Full Tony Nominations Out! (from the official website) — Page 6

Hmm... I know they were predictable (75% at least), but these BEST MUSICAL nominations are dispiriting to say the least...

"Passing Strange" is the only nominee that wouldn't upset me were it to win (and it probably will lose to Latino Spring Awak... er, "In the Heights"). "A Catered Affair" would've at least been an acceptable second-best, but no, we got "Cry-Baby."

Updated On: 5/13/08 at 11:17 AM

Why does everyone hate the Stew nomination? Passing Strange is wholly original and innovative, and he does a fantastic job narrating and following the beautiful journey of his life.

Personally, I would've knocked Wopat out and put Jackson in his place. But either way, YAY for Stew and Passing Strange!

Well, Stew didn't really do much of what I might consider "acting." He played his guitar really well, sang really well, and slung around a lot of anti-musical theatre attitude, and spouted a batch of comingofage cliches that he seemed to think were terribly terribly profound and "EDGY" and "GROUNDBREAKING" and "ORIGINAL" and all that crap.

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"Well, Stew didn't really do much of what I might consider "acting." He played his guitar really well, sang really well..."

Excuse me, but this is the TONYs. Whether you agree with it or not, Best "Actor" or "Actress" has always been more about the overall package (performance, singing, dancing, etc) than just the 'Acting' element. I'm sorry, did John Lloyd Young win for "Jersey Boys" because of his mastery of the craft of Acting? No, he won because 'he sings pretty and sounds like that guy.' Remember what awards these are...

Remember what they are? Well, okay. I certainly remember Hugh Jackman winning a Tony for singing pretty well and basically standing there and being incredibly gorgeous, exuding CHARM. If Stew had even done that, I'd be okay with it. I just didn't think Stew did much of anything well enough to merit a Tony nomination for anything connected with that show.

If they gave a nomination for Best Onstage Guitar Performance, Stew would win in a walk. Anything else, not so much.

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Damn, look at those amazing musical REVIVALS racking up the nominations! Woohoo!

My Thoughts:

*A CATERED AFFAIR became the theater's INTO THE WILD. They must have REALLY hated it to give THE LITTLE MERMAID a nomination over it.

*Yay for me, I got all the Best Leading Actor in a Play slots right! And I predicted David Pittu!

*So they picked MACBETH after all. I thought it might have been snubbed because there would be enough voters who thought the production didn't do the text justice.

*Yay Raul!

*Stew for Best Actor? Seriously?

*Oh God, the CRY-BABY producers are going to be intolerable. They'll keep that blob open beyond all human reasoning now.

FINAL THOUGHTS
So you give CRY-BABY a Best Musical nod, give Stew a nod, do all these other things wrong... and you still have the cajones to give GREASE! Best Revival. Bravo, voters. (cen) Bravo. The only thing you could do now to cement things is to not give Laura Benanti the Tony.

FINAL FINAL THOUGHTS
There's no way I'm missing Sondheim's speech. Thank you, voters. Thank you.

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Updated On: 5/13/08 at 12:18 PM

Yay for Boeing-Boeing! Richly deserved!

Cry-Baby sucks, but Young Frankenstein and The Little Mermaid suck more, and since Cry-Baby isn't going to win, I don't care. It's a real shame about A Catered Affair, though. They had to pick something commercial. I thank them for not choosing Young Frankenstein. As I've said many times, I've never been so outright offended by something trying to pass itself off as "entertainment" before.

And did I mention yay for Boeing-Boeing, Rylance, and McCormack? Well, yay!

I will be curious to read Harvey's blog after these nominations.

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Somewhere, someplace, Harvey Fierstein must be really really angry.

^^^ that is the BEST QUOTE of the day!

J*

I said. It's a popularity contest after the nominations~as its always been!

or else Light in the Piazza & Grey Gardens would have won the BEST NEW MUSICALS.

The nominating process is like~ who p*ssed who? its like SURVIVOR- I am voting you off bec. I have an agenda. and let's not fool ourselves- the only reason why CRY-BABY got the nod is its has lesser enemies than Mel Brooks and Disney and less backlash than A CATERED AFFAIR!

I have nothing against CRY-BABY! Personally I just think it shouldn't got a nod for BEST MUSICAL over A CATERED AFFAIR or even YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN~and that's just my opinion. I am happy for them, at least they will pick up some bussiness now.

and let's face it~it would never win the BEST NEW MUSICAL-its a filler! I am personally rooting for PASSING STRANGE but IN THE HEIGHTS will more likely to win! I am happy for the Musical Revival Categories ( I knew GREASE will be nominated by DEFAULT) and most of the nominees....

I am just disappointed with the following:

1. Cry-Baby over A CATERED AFFAIR or even YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

2. Les Liasons over CYRANO

3. Score : Bucchino over CB & TLM's score-I thought Bucchino's score is beautiful.

4. Mary Testa or Jackie Hoffman not getting nominated.

Overall.. I am happy.. btw- Rob Ashford deserved the choreography for CRY-BABY



J*

Updated On: 5/13/08 at 02:14 PM

I know I'm very much in the minority with this, but I would rather have seen Sierra get the nomination over Jenna Russell. If you look at the quality of the material that each woman had to work with and what they did with it, Sierra did the better job. Jenna did very mediocre work with great material and Sierra did amazing things with mediocre (at best) material.

I didn't care for many of Jenna's choices and her voice wasn't the strongest. There are a lot of LM haters (I thought the show was just ok, and Act II's plot mechanics were actually insulting), but Sierra's acting and singing were both extremely strong and imho it was an amazing debut.

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