINNER: Natasha Katz, Long Day’s Journey Into Night
BdwayScott: Patti LuPone loves it…
Jesse Green: An Emmy where?
Linds: Hamilton got lighting and costumes and I will have to look up the play ones, EW has a running list
Funjamin: Andrew Lloyd Webber on tambourine deserves an Emmy.
Jesse Green: ALW on tambourine looks so very comfortable. And Edie Brickell couldn’t get the high note in Tomorrow. Oh well.
Julie: I haven’t seen the show. I’m endeared by what I’ve seen of Brightman and the kids (namely the kid who performed at the MTC MisCast Gala). But the number drags on for too long…Appreciate the kids’ talent though!
Linds: he’s a little intense but a fun number
Jesse Green: Do you know who won?
Linds: they already announced costumes and lighting
Jesse Green: Amazing.
Jesse Green: This number seems more manic on TV than it does onstage. Anyone out there seeing it for the first time? How’s it coming across.
Molly: Waiting until 8pm, my family and I were watching the 1987 Tony Awards… Struck by their inclusion of technical awards AND scenes from PLAYS.
Jesse Green: I doubt we’ll see any of the technical awards on air — lighting, set design, costumes, orchestration. Last year we didn’t even see book and score of a musical on the telecast, but somehow, in the Hamiltonys, I think we will tonight.
Jesse Green: Let me take this moment to wonder which of the awards, if any, were given before the ceremony, or will be given during the commercials and reported briefly as bumpers.
Jesse Green: First musical excerpt: School of Rock. A shortened version of the show’s best number.
Jesse Green: ALW played on to music from Sunset Boulevard, rumored to be returning to Broadway, with Glenn Close, next season.
Jesse Green: A wonderful way to start the awards.
Jesse Green: She even tells her age, proving that she is not a Hollywood actress.
Jesse Green: This New York theater treasure is astonishing in The Humans.
Jesse Green: Featured Actress in a Play: a very tough category, with two of the women from Eclipsed in it. But Jayne Houdyshell, in what amounts to a leading role, should take it.
Jesse Green: BTW, the women winners got a silver compact and the men a gold bill clip or cigarette case. Now they get that big clunky medallion. I worked for several years for the music copyist Mathilde Pincus, who got a special Tony for her services to theater in 1976. She wore it around her neck for the rest of her life. “Did you see my Tony?” she’d ask. Good for her!
Jesse Green: Miller is up for two best play awards tonight. Ars longa, hosting brevis.
Jesse Green: This is being billed as the 70th annual Tony Awards. Perhaps math has chanced recently because the first Tonys were presented in 1947. Anyway, that year’s emcee was Brock Pemberton. Who? Think about, that James Corden. On the other hand, the winners that first year included David Wayne and choreographer Micahel Kidd for Finian’s Rainbow, Agnes de Mille for Brigadoon, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Patricia Neal, Kurt Weill, Elia Kazan, and Arthur Miller. Those are all names most of us theater types still know and care about. Arthur
Jesse Green: Please feel free to post comments via the Vulture webpage and if I can get to them between typing “And the winner is Hamilton” over and over, I will.
Jesse Green: “Boys and girls — transgenders too” – I wonder how that plays outside New York. But that magic cut to the adults was great.
Jesse Green: Corden is so likable the material doesn’t matter so much.
Jesse Green: And the parade of 11 o’clock numbers!
Jesse Green: A rather complicated medley number – not really the most successful format, though the connections between numbers are fun.
Jesse Green: Song by Matilda’s Tim Minchin and David Javerbaum – I think. Javerbaum wrote An Act of God, and cowrote Cry-Baby.
Jesse Green: Making the contrast with the Oscars is smart though perhaps a bit smug. Check back next season.
Jesse Green: predicted that Hamilton will only win 10, but I am a terrible prognosticator.
Jesse Green: These are being called the Hamiltonys. In fact, I called them that. The show is up for 16 awards, and stand to win the most since the Producronis in 2001 when those shows won 12. Actually I’ve
Jesse Green: Corden / awardin’ = a real rhyme!
Jesse Green: Smart to start with Ham, and have them bring Corden on.
Jesse Green: “That chubby dude from Into the Woods”!
Jesse Green: Opening with a Hamilton rewrite!
Jesse Green: How the Tonys deal with a real-world tragedy is never comfortable. But this is as good as it can be.
Jesse Green: Here we go. James Corden doing a serious cold open.
Jesse Green: These are being called the Hamiltonys. In fact, I called them that. That musical is up for 16 awards, and stands to win the most since the Producronis in 2001 when that show won 12. Actually I’ve predicted that Hamilton will only win 10, but I am a terrible prognosticator.
Jesse Green: Tonight’s host is James Corden, whose Tony edition of his Carpool Karaoke bit deserves an Emmy. (See it here — later!) His unironic enthusiasm for all things Broadway (plus his built-in Late Late Show audience) may make this one of the better and better-watched Tonys in years. That and some dumb show apparently about a blender.
Jesse Green: In case you missed the Red Carpet festivities, tonight I am wearing “Gap” and “Banana Republic” with a pair of worn-out shearling-lined slippers I found at the back of the closet. Anna Wintour, who is dressing some of the poor theater shlubs tonight so they look less like shut-ins, somehow neglected me.
Jesse Green: Jesse Green here. Good evening from the glamorous Beacon Theater City – er, rather, my kitchen, where I will be liveblogging the 2016 Tony Awards while reclining Passover-like on my sofa.
Jesse Green: Great to have you aboard1
BdwayScott: Hey all from Toronto!! #somethingscoming. Hi Jesse… I spoke to you on the way out of the theatre the night you reviewed Waitress (me big black glasses). I look forward to following along during the Tony broadcast. BdwayScott
VIXENBYNIGHT72: Ready for tonight.
