THE OFFICIAL 2017 TONY AWARDS VIEWING THREAD — Page 23

I thought Kevin Spacey was fantastic tonight as host. I'm surprised though to read how so many didn't know he can sing. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role as Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea, back in 2004. Starred - co-wrote and directed! A very good film and performance. And with his impersonations tonight - this man is talented!

Luscious said: "...Rudin knew that the entire cast, but most importantly, Bette, would have had to set aside time to rehearse the newly staged choreography..."

Sure, but everybody sets aside time to work out a Tony number for live TV. It's what you do. Only Rudin balked at doing what every Tony nominated show has done for the past ten or so years.

Now that the show is done there are two points that seem obvious to me.

1. The show would have been considerably better if that "Hello, Dolly!" number was there.

2. Slicing up and re-staging numbers for the live broadcast left most of tonight's shows looking anemic - Comet and Bandstand excepted. As I said earlier, "Waving Through a Window" wasn't bad, but the expanded distances at Radio City made it look like Platt was scurrying from here to there with no real purpose. In short, I don't know that the live numbers are working.

Although you can't have remote crews in every theater shooting live. Which would probably lead us to filmed segments - which most productions release for press purposes anyway. But what's special about that? Then the Tonys becomes a clip show - nothing more than an average night at my house flipping through Broadway YouTube performances.

Somebody needs to do some thinking on this. I don't know why in previous years the numbers seemed to show off the musicals so well, but this year they did not. I continually watch Newsies, Cinderella, Fun Home - they all gave a taste of what the full productions were like. I'm not sure what happened this year. Even Falsettos looked like a mess. (The cleaned-up lyrics didn't help. "You save lives and I save chicken fat. I can't f*%kng deal with that!" is one of the great lyrics of musical theater.)

Kevin Spacey was a lot of fun. I had forgotten about his spot-on Johnny Carson impersonation.

I thought the way the best plays were presented was original and a splendid way to give recognition to the playwrights.

The Rockettes? I felt I had accidentally turned on a Christmas show.

Bette's speech was hilarious. A bit long, but so what? She played off the orchestra! Priceless!

I was personally predicting a Best Musical for Come from Away but the love for Dear Evan Hansen didn't surprise me.

Ok ceremony, not great, but Spacey was FAR BETTER than I expected. His final gag being Frank Underwood (did he just put robin wright for doing nothing? GENIUS) and the joke about Midler WAS JUST FREAKIN GENIUS.

All performances were lacking something, but I kinda liked Comet, Bandstand and DEH. Eva sang the hell out for Miss Saigon, both Ebersole and LuPone were good at War Paint. The Falsettos, Come From Away and GHD performances were everything but good, sad.

But that Hello, Dolly! number was boring, a total embarassment, I will never get over that THIS production of Hello, Dolly! was represented by PENNY IN A FREAKIN POCKET!.

The way the plays were introduced was amazing, really great. The In Memoriam with those ridiculous clapping for ''whoever is the most famous'' was painful to see.

I will forever hate Josh Gad for make me believe in a FORUM revival, but then I remember that it's easier to revive Passion these days than Forum.

Awards wise: I'm absolutely thrilled that Bandstand and Play that Goes Wrong won their so much deserved awards despite an overall lack of support!

But I have to admit that I wasn't expecting DEH to win so much (book and orchestrations??), and Comet to win so little (one that was undeniable) despite twelve noms, damn!

CFA's win for director? OVER RACHKIN? GIVE ME A BREAK! Also, how Dave Malloy got NOTHING? Completely ridiculous, should've got that Orchestration award from Evan.

Ben Platt's win showed how respected his performance is (and really makes me wonder how DEH will work without him).

Aronov, yummy, winning over DeVito gave me LIFE, I called that and happily went right!

It was sad to see Linney losing to Metcalf, but Metcalf is perfection. And at least, Nixon won and gave an amazing speech.

But can we talk about Midler's speech? At first I thought ''whatever, get out'', then SHE SAID CUT THAT CRAP OFF and I CRACKED and love how she knows her power. It's Divine Miss M, dwarrrling!

Dane F said: "loveinnewyorkcity said: "I have second row seats to Hello Dolly! this week. Safe to say I will be taking my seat when Bette comes out for a bow. Pretentious, obnoxious, and undeserving.

Its too bad her now stale talent is overshadowed by her ugly and disgusting ego.


I
"

Wow, bunch of tools on this message board,,,,

I have to agree You want to see her perform? Pay for a ticket and go to New York I bought 8 tickets the minute they went on sale and we took 3 couples for my birthday. She is magnificent and so is the show Quit being bitchy, mean spirited queens. Sh owes you nothing but the performance YOU pay for . I have seen her numerous times and there are few harder working entertainers. I recently joined this board but your **** attitudes and smug replies have just ended me coming here. jeez



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I must admit my heart broke a little hearing Uma Thurman say that "Glass ceilings are meant to be shattered" directly after Rachel Chavkin lost best director. Dave Malloy not winning at least Orchestrations was also shocking to me.

The show was kind of boring, but it wasn't too bad. It's a much better show than most award shows on TV. I was very happy with the winners since almost all my favorites won and I got most of them right. Onto next year with The Band's Visit sweeping the Tonys!

As much as I loathe the whole clap-for-the-famous-dead-people thing, I was very disappointed at the lack of audience response for Martha Swope - of all the people on that list, she arguably contributed the most to the theatre.

Updated On: 6/12/17 at 09:49 AM

disneybroadwayfan22 said: "Miss Saigon was wonderful. Eva nailed it, of course. Was that Jon Jon at the end or a understudy? Clever they didn't do a zoom up on him"

I'm pretty sure it was. The understudy looks nothing like him, and he had just enough time to run backstage and get into the costume and wig after the introduction.

"Welcome to the Rock" sold the show for me - ordering tickets today. "Penny in My Pocket" was so bad I changed the channel. Completely unimpressed by the GROUNDHOG performance, in spite of liking Andy Karl tremendously. Could have done without COMET which seemed loud and overplayed. Wish that Colbert and Midler had stated home since they thought it was about them. At least Midler had an excuse.