What was the most shocking Tony Win/loss ever?- Page 4

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 2:10am

You better lay off MTM or Betty White is going to come over and kick your ass.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 2:28am

Understood.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 3:02am

Leading Player, they were duels. I think Harney and Montevecchi were slight surprises. Julia had the larger role but had not received raves. His voice was seen as problematic. Like Gleason, Harney had gotten awards but in the featured category. And Montevecchi and Morris had both won awards, tying for the Drama Desk.

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 5:53am

How about Hinton Battle in Sophisticated Ladies?

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 7:13am

frontrowcenter2 - My daughters love "Wicked" and have seen it a couple of times on Broadway and on tour. They are in their early twenties and love Broadway. They have also seen "Avenue Q" twice, once on Broadway and once on tour. They had a great time and laughed a whole bunch at "Avenue Q" but feel "Wicked" is easily superior. Looking back, they are amazed that "Wicked" did not win Best Musical or musical score. I will tell you they felt no "joy" when "Avenue Q" closed on Broadway and were actually delighted it found a "home" on Off-Broadway.

[Inigomontoya]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 9:04am

What about The Scottsboro Boys not winning a single award?

[The8re phan]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 9:59am

I'd say Miss Saigon losing Best Musical to the Will Rogers Follies was somewhat of a surprise........

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 10:03am

I think it was suprising that The Scottsboro boys landed as many nominations as it did. They were worthy of them, no doubt, but it had closed in December. It hardly had a chance at all to actually win, since many voters didn't get the chance to see the show. (For the record, I was rooting for it!)

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 10:40am

The producers of THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS invited Tony voters to special screenings of the archival recording at the Lincoln Center library. You can argue that the experience wouldn't be the same, but the voters did have a chance to view the show.

However, I have a feeling most of the voters didn't bother, preferring to attend and vote for currently running shows. I was rooting for it, too, but I wasn't surprised it didn't win anything. Disappointed, but not surprised.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 11:13am

Yero -- I hadn't heard that before (about the screening).

I highly suggest that even if many of them did attend a screening, it wouldn't have made any difference. A recording of live theater is not the same.

[Patash]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 11:31am

I agree one of the worst wins for best musical ever was for Contact -- a dance show with recorded music. I kept saying "are they joking?" But let's be honest, if The Wild Party, Swing or James Joyce's The Dead had won, we'd be pretty much saying the same thing. 2000 was one of the saddest years ever as far as Broadway musicals goes.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 11:52am

I'm still surprised that AIDA wasn't even nominated in 2000.

But yes, WILL ROGERS FOLLIES besting MISS SAIGON, SECRET GARDEN, and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND is still surprising.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 11:53am

"a dance show with recorded music"

A dance show with recorded music taken from other sources. Not one note of that score was original music. Which is more the shame for shows like Aida and Marie Christine.

Contact's win was merely to encourage Susan Stroman's career. I see no other reason for it to have won Best Musical.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 11:57am

"But yes, WILL ROGERS FOLLIES besting MISS SAIGON, SECRET GARDEN, and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND is still surprising."

Once On This Island is in my Top 20 of favorite musicals. But it was a sleeper hit and wasn't expected to win. It was a beautiful show but had no commercial appeal.

[kikki327]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 12:32pm

Bill T. Jones winning best choreography for Fela over Twyla Tharp for Come Fly Away. If I was Twyla I would have just walked out.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 1:11pm

Good thing Twyla is a mature artist.

[nsguy45]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 1:31pm

It appears that I'm the only one on here old enough to recall the shock when FOLLIES lost Best Musical to Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1972 . . . after FOLLIES had won nearly every other Tony that evening.

Ouch!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 1:37pm

Will Rogers Follies was highly celebrated and praised at the time utilizing some major creative pedigrees, so that wasn't much of a surprise to me.

I'm still surprised that AIDA wasn't even nominated in 2000.

I saw the show and wasn't surprised in the least. The surprise was that its score won the Tony. The backlash over Contact seems to be that it was placed the Musical category, but it was the only choice the committee felt made sense at the time other than awarding it a special award or creating another category with no other potential nominees. I thought it was a brilliant piece and loved every second of it.

