Ken Neufeld: Unscripted June 14, 2010
Is it about excellence or money – or both?
I watched the Tony Awards last night and was both pleased and frustrated at the same time. While the show was pretty much hijacked by a bad sound man, there was much to like. I thought the opening number was a bit strange. All the excerpts of the shows and then the mini concert by Green Day seemed a little disjointed. But if the strategy was to get people’s attention early, then that probably worked. Who knew that Sean Hayes played the piano – and so well? And, I thought he was fantastic as a host – the costumes throughout the evening were hilarious and he can deliver a joke. And the little bits with Kristin Chenoweth were pretty funny. The show moved well, included some good acceptance speeches – although Denzel Washington looked a little lost. And the ending was strange with cutting off the acceptance speech from the producers of Memphis and reprising the song from the show after they had won.
But my question about excellence or money – well, excellence is certainly in the eye of the beholder. Everyone had a favorite show, actor, sound designer ,etc. and the surprises – and there weren’t many of them – are what makes the show interesting. But it’s also about money. I will be very interested to see what Memphis ticket sales do in the next week, and how many shows close in the next week after expecting some kind of a bump if they had won in an important category.
And the biggest question of the night – is it FEY-LA or FEL-A?
-Ken
This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 8:56 am and is filed under Unscripted. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What did you think of the Tonys?