1. Once -- no contest. A brilliant and beautiful number that worked perfectly for TV.
2. Porgy & Bess --- mainly for the voices and acting. It was a solid medley, too, but I found myself wincing at the modern orchestrations.
3. Nice Work If You Can Get It -- worked so much better than I thought it would. The costumes really dazzled on the ladies, too. The only downside was Broderick, looking like he might fall over from a heart attack at any moment.
4. Leap of Faith --- I can't believe it, but this number came off really well on TV.
5. Hairspray --- even if Tracy was 35 and underweight, she was talented. I'd rather see her "type" compromised over her ability. For a cruise ship, this was way off the chart. Surprisingly good overall: talent, staging, choreography. As "Broadway caliber" as I've ever seen from a cruise ship show.
6. The Book of Mormon --- it was severely hampered by bizarre extreme closeups of people on stage who weren't singing. Thankfully, those camera missteps didn't continue throughout the evening. But this was a clever and humorous idea that opened the show nicely.
7. Newsies---for its energy only. The choreography looked even worse than usual to me, and several of the tumbling boys just seemed to be going through the fancy motions now, probably because they've done this number one too many times on TV. It felt like a not-so-well-oiled machine this time.
8. Follies --- Note to all future Broadway shows: small, clever numbers don't play well on TV awards shows. They fall flat, particularly out of context. See this number as a prime example. It just didn't go over. If you want to feature a small number of people on a huge stage with TV cameras, it's better to have a "wow" show-stopper factor (see Bernadette Peters do Rose's Turn or Betty Buckley do Memory). Otherwise, stick to the large production numbers for television.
9. Ghost --- Caissie Levy was really pitchy, and all three of them yelled. Fleeshman came off the best, I guess, but it didn't make me want to see the show. (I wish they could have done "With You," but a quiet simple solo, as beautiful and emotional as it is, wouldn't have worked well for an awards show. Just asked Catherine Zeta-Jones.)
10. Jesus Christ Superstar --- Josh Young sang it really well. The voices and the music (orchestrations) were great, but the costumes, set, and staging were pretty awful.
11. Evita --- painfully under tempo! It killed the whole number. The musical director of this show should be fired, pure and simple. There is no way any performer could breathe energy into this with that slagging meter. Martin sounded good, Roger looked good, the choreography was fine, but without a crisp, exciting tempo, nobody stood a chance of rising above boring. They were sabotaged by a lazy baton.
12. Godspell --- a fun community theatre number! But this was the Tonys.
EDIT: I have to add that Neil Patrick Harris's two numbers (the one featuring all Best Score winners and the closing "I'm Out Of Time") were fantastic. Best "host numbers" I've seen on any Tony telecast, although the duet between Neil and Hugh came pretty close to this. Kudos to Neil and his writers! If I had to figure them into the main list, I would put them both right behind "Once" as #2 (out of time) and #3 (best score).
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 6/11/12 at 08:40 AM
