Broadway's Biggest Night

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Patti LuPone

Last night was the 62nd Annual Tony Awards and it was a hard year to predict winners making for an interesting evening with a few surprises. The big winners were Lincoln Center’s revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, the Washington Heights tribute In the Heights, August: Osage County and Boeing-Boeing. Paulo Szot the opera singer turned musical theater star (who is amazingly sexy and had me gasping for air as he gave his speech in a Brazilian accent) won Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his role as Emile de Becque in South Pacific which beat out Gypsy for the Best Revival of a Musical despite the fact that Gypsy picked up all the other acting categories -- most notably Patti LuPone who plays the legendary role of Mama Rose. She had a lot to live up to with two out of the four previous Mama Roses winning the Tony before her excluding Bernadette Peters and the original Ethel Merman. Patti’s speech was amazing and channelled her inner Mama Rose when she yelled “turn that off it’s been 29 years!” when the “wrap it up” music started playing, referring to the last time she won a Tony for her role as Evita.

The show was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg who inserted herself in various Broadway musicals throughout such as Mary Poppins, flying out of the theater saying “I’m higher than the Mommie in Osage County,” referring to the other crazy mother of the night aside from Mama Rose -- the pill-popping Violet from Tracy Letts’ play transferred from Chicago August: Osage County. Chicago-native Deanna Dunagan, who plays Violet, won a Tony for her role and so did her co-star Rondi Reed as featured actress in a play, but sadly their last performances in August were earlier that day. They did, however, hint strongly that they would be back in the roles in London at the National Theatre in November. Tracy Letts, who wrote August, almost didn’t make it to the show as he and his wife told me they were stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare Saturday night because of the storms. They finally got in yesterday and only had an hour to pull their looks together! Craziness!

The last award of the evening was for Best New Musical and it went to In the Heights, the youthful show with Latin flava that Lin-Manuel Miranda started writing while he was in college. Eight years later and still in his 20s -- remarkably young for a Broadway composer -- he won for both Best Musical and Best Score. The show –- considered a contemporary musical from the same school as Rent -- includes rap, hip-hop and reggaeton mixed with traditional Broadway show tunes. The show’s producers are the same that put Rent up 12 years ago and things came full circle last night when the original cast of Rent performed at the Tonys as a goodbye to the show that is closing in the Fall.

Tom Wopat, nominated for his role in Harvey Fierstein’s A Catered Affair summed up his chances given the new musical nominees –- which included Passing Strange a “rock musical” from musician Stew which was most likely the runner-up. “When they nominated the nominees for best musical most of those are youth oriented so you kind of think maybe that’s what the committee is thinking about or that’s what the Tony voters are thinking about.”

My personal highlights included:

The very tall and very handsome Cheyenne Jackson giving me a huge hug on the red carpet. He said he and his Xanadu castmates were watching the show from their theater six blocks away despite the fact that they were performing because there wasn’t enough room for the performers in Radio City Music Hall. That seems odd to me since there are three balconies in Radio City and Xanadu was nominated! It also surprised me that after starring roles in All Shook Up and Thoroughly Modern Millie it was his first time at the Tonys!

Talking to Broadway gossip queen Michael Riedel about what the hipsters might like on Broadway.

Patti LuPone getting a standing ovation after her performance at the Tonys and another one in the media room, as well as settling the rumors about her and Gypsy’s book writer Arthur Laurents not getting along for so many years. “I wasn’t supposed to play the role. Arthur was mad at me. I was told by my quote, people, that I would never be in an Arthur Laurents play, that I’d been banned from it so I went, ‘OK there you go’ I’ll never play this part, I’ll never play any other part written by Arthur. And my husband has said to me a couple of times tonight ‘aren’t you glad you called Arthur?’ and the only thing that turned this around was I called Arthur and we talked and it happened. It’s a convulted story and nobody knows what the truth is anymore.”

John Waters musing, “One wonders if actual prisoners are watching the Tony awards tonight. Talk about a new minority!” while introducing the in-prison dance number “A Little Upset” from his Tony-nominated musical Cry-Baby.

Grease/reality TV star Laura Osnes’ beautiful Marc Bouwer dress.

Paulo Szot admitting in his Brazilian accent that he was terrified after his first rehearsal of South Pacific.

Original Chorus Line castmember Priscilla Lopez, who almost 40 years later, is now starring in In the Heights, coyly stating, “I only do groundbreaking musicals.”

Tony-Award-winner for Best Featured Actress in a musical for her role as Gypsy Rose Lee, Laura Benanti crying in the media room after being told her on-stage father figure Boyd Gaines won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and afterwards Laura Bell Bundy assuring her that her acceptance speech was great, especially what Benanti said about her mother being the anti-Mama Rose!

And the very-sexy nominee Ben Daniels saying it ain’t no thing being naked on stage for his role in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. “I’ve done it so many times you know. I’ve done it in the round onstage. Can you imagine where there’s nowhere to hide?”

All Photographs by Caroline Torem Craig