Tony performance 'grades' — Page 3

Piazza: B+
Spamalot: A
Charity: C
La Cage: B-
DRS: B
Bee: C

---

Vinny- My favorite parts are when she is singing (I presume) in an imitation style...it's (I presume) her regular voice I dont' love. I do love her scatting on the cd though!

---

Piazza - B+

DRS - C

Spamalot - A-

La Cage - B

Spelling Bee - A-

Sweet Charity - B

Note I only saw Spamalot and Spelling Bee this year.

DRS (D): My vote for worst performance of the night. The song (if you could call it that as it seemed to be mostly spoken) was boring, the humor was puerile, the set was blah (I recognize it is not the best rendition of the set, but compared to some of the other nominees that tried to incorporate a set, this was ugly), and Norbert Butz's performance was too smarmy and he overacted too much for my tastes. I liked John Lithgow better in his limited contributions to the performance.

Light in the Piazza (A-): Beautiful staging and great music(This was the first song from a new musical in awhile that actually enjoyed). Both actresses gave great performances. Made me not regret allowing my sister to drag me to see this later this summer.

Sweet Charity (B-): The musical is not my cup of tea, but I found Christina Applegate's performance winning. With the exception of the mother in Light in the Piazza, I thought her acting was the best of all the male/female performances of the night. Her singing left a little to be desired, but I thought it fit my limited understanding of the character. The "Big Spender" bit was strange and off-putting though.

La Cage aux Folles (C): Boring. Not a big choreography buff so I fast-forwarded through this one. Another musical I have no interest in seeing as I can't see how this musical could ever top Mike Nichols's movie "The Birdcage."

Spelling Bee (A): Best performance of the night. I am so glad they didn't just sing the opening number and instead decided to caputure the comic verve of the spelling sequences (where the musical's heart truly lies). I actually wanted more spelling and less singing (and a different version of the Goodbye Song). Al Sharpton was the perfect sort of kooky random guest that says a lot about this show's tone and heart. Plus I loved the inclusion of the "Bully-Free Zone poster."

Spamalot (B+): Not my favorite song from the musical, but it captured the musical's spirit as well. Sara Ramirez was great considering she apparently had a cold. Not enough of the knights, but the chorus was great and I enjoyed the cheeky dancing. Definitely made its case for the Best Musical win (While I enjoyed Spelling Bee better, I find Spamalot to be a better musical. The musical aspects of Spelling Bee occasionally seem to intrude on the non-musical bits. Spamalot is much better integrated).

Overall, with the exception of the Light in the Piazza, these performances didn't make me feel like I missed much by only seeing Spamalot and Spelling Bee.

DRS-D
Spamalot-C
Piazza-B
Spelling Bee-A
Charity-F

The Tony Show-D

DRS: B+ (It was still great of course, but I've seen it muchh muchh better)

Ive never seen any of these shows below...my grade is simply from the performance I saw...
La Cage: B
Spelling Bee: A-
Piazza: A-
Spamalot: A
Sweet Charity: C+

---

None of the shows 'astounded' and made me stop dead in my tracks to watch if I was doing something. But Piazza, would have to be my favorite. I wanted to definitley see more of it after it was finished.

Spamalot didn't do anything for me. I haven't listened to any of the music, but when I saw the performance then saw it get the Tony, I just sat there like 'what the hell?'. I just didn't like it. I thought Sara was a pretty good singer and I know it's supposed to be comedy but what is up with the weired facial expressions? Because it's just pointless, maybe if there was a story behind it I would understand it but... alas I don't.

Christina's performance made me giggle. The announcer before the commercials when her performance came up said "Then we'll have a show stopping performance by Christina Applegate!". I've heard mixed reveiws about her, so I watched... waited... nothing. Not really that good of a dancer, okay singer, definitley not show stopping. I thought this performance was blechy.

Bee and DRS were cute. Was it 'Ass' they bleeped out in 'Great Big Stuff'? La Cage was great with Gary Beach. I'm not that really big on the whole dancing shindig but sure. It looked good none the less, good choreography which it won for, and it showcased.

I thought it was an okay year for Tony performances. Nothing compared to 2003 (Bernadette, Hairspray, my personal opinion).

Piazza: A
Spamalot:c+
Charity: c-
La Cage: B
DRS: B+
Bee: B+

In the spirit of my wonderful new Spelling Bee OBC:

B-U-M-P
Bump.