2012 Tony Recap

It was a lackluster year for Broadway, especially musicals. It's years like this that Big River or The Mystery of Edwin Drood get to tour with all sorts of 'Tony-award winning' hype in their ads. There was nothing that made me fire up the ticket ordering website like Spring Awakening (reviewed here) or Jersey Boys has done to me in the past. The one that intrigued me the most was Sheryl Crow's off-hand remark about an adaptation of Diner, but that may just be the Baltimoron in me.

 Based on some some reviews and live blogs this morning and the consensus was that Best Original Score was emblematic of malaise since two of the four nominees were actually plays. Perhaps I'm getting more jaded since (humblebrag alert) the only shows I bothered to see this year were the deservedly lauded Death of a Salesman and Book of Mormon for a second time. Here are some pics of the cast (Phillip Seymour Hoffman slipped out away from the backstage door):


Andrew "The Next Spider-Man" Garfield


Remy "Son of Odo" Auberjonois

Between the Gershwin shows and Weber-Rice revivals, I couldn't tell whether it was 1932 or 1979. And it may have been the aspect ratio on my TV but Matthew Broderick is going to start giving Harvey Fierstein a run for his money in a few years.

I really have nothing against the concept of Once as musical even though I didn't particularly care for the movie, and it was one of the better numbers on the show. The worst was the ten-minute Royal Caribbean commercial featuring the world's skinniest Tracey (who must also understudy for Penny) and sets which would embarrass a high school production. I saw Hairspray at Toby's Dinner Theater in Columbia recently and it can be done well on a shoestring.

 I was very, very glad to see Washington Shakespeare Company get a special award since I have been going to an inordinate number of their productions this year. Good for DC!

 And as always, NPH knocked it out of the house. There is nothing he can't do.