| Why are the Tonys on network TV?
This year the Tony Awards garnered the lowest ratings since 1992. Most people are quick to say that it's because they were broadcast on the same night as the finale of The Sopranos but we all know better, don't we? The Tony Awards are given for excellence on Broadway, which for many years now has been an oxymoron. Aside from the occasional movie star driven vehicle like Martin Short's Fame Becomes Me or blockbusters like The Producers, Broadway has done very little of note in a long time. More importantly, any decent Broadway production is overpriced while also being sold out, giving average Americans little chance to ever see a Broadway show. All that aside, it still puzzles me why anyone would be interested in spending three hours watching an awards show for productions and people they know next to nothing about.
Stage stars' real roles: Husband and wife
Two big Broadway stars will join more than a thousand amateur theater artists for AACTFest '07 this week in Charlotte. The American Association of Community Theatres will toast Terrence Mann and Charlotte d'Amboise, married veterans of such megahits as "Cats" and "Les Misérables" (Mann) and the current revival of "A Chorus Line" (d'Amboise), at a fundraising dinner and reception Friday, amid a packed schedule of award-winning shows, workshops and other events. Mann, a graduate of N.C. School of the Arts, made his Broadway debut in 1982 in "Barnum," then made his name as the original Rum Tum Tugger in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats." Starring roles in "Les Mis" (Javert) and "Disney's Beauty and the Beast" (Beast) earned Mann two Tony nominations; later, he created the role of Chauvelin in "The Scarlet Pimpernel." He played assistant choreographer Larry in the film version of "A Chorus Line," among other movie and TV appearances.
Tony outs a big star
My husband wondered more than once last night why I was watching the Tony Awards, especially since I will probably never see any of the plays or musicals, unless they make their way to a city near me. I guess it's the one night I get to feel like a New Yorker. The musical performances they stage give me some taste of what shows I would watch if I ever made it to the Big Apple. Ever since seeing the original cast of "The Lion King" on Broadway, I told myself to make a point to come back. And yet I missed "Aida," "The Producers," "Mamma Mia!" and "Avenue Q." If I manage a flight out to New York, "Spring Awakening" and "Company" are definitely two I'd make sure to catch this time. Oh, and I'd be in the front row for "Curtains," the last musical written by the great songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb.
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