TONY CHEAT SHEET
Highlights, performances and all the tributes to watch for on theater’s biggest night
HERE’S the gossip coming out of Radio City Music Hall about Sunday night’s Tony telecast on CBS:
If you want to see the Boss but can’t afford those thousand-dollar seats for “Springsteen on Broadway,” tune in around 10:45 p.m. That’s when Bruce Springsteen will do his number, right before Bernadette Peters presents the award for Best Musical.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Chita Rivera will receive their Lifetime Achievement awards live. CBS usually pre-tapes this award and drops it in quickly before a commercial. But that would be insulting to the man who saved Broadway in the ’80s with “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” And it would be unforgivable to do any less by the woman who created Anita in “West Side Story” and is one of the last performers still with us from the Golden Age of Broadway.
Hosts Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles will open the telecast with a new song sending up the season and its raft of shows based on movies and cartoons. Cast members from all the nominated musicals will join them.
“Summer: The Donna SumSum- mer Musical,” though not a Best Musical nominee, will have a spot on the telecast. Critics slashed the show, but audiences love it, and there’s not a Tony viewer out there who won’t be dancing around the TV when LaChanze sings “Last Dance.”
Expect to see something magical from “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Here’s what you won’t see: J.K. Rowling, who isn’t coming.
Let’s hope the telecast is snappy, because it will be low on suspense. The big prizes might as well have been handed out the morning the nominees were annannounced.
“The Band’s Visit” has had BeBest Musical in the bag since it opopened in the fall, and “Harry PoPotter” isn’t going to lose to “FaFarinelli and the King” or any othother long-forgotten nominees.
TThe magnificent Glenda Jackson, Jac returning to Broadway in “Three Tall Women” for the firsfirst time since she played Lady MaMacbeth in 1988, will take home her first Tony, which she can put on the shelf alongside her two OsOscars and two Emmys. This is the performance of the season, and if you haven’t seen it, get thee to the John Golden Theatre as fasfast as you can.
Bravo to another great — Nathan Lane — for pulling off ththe move from musical comedy susuperstar to top-flight dramatic actactor. His Roy Cohn in “Angels in AAmerica” manages to be both chichilling and sympathetic, and it wilwill get him the Tony for Best FeaFeatured Actor in a Play.
“Angels in America” is the favfavorite to win Best Revival of a PPlay, but if I could stuff the balballot box, I’d give it to Edward AlbAlbee’s “Three Tall Women,” dirdirected with elegance and subtlety by Joe Mantello.
“Angels in America” is an event, but “Three Tall Women” is a better, if not a landmark, play. Plus, it’s only 105 minutes, which in a season of long sits (“Harry Potter,” “Iceman Cometh”) is a relief.
An upset, should there be one, will come with Best Revival of a Musical. “My Fair Lady” and “Carousel” are classics, but voters have quibbles with both. On the other hand, “Once on This Island” may not be a classic, but it’s a lovely show, and everybody thinks director Michael Arden’s production, with sand and water that transports you to the Caribbean and brings on the urge for a rum punch, is one of the highlights of the season.
“My Fair Lady” is the safe bet, but Eliza Doolittle has more to fear from Ti Moune than she does from Julie Jordan.