What Tony award season....

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:09am

do you consider the most umm how do I put this? Controversial/wrong? Well, what I mean is in example: Producers winning best score over Full Monty and Jane Eyre.

My pick would be the year that Will Rogers Follies won best show.

STEVOS

[Craig]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:11am

Not necc. for me.. but I think one of the biggest shocks for everyone on the scene was Contact winning Best Musical

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:11am

i do like WILL ROGERS, but can't remember what else was up that year. Elucidate. Or just date.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:12am

For those who may not know, Will Rogers Follies beat Miss Saigon, The Secret Garden and Once On This Island for Best Musical and Best Score. Best Book that year went to Secret Garden which is also strange because Will Rogers has a funny book and the book for Garden is god-awful.

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:14am

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
SECRET GARDEN
and
MISS SIAGON

all beaten by WILL ROGERS FOLLIES.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:19am

Yes yes yes!! What the hell was that...Contact winning??!! I would love to hear the reasoning on that one! The other one that gets my blood boiling is 1998. Granted, I haven't seen it on stage, but I have the CD and I still can't believe that The Lion King beat out Ragtime! That brings a tear to my eye everytime :*(

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:23am

I have another one, not a big deal, but I dont think that Hairsprays score is all that great, I enjoy the Amour score much better, I just think that Amour is ahead of its time, one day all the nominees may sound like it...

STEVOS

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:28am

Can't agree about 'Amour,' it was really dated Europop, hardly cutting edge by any stretch.

I was disappointed in the 'Producers' sweep, especially given that I thought the choreography and set design were pretty standard, at best. I had no problem with the show winning the big awards but it wasn't perfect in every area, not by any standards.

(Where's the token 'Gentlemen of Verona' over 'Follies' post?? These threads always lead to that sooner or later.)

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:30am

the shows are so different, it's hard to compare. i loved both LION and RAGTIME. As to ROGERS' year, that horse race was un-handicappable. i do agree that the ROGERS book had a little more going for it than SECRET GARDEN, but i don't agree that the GARDEN book is bad. But don't just blame B'way...MISS SAIGON was also beat out for an Olivier on the West End by RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET (a revue-like show of 1950's rock and roll, though clever---it also beat out BUDDY, similar in subject matter). Maybe some people thought SAIGON, though commercial, as not as memorable as its predecessor MIZ, or that it only really re-worked MADAME BUTTERFLY. GARDEN was coming from a first-time nominee (who's finished nothing since) and i've also heard rumors since that it was truly finished by the orchestrator and ghost-composers (though i find it entirely beautiful and coherent). Flaherty/Ahrens hadn't quite hit stride yet, but got robbed again for RAGTIME (and Danielle's ISLAND production deserved some kind of recognition). Coleman was an established but often-overlooked composer of some longevity. There are so many factors it's hard to judge...look at the Oscars: did Kidman win really for THE HOURS or for that movie, THE OTHERS, and MOULIN ROUGE (not to mention her private drama "Surviving the Midget")? a topic for endless debate. Many deserving shows didn't get Tonys, but that's no reason to denigrate those that did, is it?

Updated On: 10/9/03 at 11:30 AM

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:35am

Well John, maybe I jus thavent lisened enough to hear the euro popness...maybe my main problem with it is that I don't listen to the nominee's of this year much...Also Hairspray's score sounds alot better when they are doing something with it on stage...dunno why that is...maybe the overall exp of the show affects voter decisions, like with the producers?

STEVOs

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:39am

The overall show always plays a factor, even when they're dividing up the individual awards. And it should to a degree? Is Best Score just the show with the most favorite songs or is it the music that best serves the story? I think it's supposed to be the latter. Then you have a show like 'Secret Garden' which I think pretty clearly had the best score that year but the rest of the production probably distracted voters (and audiences) from that fact a bit. (I don't think 'Garden' is a great complete show but I think it has a great score.)

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:41am

Stevos is doing research now, first Im listening to Amour, and then I will listen to Hairspray. Right now Amour is in, I just love the opening to this. I've never listened to them in the same day, so this will be interesting.

STEVOS

[TheBalladeer]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:45am

Well, this is just me...but I am still pissed that Sutton Foster beat out Vanessa Williams for the Tony in 2002. But I believe I am in the minority on this matter.

