Snarkiest Tony Award acceptance speech? — Page 3

I remember Matthew Bourne when he won- "Best Director of a Musical and its not even a musical!"

Another one that comes to mind as being rather...bizarre, and snarky was when Brian Dennehy won for "Long Day's Journey into Night" (which I thought he was brilliant in). I don't remember the exact speech, but I remember it being strange and wondering if he was drunk at the time.

In terms of presenters, I remember Nathan Lane being visibly shocked the two times he's presented the Best Musical Tony- when he announced Lion King's upset victory over Ragtime, and Avenue Q's upset of Wicked.

Finally, I know I'm going to be crucified for this, but someone has to mention it. When Elaine Stritch won her special event Tony for Live at Liberty, she seemed to think she was entitled to all this extra time. Who can forget her shouts of, "Don't do this to me!" as the orchestra cut her off.

I agree that the Tony's probably should have gone to Sondhiem for Sunday. However, Herman's speech was not snarky in any way. It has already been stated several times that it was like a rebirth for Herman, who many thought was dead [metaphorically]. Ten or so years earlier, Mack and Mabel's score had not even been nominated when almost everything else about the show was, and the score category had The Wiz, Shenandoah, and two I haven't even heard of. It was NOT, in my opinion, anywhere close to the greatest blunder made by the Tony committee [That one involves puppets]. Sondheim already had 5 or 6 Tonys, and La Cage Aux Folles was a good viable piece of Musical Theatre [As opposed to certain pieces having to with spam]. I'm not saying they shouldn't have gone to Sondheim, but in hindsight, its all ok in the long run. Both composers and both shows have entered the Musical Theatre lexicon, nothing has been lost by giving Herman that award, but what was gained was giving some long needed recognition to a man whoes songs have never given me anything but joy. It should have gone to Sondheim, nothing in the end was lost by it not. The speech was not a jab at Sondheim, it was not snarky. [Its called a misunderstanding ]

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Updated On: 10/14/06 at 06:50 PM

Bob Crowley when he went up last year and won for "History Boys" and made some comment about TARZAN.

NOT SURE WHY MY POSTS KEEP GETTING DELETED?!?

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I don't remember any remark about Tarzan. What did he say?

Oh, right.

I was also going to post about Crowley, it was just awkward.

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What I found snarky (maybe even phoney) about Menzel's speech was Chenoweth(sp?)'s phoney looking mouthing of the words "Thank you."

Indina's and Harvey's.

" believe he also won another one and just went up with a very curt 'thank you' and walked off. Lots of talent...not much on social skills! "

To whom is this referring, txbeachie? Herman? Crowley? Someone else?

I don't remember that (Brooks), but what a jackass. Yazbek could have easily beaten him. He shouldn't have been so sure of himself.

Yes Mel Brooks did say see you in five minutes, but it was very funny because he had already won five awards and you just knew he was going to win more. My favorite line of it was after he won for best score, "Thank you Sondheim for not writing a musical this year." Classic

"It was NOT, in my opinion, anywhere close to the greatest blunder made by the Tony committee [That one involves puppets]. Sondheim already had 5 or 6 Tonys, and La Cage Aux Folles was a good viable piece of Musical Theatre [As opposed to certain pieces having to with spam]."

and the award for snarkiest speech goes to: Julian2 :)

The Broadway documentary series that PBS did in 2004 perpetrates the myth about the Jerry Herman speech being a slam against Sondheim. They placed it immediately after they showed the finale for Sunday in the Park, and then showed Sondheim's face immediately before the speech. They might as well have posted a banner saying JERRY HATES STEVE. It was absolutely inferred, unfortunately. (Julie Andrews' delivery didn't help, either.)