Contact's win was merely to encourage Susan Stroman's career. I see no other reason for it to have won Best Musical.

Except that the critical and popular response to the show was HUGE and is still the longest-running hit for the Beaumont.

Avenue Q winning was not a shock. It was the most highly praised musical of the season. The "campaign" at the time seemed more like a savvy marketing tool than anything influential with respect to the voters. And the touring argument is moot because it did tour. It went to Vegas first, and then it toured. I think the biggest shock (within the community, at least) that season was Menzel winning over Pinkins.

I think the one win that I still have never really understood was Ebersole winning for 42nd Street.

Bill T. Jones winning best choreography for Fela over Twyla Tharp for Come Fly Away. If I was Twyla I would have just walked out.

Really? Jones's choreography was quite brilliant, both stylistically and in its storytelling. Tharp created some lovely scenes, but it was mostly technical, lacking in emotion and narrative. To me, it was like watching a professional recital. I enjoyed it, but to me, it was all style and no substance.

[3bluenight]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 2:02pm

it's my understanding that Geraldine Page's loss for Blithe Spirit is often described as quite surprising.

were dana ivey's duel nominations for hearbreak house and sunday in the park considered shocking?

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 2:24pm

"It appears that I'm the only one on here old enough to recall the shock when FOLLIES lost Best Musical to Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1972 . . . after FOLLIES had won nearly every other Tony that evening. "

Nearly every other Tony that evening did not include best book for a musical. That's an important one. It was won by Two Gentlemen.

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 4:12pm

Yero -- I hadn't heard that before (about the screening).

I highly suggest that even if many of them did attend a screening, it wouldn't have made any difference. A recording of live theater is not the same.

You are probably right about that, but the Tony voters that I knew at the time (which, admittedly, are not many, but still a handful) did not even bother attending one of these. From what I understand from conversations with other people, a lot of the out-of-town voters come in for a few days, decide to see the big musical, and then vote for it.

As in, "What did you vote for?" "Oh, I voted for MEMPHIS, because I saw it."

So it made me very happy that the SCOTTSBORO producers were trying, but I had a feeling it was pointless.

Updated On: 3/17/13 at 04:12 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 4:17pm

I also recall teh 1972 Tony Awards. It was my first time seeing the Tonys. I had only heard a little bit of FOLLIES on radio just the last part of "Live Laugh Love" with Ben's breakdown and it struck me as a the 12-year old musical theatre fan, as a powerful way to end a show - even though at that point I had no clue what had preceded it.

I was more interested in seeing segments of NO NO NANETTE (we had the record and I loved it); a tribute to Richard Rodgers (I had recently gotten David Ewen's biography of Rodgers from the library, and was coming out of a two year obsession with CAROUSEL), and especially seeing Ethel Merman recreating a dozen of her standards. I had made an audio tape of the telecast (long gone now) and from that time forwards I never missed a Tony broadcast.

I remember my Dad being surprised that after the multiple wins for FOLLIES it did not take Best Musical, but later when we got the full recordings of both FOLLIES and VERONA, i found much to enjoy in the former and very little that I liked in the latter. (I still rarely play TWO GENTLEMEN, even though I often use the exit music as a play-out on my weekly radio program. Mainly because it was written by Galt MacDermot and qualifies as "Canadian Content" and the Canadian Broadcast industry is committed to 40% Canadian content on all radio programs.)

I don't remember the news reports saying it was any kind of upset victory, but one writer did say that both shows were struggling at the box office and would likely close soon. FOLLIES lasted about another 4 months, but VERONA lasted slightly over a year after winning the Tony.

In retrospect, If FOLLIES had won Best musical I really doubt it would have extended its run substantially. The negative edge to that show distances audiences, and the parade of faded former stars didn't help since so many of them were reduced to mere cameos.

I think the following year when the battle was between PIPPIN and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC more people were surprised at NIGHT MUSIC's win. For the next few years the winners were pretty much expected, often the only real contender in a given season: RAISIN, THE WIZ, CHORUS LINE, ANNIE, SWEENEY TODD, EVITA, 42ND STREET. Then came 1982 season with DREAMGIRLS and NINE. Predictions were split between the two shows but when NINE won for the its score, with DREAMGIRLS taking the award for its book it made the final award for Best Musical a nail-biter. In the end NINE won for Best Musical, and ran 729 performances, but DREAMGIRLS ran nearly twice as long: 1,521 p.