Cheers,
The Balladeer

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:47am

BALLAD, i think in that case there was the "new role" versus "recreated role" bias. i love them both, for different reasons.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:49am

I think the year John Lithgow won Best Actor for Sweet Smell of Success, yet Hunter Foster wasn't even nominated for Urinetown.

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 11:57am

Balladeer,

I do not necessarily agree that Vanessa should have won, but I do think that Louise Pitre should have bested Sutton that year. Anyone who can bring a firece emotional depth to the song 'The Winner Takes it All' should get the f*cking Nobel Prize!!!!

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:04pm

Urinetown being a fave...I don't think Hunter necessarily needed to be nominated...why didn't Mcarthy win?

STEVOS

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:05pm

RAGTIME should have beaten THE LION KING
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND should have won(My personal fav of that year)

and CONTACT should not have won!

But I forget what it was nominated with?

actors and actresses are always robbed. As good as Alan Cummings was in Cabaret. Brian Stoke Mitchell should have won for RAGTIME. That was a tour de force of a part in the sense of JENNIFER HOLLIDAY proportions. That was name making. I was so upset.

And then the plays...."PROOF" was one of the worst pieces of trash I have seen in a long time and it won?!?!? (IMHO)

[TheBalladeer]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:07pm

Robbiej,

Really? I know that Vanessa had brought depth to the role of the Witch, and made the character seem like a real person, with wants desires, and an actual maternal side to her. Something that made the portrayal of the Witch much more realistic and deep to me. And besides, her "Last Midnight" was fantastic! And furthermore, what made me enjoy her take even more was her instict to not make the Witch campy, and a ham, and just play the part as it should have been played - which none of the Witches I have ever seen (including Bernadette Peters) have done. In my humble opinion.

Cheers,
The Balladeer

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:12pm

Don't get me wrong...I didn't hate Vanessa Williams. To be honest, I didn't love the revival of INTO THE WOODS. It let me down quite a bit. And the role of the Witch is, in my mind at least, an inflated supporting role.

I thought Louise Pitre had a nearly impossible task and did it flawlessly!

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:22pm

I thought Peter Friedman gave a far more detailed and emotional performance in 'Ragtime.' But Stokes had the 'money' part. I would've picked Friedman, though.

[tpdc]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:23pm

I think WILL ROGERS was the worst show of Comden, Green and Tune's careers. Coleman topped this with WELCOME TO THE CLUB.

I liked both Williams and Peters as the Witch. They were very different. But I don't think it's a supporting role. The authors have said that the Witch is their mouthpiece. She is the one character who tells the truth throughout the show. She also gets a star entrance, more solos, a magic trick, three costumes when most people have one throughout and leads the finale, so I think hers is the most flashy role in an ensemble show. And in major productions, she is usually cast with the most famous name. I didn't see Pitre but between Foster and Williams, I would have gone with Williams.

[magruder]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:25pm

My choices would be 1958 (Music Man over West Side Story), 1960 (The Sound of Music and Fiorello! over Gypsy), 1972 (Two Gentlemen of Verona over Follies), 1982 (Nine over Dreamgirls), 1984 (La Cage aux Folles over Sunday in the Park with George), the aforementioned 1991 (Will Rogers Follies over The Secret Garden, Once on this Island and Miss Saigon), and 2002 (Thoroughly Modern Millie over Urinetown). In most of those instances, some very good shows won, but I find the shows that lost Best Musical to be superior.

[Al Dente]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:27pm

If I'm not mistaken, the year Contact won was the most bizarre year in recent memory. We've mentioned this before but again, it was also the year that Sherie Scott, Orfeh and Amy Spanger were snubbed by the nominating committee for (IMO), excellent supporting turns in Aida, Saturday Night Fever and Kiss Me Kate, respectively. Of the 3 I just mentioned, Sherie was the one who was truly robbed. She not only should've been nominated but I believe she would have won. Instead, not only did Contact win for best musical with absolutely NO live or original *music* but Deborah Yeats(sp) won for a role without ever uttering a line of dialogue, or singing a note of music.

I think Hunter Foster was snubbed for Urinetown. And I agree about Stokes Mitchell and Ragtime.

[tpdc]

Posted: 10/9/03 at 12:29pm

Magruder, I agree with all the "wrong winner" choices you noted except for MILLE/URINETOWN. I didn't love either show but I've heard it suggested that voters didn't love either show as well but felt MILLIE was closer to what it was trying to do than URINETOWN. I agree. of course MILLIE aimed quite a bit lower than URINETOWN.