THEATE

Will Tony Roller Boogie at Xanadu?
Our theater critic lists his Tony Awards picks

By Jonathan Warman
Friday, June 06, 2008

Every year, my boyfriend and I have a cocktail, look over the Tony nominees and pick our favorites. Not who we think will win, mind you, but whom we would choose for if we were Tony voters. Here is a list of whom we would like to win with a few guesses at who will. Enjoy.

Best Play
Our Pick: “August: Osage County.” It’s the best American play that’s been on Broadway in many a season; playwright Tracy Letts brilliantly tapped into the rich mainline tradition of American dysfunctional melodrama.

Best Musical
Our pick: “Xanadu.” Okay, so it’s really probably third in the running, but it’s easily the new musical we enjoyed the most this year. Incidentally, it’s this kind of thinking that might actually win it for the show: “Oh, it isn’t going to win, so I’ll throw it my vote.” Could happen!
 
Best Book of a Musical
Our pick: “Xanadu.” And one of the main reasons that we loved “Xanadu” was Douglas Carter Beane’s clever and witty book, which maintained a dynamic balance between light parody and heartfelt joy. Hot stuff.

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Our pick: “Passing Strange.” Songwriter Stew knows how to write compelling, highly original rock music—then deliver it with passion and panache. This alone makes the musical’s score one of Broadway’s best in recent memory, just a cut or two below “Spring Awakening.”

Best Revival of a Play
Our pick: “Boeing-Boeing.” Lightweight entertainment like this flies or crashes on the strength of its cast and production. This “Boeing-Boeing” positively soars thanks to a jet-propelled cast of first-class comic actors. “Macbeth” was strong, but it wasn’t the unexpected miracle of “Boeing-Boeing.”
 
Best Revival of a Musical
Our pick: “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote arguably the most romantic musical comedy score ever, and director Bartlett Sher’s production is undeniably musical theatre history in the making.
 
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
Our pick: Mark Rylance, “Boeing-Boeing.” When confronted with the growing chaos of this comedy, Rylance twists and shouts with athletic abandon. He’s (rightly) considered one of the most brilliant British actors of our day, and his inspired tomfoolery lifts “Boeing-Boeing” higher still.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Our pick: Amy Morton, “August: Osage County.” This was a tough call, since Morton’s co-star Deanna Dunagan is also remarkable as a drug-addled Oklahoma matriarch. But Morton’s multi-colored performance holds this remarkable show together.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
Our pick: Paulo Szot, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” Another tough call in a category full of strong newcomers. Szot is the best singer of the bunch, and absolutely nailed the romantic charisma of Emile de Beque.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical
Our pick: Patti LuPone, “Gypsy.” Sorry girls, you just got nominated in the wrong year. Momma Patti’s gonna walk with this one, and deserves to, for hitting those Styne/Sondheim climaxes right out of the ballpark.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
Our pick: Jim Norton, “The Seafarer.” Norton was amazing, clearly having the time of his life playing a colorful, sodden, recently blinded Irishman—he could be charming and monstrous, all in one, hot blast of whiskey-drenched breath.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
Our pick: Mary McCormack, “Boeing-Boeing.” McCormack made a very strong impression on us as the insanely Teutonic “air hostess” Gretchen—she can hold her own with Rylance for comic firepower, and that’s no small feat.
 
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical
Our pick: Christopher Fitzgerald, “The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein.” The comically gifted Fitzgerald played Igor, in this shows strongest performance—just about the best thing in the whole operation.
 
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
Our pick: Loretta Ables Sayre, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” Nobody has ever sung “Bali Ha’i” with this much feeling, or played the potentially stereotypical role of Bloody Mary with such psychological depth. A truly lovely performance.
 
Best Scenic, Lighting and Sound Design of a Play
Our picks: Peter McKintosh, “The 39 Steps.” Scott Pask, one of my very fave designers, did richly symbolic work for “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” but McKintosh’s work on “Steps” is a multifaceted wonder that looks deceptively simple. The same goes for Kevin Adams’s lighting and Mic Pool’s sound, which are also our picks for the medallion.
 
Best Scenic and Lighting Design of a Musical
Our picks: Anna Louizos, “In The Heights.” Louizos successfully captured the look and feel of Washington Heights, while accommodating an astonishing number of different locations on what is essentially a single unit set. Howell Binkley’s apt and expressive lighting helps considerably, so it too gets our nod.
 
Best Costume Design of a Play
Our pick: Katrina Lindsay, “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” Lindsay’s costumes cunningly evoke both the general spirit of the time just before the French Revolution and the quirks of each character’s personality.

Best Costume Design of a Musical
Our pick: Catherine Zuber, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” Zuber not only created images for the main characters but also for a chorus that could easily have become an undifferentiated mass of seabees and nurses. The lesbian chic fatigues worn by a particularly butch nurse stick in my mind.
 
Best Sound Design of a Musical
Our pick: Scott Lehrer, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” The R & H Organization have painstakingly re-created the show’s original orchestrations, and they are played, as originally intended, by a 30-piece ensemble, a huge pit orchestra by today’s standards. Lehrer renders it all with loving crispness.
 
Best Direction of a Play
Our pick: Maria Aitken, “The 39 Steps.” We gave all those design nods to this show, but those people wouldn’t have been inspired to such intricate work without Aitken’s comic vision and breathtaking attention to detail, which also shows up in the performances of her acrobatic cast.
 
Best Direction of a Musical
Our pick: Bartlett Sher, “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” Sher gave this big, romantic, intelligent show its full due, taken none of its sentimentality for granted. A remarkable accomplishment and a touching tribute to the power of American musical theater.

Best Choreography
Our pick: Rob Ashford, “Cry-Baby.” Dan Knechtges did witty and worthy work for “Xanadu,” but Ashford rocked our world with the slamming and sexy dances he created for an otherwise middling show.

Best Orchestrations
Stew & Heidi Rodewald, “Passing Strange.” It’s not just that they brought rock music to life on a Broadway stage; their arrangements are more baroque and interesting than that, and deserve to be recognized for the way they break the rules of rock just as much as Broadway.

about us

© 2008 |  HX Media, LLC  | Privacy Policy