The BEST year for the Tony's Ever! What do you think it is?

[Loge]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 1:22am

As I sit here listening to The Secret Garden, I think back to the 1989 Tony Awards, and my intially fury over Will Rogers Follies winning Best Musical over Miss Saigon. Years later, I still don't know who I think deserved the win, as all four nominated shows (Miss Saigon, The Secret Garden, Once On This Island, and Will Rogers Follies) were ALL (IMO) deserving of Best Musical, and I really feel any of these could have taken the award, for Best Musical, in many other years since.

Despite my HUGE disagreement with The Lion King winning over Ragtime, I would put that year (was in 199eight) right up there too. These two shows were supposedly neck and neck. I still think Ragtime should have won, but it was exciting anticipating who was going to take it.

On the flip side, the year Titanic and Sunset Boulevard won had to be two of the worst years, because there were so few high quality shows those years. I remember being bored to death the year Sunset won, because I knew ahead of time it was going to win, and I still think Side Show waz robbed!

Updated On: 12/2/04 at 01:22 AM

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 1:27am

Well, 1958 gets an honorable mention due to the fact that people still debate over whether WEST SIDE STORY or THE MUSIC MAN deserved Best Musical.

[Loge]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 1:31am

Well, who won? The first year I watched was the year Phantom of the Opera won! So, I don't know what happened at the awards before that.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 2:28am

And INTO THE WOODS clearly should have won over POTO.

[mbjts]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 2:41am

I agree with Loge that all the musicals were good that year.

My biggest disappointment still remains the year that "Crazy For You" won Best Musical against a dynamite show, "Jelly's Last Jam".

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:06am

Well, 1958 gets an honorable mention due to the fact that people still debate over whether WEST SIDE STORY or THE MUSIC MAN deserved Best Musical.

OK, I think I just puked a little: how did THE MUSIC MAN, that awful clunker, win over the masterpiece that is WEST SIDE STORY?

[pab]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:18am

There were some other years that I can remember where a lot of people had problems with the winners. I can't say that I had problems with most of these but I do remember the uproar:

1971-72 "Two Gentleman of Verona" over "Follies"
1973-74 "Raisin" over 'Seesaw"
1983-84 "La Cage aux Folles" over "Sunday In The Park With George"
1981-82 "Nine" over "Dreamgirls".

[magruder]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 7:05am

How about 1960, where the nominees for Best Musical were Fiorello!, Gypsy, Once Upon a Mattess, The Sound of Music and Take Me Along. Fiorello! and The Sound of Music tied for Best Musical and Gypsy won ... not a single award.

[Marc Shaiman]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 7:52am

the year HAIRSPRAY won!! that was the bestest year EVER!!!

[gherbert]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 8:12am

This is a hard one. 1960 is up there, but I'll mention a new year. The 1964 awards were quite interesting and exciting. That year the Best Musical category had Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, High Spirits, and She Loves Me. The best actess category consisted of Carol Channing, Barbra Streisand, Bea Lille, and Inga Swenson in 110 in the Shade. WOW! And we thought last year was a tough pick. Channing won for her Dolly. Bert Lahr won for his farewell to Broadway performance in Foxy.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 9:41am

Loge - I think you mean the 1991 Tonys. 1989 was the year of Jerome Robbins Broadway (a very slim year).

1991 was definitely a tough year, but I stick with Will Rogers Follies. It was a really fantastic and cleverly constructed show. A wonderful Cy Coleman score, stunning Tommy Tune choreography, gorgeous sets and costumes, brilliant performances from Carradine, Hoty and Huffman, and a witty book that was both funny and touching. I'm surprised the show didn't run longer, actually.

1993 was a very exciting year with the awards being divided between Tommy and Kiss of the Spider Woman (and they tied for Best Score). Of the two, I would have chosen Tommy over spider Woman, but I honestly thought Blood Brothers beat them both.

I would loved to have seen the 1960 Tonys when Sound of Music and Fiorello tied for Best Musical. I really wish Fiorello would come back...

I still believe that Lion King and Titanic both deserved to win for many reasons. Crazy for You is a wonderful show, but it really should have been in the Revival category. EVERYBODY knows Falsettos deserved Best Musical that year, but the same thing happened to Parade, Urinetown and Into the Woods.

PS - The Music Man is far from an awful clunker. It's actually one of the most perfectly constructed musicals in Broadway history. The main reason it beat West Side Story is that WSS was way ahead of its time. It was unconventional and depressing and the audiences just weren't ready for it.

Updated On: 12/2/04 at 09:41 AM

[Fair 2 Middlin]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 10:03am

"the year HAIRSPRAY won!! that was the bestest year EVER!!!"

Wasn't that when the Composers shared a HUGE kiss on stage? Now THAT was HOT!

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 10:05am

The two guys?! OMG.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 10:09am

The best opening EVER was the 2004 Tony's. Hugh, the Jackettes, the Rockettes, the ensembles, all singing One Night Only. THE BEST EVER.

The year with the best performances I would say is 2002: Urinetown, Into the Woods, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oklahoma, Mamma Mia!, and Sweet Smell of Success. Each and every performance was remarkable - no one was singled out as bad.

