Why Have Some Performers LipSynched on the Tonys?

It just seems so odd. Watching the Broadway's Lost Treasures PBS broadcast, it was disappointing and not very gratifying seeing the performances of Angela Lansbury and Robert Preston, lip synching.

Clearly, these are performers who have performed live, and brilliantly so, for thousands of performances.

Why the lipsynched Tony performances? If there was ever a time to strut your stuff and get down with the thrill of your live performance, it is at the Tony awards, no?

Does anyone know WHY, those two in particular lipsynched (Angela and Mr. Preston)?

I am hoping the great experience of folks on this message board will reap someone who knows the actual reason or who can find out why they did not perform live. Thank you.

---

Updated On: 8/11/03 at 04:27 PM

Yeah, I agree that it's better than using understudies, especially on the Tonys. It sucks, but what can you do? How many people would want to see Catherine Brunell do "Forget About The Boy" on the Tonys, or Maureen Moore do "Rose's Turn"? I wouldn't. I'd rather see both of them lip synch.

I don't think stage fright would be much of a factor for Angela and Robert. Now Madonna could have used a lip sync when she sang Sooner or Later on the Oscars. Talk about stage fright!

---

A lot of awards shows used to use lip synching and it was mostly sound stuff and the hassle of bringing in different equipment for different performances and what not. It might be nothing more than that.

Seriously, you TEACH theatre? I would have thought a 'teacher of theatre' would know the answers to most of the questions you post.

It may be a technical nightmare, but the Tony’s celebrate LIVE theatre.
It is not too much to ask a performer to sing ONE MORE SONG after a matinee. Especially for a telecast that will be a document to a production that will never be seen again in the same way once it closes.

What of the technical problems this year with DEF POETRY? That was awful! (The sound, not the performances)

And, Slash, that jab at TOT was uncalled for. Why should a teacher of theatre know everything about a television broadcast?

---

I just feel cheated when people lipsync. I mean...What if Broadway was completely lipsynced? It's so....Britney Spears. LOL! UGH!

lol, bg2. it seems it would be against broadway religion to lipsynch on stage ESPECIALLY on the holiest of holy nights on broadway when all 17 people tune in to watch the awards. i know if the orchestra strike had been worse and theatres started to use vertual orch.s we all would've ****ted bricks. lipsyinching is no different. i guess its a necessary evil.

I read on another thread that it was SWEENEY TODD where Angela Lansbury lipsynched. I haven't seen the PBS show yet, but I have vivid memories of her Tony performance that year. It was recorded, if I remember correctly, on the show's set (rather than on a diminished version of the set at the Tony performance). I was very familiar with the original cast recording of Sweeney before seeing the show on B'way. The tempo of Worst Pies in London, while still fast, was much more leisurely in performance than on the original cast recording. They wanted the Broadway audiences to understand the lyrics. Since Ms. Lansbury has sung many times "live" on TV, I suspect they elected to have her lipsync "Worst Pies" from the cast recording for the Tony broadcast because of pacing issues.

---

Interesting how people would rather hear people sing live even if they are in poor voice because the Tonys celebrate LIVE theatre. And yet nobody here is about to let Marissa Jaret Winkur forget exactly how flat she was during You Can't Stop The Beat this year.

---

Both songs that seem to be being discussed are fast patter songs with changing tempos.

Trouble has more words than Webster, and The Worst Pies in London has a lot of words plus inner rhymes. There's another reason Preston and Lansbury may not have sung live.

Preston had not sung Trouble regularly since the film was made nine years previously. He was a fanatic for going over lines and lyrics before each performance. He had a sign in his dressing room to the effect that "Security is knowing your lyrics."

Bacall's number from Woman of the Year (One of the Girls) was another that was not sung live on the Tonys and I am sure there are plenty of others that we're overlooking.

And Liza May Minnnelli Allen Haley Gero Gest lip-synched a few bars of City Lights at every performance of The Act. The choreography was very intricate and busy, and rather than have her lose her breath, they dubbed her. No one could tell and it only came out well after opening. Afterwards you still couldn't tell exactly which measures were not done live.

---

Re: Liza and The Act. As her show got further into its run, Liza was lip synching entire songs. I think at one point, someone counted that she was lip synching at least 6 of them.

---