Broadway hit rock bottom in the mid 1990s... In 1994 there were only two (serious) contenders for best musical: PASSION and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. (The other two nominated musicals had long since closed.) PASSION's win upset Disney fans and there was talk of the Broadway community rejecting Disney's presence. Conspiracy theories are always fun, but to me it seemed the voters were rewarding a show that was trying to do something different with the the form over the flashy spectacle that merely re-created the animated film on stage. (The voters went in the opposite direction 4 years later giving Best musical to LION KING over RAGTIME.) In the end Disney won by not winning and BEAUTY was sell-out smash hit for many years. PASSION's dark take of obsessive love faded to black in 9 months.

The following year was an embarrassment. SUNSET BLVD wan by acclamation... there was no other new book musical to compete. The only other nominee for Best musical was the revue SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE. Even worse was 2000 when the award for "best Musical" was given to CONTACT - which as others have mentioned no only lacked an original score but also did not use live musicians/singers. There was not any heavy duty competition... JAMES JOYCE's THE DEAD was long gone and AIDA was not nominated and had received a very mixed reaction. (There was some controversy when Elton John won for Best Score but refused to attend the Tony Awards to claim it. HE was reportedly miffed that the show had been overlooked as a nominee for Best Musical.)

I am rarely shocked by the winners, but sometimes surprised. That's one reason I continue to watch.

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 5:05pm

"PASSION's win upset Disney fans and there was talk of the Broadway community rejecting Disney's presence. "

Talk what was absolutely on the money.

" but to me it seemed the voters were rewarding a show that was trying to do something different with the the form over the flashy spectacle that merely re-created the animated film on stage. "

And the moon is made of green cheese.

Actually, the reasons were twofold.

1) The talk, as related above.

2) Shower yet another gift upon Sondheim. Indeed, if his name hadn't been on this ghastly endeavor, it would have been panned to high hell, closed in a week, and would never had even been nominated in the first place.

A propos of this particular travesty, I recall reading an article in the NY Times at the time, in which various Tony Award voters discussed their votes. One such remarked with surprising ,if horrific, frankness that though he had hated Passion, he was voting for it anyway just because he couldn't allow Disney to be rewarded. More so, said he, he knew that a win for Passion would cause people to see it who would hate it just as he, which would in turn turn them away from the theatre.

Well, that's what's called seeing it and telling like it was.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 5:41pm

One I haven't seen mentioned was Marissa Jaret Winokur from Hairspray winning over Bernadette Peters from Gypsy. I don't want this to devolve into another argument of Peters devotees vs Hairspray fans. We all know the history. We all know that when some people attended Gypsy they saw that same ferocious performance we got on Tony night and some people did not. I'm just wondering if Bernadette's loss was read as "shocking" by those at Radio City and in the theatre community or if Winokur was always the frontrunner.

I recall watching it at home being absolutely floored that Peters didn't win. It seems the producers thought Peters would win. Otherwise, it was a cruel (or thoughtless?) joke on their part to have Peters perform one of the greatest musical theatre numbers of all time right before the award was announced. That must have been a bit awkward for Winokur.

Was this one a shocker?

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 3/17/13 at 5:55pm

I don't remember it being a huge giant upset at the time. Bernadette did indeed have a rough time with illness during the beginning of the run and a lot of people, as you noted, saw an unfortunately weak performance. With Hairspray you had the combined elements of a hugely popular, well-receieved show, featuring a break-out star who had been given a role tailor made for her and whom audiences were falling in love with left and right. It was a tight race and it was not clear which lady would take the prize, but I don't recall there being a clear frontrunner between the two. I think it would have been more of a shock to everyone if one of the other ladies in the category (Melissa Errico for Amour, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio for Man of La Mancha, or Elizabeth Parkinson for Movin' Out) had been announced the winner that night.

And while everyone questions how Ragtime could have won best book and best score I would point out that Lion King won best direction, best choreography, and all of the design awards. So the argument you could make is that Ragtime may be better on paper, but The Lion King was the better production on the stage (for the record I enjoyed both when I saw them that year).