[Fair 2 Middlin]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 10:22am

Yeah Rath, 2 guys! I thought the shorter one with the Beard was yummy.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 10:24am

As my mother would say, Fair, "What a waste." To which I always respond, "Not for the other guys!"

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 11:21am

My grandmother's name is Fair! Fairizina, actually. I've never heard of anyone else with that name.

And thanks for that icon, Rath. Love it!

[Speed]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 2:11pm

The Best Opening that I remember is 1994 when Victor Garber sang "Those Were the Good Old Shows" and they weaved in numbers from SHE LOVES ME, CAROUSEL, GREASE, and DAMN YANKEES. That was fun.

Competitive year at the Tonys? How bout 2001??

Soooo many new musicals: The Producers, The Full Monty, Seussical, Jane Eyre, A Class Act, Tom Sawyer, and what am I forgetting?

Also, that 97-98 season had a LOT: The Lion King, Ragtime, Sideshow, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Capeman, Triumph of Love, Street Corner Symphony, and what am I missing?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 2:38pm

BlueWizard, you have to realize that West Side Story in its time was a very controversial musical. Gang warfare was not ideal material for a musical in the late 1950's. In 1959, just a few blocks from where West Side Story was playing, Salvador Agron (The Capeman) killed two people in a gang related incident. The Music Man won because it was a "safer" musical.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 2:58pm

2001? How was it a competitive year when The Producers won every single category and all the other shows besides The Full Monty were panned by the critics, ignored by audiences and flopped at the box office losing their entire investments. Half those shows had closed before the Tony Awards were even held that year and the couple that hadn't, closed within a week after the awards were given out? A TERRIBLE year for new shows, by any standard.

And similarly, your list of 1997 - 1998 contains only two shows that didn't flop financially. Only the first two ever turned a profit.

Sorry, if you're talking greatest seasons EVER, I don't see how you can include any season in the last ten or 15 when we only have maybe 20 - 25 new plays and musicals opening in the entire season and typically all but two or three of those flop. Go back a few decades and there were sometimes over a hundred new shows opening in a single year, with dozens of them turning a profit, including several bonafide hits.

Compare recent seasons to, say, the 1959 - 1960 season which included:

Gypsy
The Sound of Music (tied for the Best Musical Tony)
Fiorello! (tied for the Best Musical Tony and won the Pulitzer Prize)
Once Upon A Mattress (a huge hit starring Carol Burnett)
Take Me Along (A huge hit starring Jackie Gleason, Robert Morse and Walter Pidgeon)
Destry Rides Again (a hit starring Andy Griffith and Dolores Gray)
Greenwillow (a hit starring Anthony Perkins)
At The Drop of A Hat (a hit revue)

and those were just the musicals. The same season you had the hit plays

The Miracle Worker
A Raisin In The Sun
The Andersonville Trial
The Best Man
Toys In the Attic
The Tenth Man
Sweet Bird of Youth
Five Finger Exercise (with Jessica Tandy)
Silent Night, Lonely Night (with Henry Fonda)

Not to mention successful concerts by Harry Belafonte and Yves Montand. No season on Broadway in the last 25 years comes close to having had THAT many hit/critically acclaimed new shows open (and if you go back a decade or two before that, there are seasons far more impressive even than that).

Updated On: 12/2/04 at 02:58 PM

[magruder]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:05pm

Best opening ever was "24 Hours a Day" from Golden Rainbow on the 1968 Tony Awards.

[AbsolutKnight]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:07pm

Maybe someone should take away my BWW membership card, but I have NEVER watched the Tonys. I don't know why either, I always intend to, but just have never done it. Next time for sure!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:17pm

The most memorable openings I recall are the "A Chorus Line" audition opening that Bennett created especially for the show and the opening with Gwen Verdon, Donna McKechnie, Paula Kelly and Helen Gallagher dancing up a storm from one of the mid-70s shows (I'd also include the Betty Buckley-Patti Lupone-Jennifer Holliday all-diva opening, but only on the condition that all of Rosie O'Donnell's sections are edited out or muted ...... why does that woman insist on inflicting her terrible singing voice upon the world?).

Updated On: 12/2/04 at 03:17 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:41pm

Margo - I was going to mention the diva opening as well. That was my favorite that I have seen. I've never had a chance to see any of the 70s Tony broadcasts. Just for the record, Greenwillow was a flop. It ran 97 performances. It and Take Me Along were classified as flops in Not Since Carrie. Once Upon a Mattress transferred theatres three times and closed in 8 months. I really don't know much about At the Drop of a Hat other than it ran 7 months, but for a three-person review, it probably recouped and it's sequel, At the Drop of Another Hat (which cut the girl from the cast) closed after 4 months.

[magruder]

Posted: 12/2/04 at 3:56pm

Take Me Along was not a flop. It ran over a year, playing 448 performances, and while Jackie Gleason was still in it, it was one of the hottest tickets on Broadway. I think it did turn a profit. Mandelbaum may be referring to the flop 1985 Broadway revival, ill-advisedly moved from Goodspeed, that opened and closed on its opening night at the Martin Beck Theatre.

Updated On: 12/2/04 at 03:56 PM