Your Personal favorite For Best Musical Tony- Page 4

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/18/07 at 12:41am

THR TIMES THEY ARE... will win

Three shows have not even opened,
who the hell knows?

[Bobby Maler]

Posted: 3/18/07 at 1:48am

I've seen Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening and Mary Poppins. I enjoyed all three, but I think Spring Awakening is the only one that tries to do anything differently. It also makes an important but rarely produced play paletteable, suprising, relevant and exciting and brings it into mainstream consciousness. It entertains while making a powerful statement, two things that I believe great theatre should do. The play was ahead of its time, but its time has now arrived.

Duncan Sheik's amazing score and orchestrations have much to do with making the play more paletteable. It's time that Broadway became relevant again and for Broadway music to reflect what we hear on the radio. The album has consistently been on the BillBoard Top 3 which is amazing, considering how short a time this musical has been around. It has brought a different audience to Broadway and has made Broadway hip and relevant again. That's a big plus to the Tony voters. The fact that Duncan is continuuing to write for the theatre...that he's not some pompous pop star who's made a detour.. also works in his favor.

Steven Sater's book shouldn't be ignored either..he made these characters and their arcs much clearer than the original play. This was HIS Melchoir and HIS Wendla, not Wedekind's, yet he maintains the poetic origins of the original. It would have been so easy to dumb it down and spell everything out. Instead, his play haunts us and demands our participation.

And if Michael Mayer doesn't get the Tony for his brilliance and 7 year sheparding of this project, there's no justice in the world.

It has the support of the critics and the NYC industry behind it. They seem so happy that something like this is on Broadway, in this era of movie musicals. What will hurt its chances is that it is not something that will tour easily in middle America, and we all know that road presenters make up something like 25% of the Tony voting audience. Those people will be voting for Legally Blonde (if nominated) or Curtains (probably will be nominated).

At first I thought perhaps Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening would split the "artsy" vote, but Spring Awakening has emerged as the clear leader between the two, if for nothing else than because it seems (sadly) that Grey Gardens won't be around for much longer.

I'm not saying it doesn't have flaws, but Spring Awakening, to my mind, is the only show that excels in nearly every aspect of its production. Not just acting, not just score, not just lighting, etc, but how they all come together to create an unforgettable night of theatre.

It's going to be a tight and very exciting race. What a great season!