A MOMENT WITH SOME OF THE 2023 TONY© AWARD NOMINEES

                                                

I cannot believe that theater award season is about to end with an unscripted Tony©Awards show because of the film/tv writers strike.  In a way it is kind of fitting that the show will have to go rogue.  Considering that the show is headed into the Heights.  It will be an interesting presentation, to say the least.  Until we hear"... and the Tony© Award goes to...", it will be anyone's guess as to whom the American Theater Wing will bestow their honors.  Academy Award winning actress, Ariana Debose, will again host this year's Tony© Awards. 

While you are rooting for your favorites, please enjoy these moments of conversation with a few of this year's nominees. 

Kevin Cahoon- Best Featured Actor in a Musical for SHUCKED

                                                    

 

Kevin Del Aguila- Best Featured Actor in a Musical for SOME LIKE IT HOT

Josh Groban- Best Lead Actor in a Musical for SWEENEY TODD

Wendell Pierce- Best Lead Actor in a Play for Arthur Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Ben Platt-  Best Lead Actor in a Musical for PARADE

    

Miriam Silverman- Best Featured Actress in a Play for THE SIGN IN SIDNEY BRUSTEIN'S WINDOW

    

Sharon Washington-  Best Book of a Musical for NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Natasha Yvette Williams- Best Featured Actress in a Musical for SOME LIKE IT HOT

Kara Young- Best Featured Actress in a Play for COST OF LIVING

David Zayas- Best Featured Actor in a Play for COST OF LIVING

Also can be heard on SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCAST, IHEARTRADIO

HERE'S TO THE FOLKS WHO LUNCH

Speaking of lunch?  This past week I had the fantastic pleasure of covering the 71st Annual New Dramatists Luncheon.  This year's honoree is the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks.  She is the FIRST Black woman to win the coveted prize. 

I had a great time conversing on the red carpet/press line for the event.  I got a chance to chat with some really great folks:  Ben Platt, Josh Groban, Kenny Leon, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Lauren Molina, Irene Gandy, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Kevin Cahoon, Wayne Cilento, Sharon Washington, Natasha Yvette Williams, Kara Young, David Zayas, and Wendell Pierce.  Please enjoy these fun moments of conversation with me. 

 

 

Also can be heard on SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCAST, IHEARTRADIO

2023 TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS AND TRADITION

I love tradition.  Every year since I have been able to talk about the Tony nominations with fellow confessed theater geeks, Greg Allen and Paul Winkler, a tradition was born. Now that the Tony Award© nominations have been announced, the theater award season is officially popping, and we're back to dish.

We're Back!!!

  Many shows were elated about the announcements: 

           

Other shows were not so happy. 

Because of Tony Award nominations, shows will be seeing a boost in ticket sales. Sadly, some will be making more closing announcements.  Limited runs will be ending, and on various nights throughout late May until the BIG NIGHT on June 11, 2023, many other prizes are going to be won. 

                                        

The latest hot topic conversation circling the award circuit this year is going to be about non-binary performers and their representation in a binary performance world.  The Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle have already made a more public attempt to address the problem and the Tony Awards have not made a distinction, but have offered an olive branch of sorts with making groundbreaking nominations: 

 

In between our moments of shade, we can have a little substance.  However, when given more time and a microphone (and an IMovie tutorial), we armchair quarterback the Tony Awards just like every one of our fellow theater geeks and have already planned our menu for the big night. So come join us and see if you agree or disagree with our choices, as we continue our fun tradition.  Support live theater wherever you are.

Part 1: Best Technical and Creative Awards

Part 2: Best Performances and Shows

And The Award Goes To.....

Can you feel a brand new day for award shows? If not, then this year's Drama League and Outer Critics Award nominations should be the first step to jar your thinking. They are the first to launch a gender neutral nominating process to answer the challenge of representation that gender/non-binary and Trans identifying performers are bringing to the industry this time of year. It's an opportunity to keep the conversation of gender expression ongoing, especially in an industry built on imagination.  

This conversation really came through when Justin David Sullivan refused to accept his Tony nomination eligibility for his role in the show, & Juliet, back in February.  Of course,  the shadier  queens than me said that perhaps one might be putting the cart before the horse, but some might have seen this as the first real attempt to deconstruct gender norms and in some cases the patriarchy.   Meanwhile, some of my friends feel like it may be the "everyone gets a ribbon" line of thinking. I told you they were shady.  

No matter how you choose to view it, the whispers have grown and conversations have begun.  If not now, then when? The Drama League and The Outer Critics Circle contain smaller voting bodies that can manage whatever heat that this new approach will garner in terms of conversations, backlashes, and God willing, some significant changes. Besides, if other categories like Costume Design, Lighting Design, Set Design, Books and Lyrics, Directors, etc, can have mixed candidates, then why should performing be any different? Well, I am not gonna touch that one, but I assure you the conversation is gonna be fire. The Tony Award Nominations are coming on May 3rd, and it will be interesting to see if this new trend is going to continue.

For more about the Drama League Awards, click here.

For more about the Outer Critic CIrcle Awards, click here. 

Since the original posting, the Drama Desk nominees were announced and the same with the performance categories.

SUMMER 1976 or A Couple Of White Chicks Just Talking

 

SUMMER 1976, written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, David Auburn and directed by Daniel Sullivan, is the new play that just opened last night at the Manhattan Theater Club's Friedman Theater, featuring 5x Tony Award nominee and 4x Emmy Award winner,  Laura Linney,  and Tony and Emmy Award nominee, Jessica Hecht. Now not to be shady, but the play is basically a couple of white chicks, sitting around talking. It is a pleasant experience like listening to the kinda cool aunts tell their sides of the same story, preferably with some Chardonnay.

It is the story of two women recanting moments in their journey as friends from that fateful day that they met in the Summer of 1976 to some time in the 90's. Honestly as an out, African-American, man, this show is really not meant for me. However, that dang Laura Linney is the quintessential white woman that I cannot resist.  She gets me every time. When Ms. Linney utters her first syllables of dialogue, I lock into her every tonal inflection that can throw the most sarcastic shade with such ease while being so soothing, simultaneously. 

Ms. Hecht matches Linney's sardonic moments with equally fierce retorts and a little hippie flair.  The banter between the women at times becomes slightly banal as you would expect that (and I say this with utmost love) 2 privileged white women can muster up while spending most of the time sitting down, facing the audience, telling their stories for 90 minutes. 

It is a quaint, semi-polite, sometimes cheeky, and lovely evening of theater with no super deep storytelling devices or agendas,  except for the ups and downs of the "friendship" between these women in that slightly intense period of time, especially while they are furniture shopping or running into each other at a museum. It is hard to measure this piece against some of the current projects on Broadway so intense thematically like, LEOPOLDTSTAT or PRIMA FACIA, or the magic of puppetry in storytelling, like in LIFE OF PI, or just the absence of caucasity,  like in FAT HAM. That is what diversity in themes looks like to me on stage.  If you are a Linney and/or Hecht fan, and I am, then this piece will scratch that itch of seeing them in a nice, safe show that will not challenge you too deeply.  It's a safe 90 minute walk down memory lane with a few rocks in the path, and honestly, there is nothing wrong with that. 

Click Here for Information and Tickets.