The Tony Awards are back and during their original June showing. Instead of recapping every piece of the night I will be talking about the night as a whole, and the good, as well as some bad that stuck out to me. Let's start with Ariana Debose, she did amazing, and her opening number will be on repeat on my phone for hours on end. More on her later, but still I had to just begin with how amazing she did. Congratulations to all the winners, but also the nominees there was so much amazing talent tonight. There was no runaway show but rather all the awards were very spread out which was very awesome, at least when it came to musicals and the plays mostly.
Tonight, was also a big night for representation and that is important, to see the stage include so many people from the LGBTQ+ community, and different races. Making the stage brighter by sharing their lives with us, all of the acknowledgment of crew, understudies, and COVID safety workers was also amazing. All of the shout outs to the understudies, and crew warmed my heart, and some even performed and that was incredible.
The Act One show confused me, I don't understand why the awards are now split in two, let alone the first one has little to no numbers or performances, maybe one or two tops. Angela Lansbury getting a lifetime achievement was a highlight, I still am baffled this isn't part of one show. It makes me feel like some awards are limited to a pre-show which isn't fair because every member of the cast and crew works to bring something to us.
The performances that stood out to me that will stay with me were too many to count. There were only a couple that fell flat for me. The Stephen Sondheim tribute moved me to tears, and all of the performances were very amazing, except for two. Mr. Saturday Night was fun but dragged on a tad too long, but it still had quality to it. The Music Man on the other hand was the only weak performance of the night, it sounded clumsy and not all the cast was well utilized.
Arina Debose did incredible, all of her performances were incredible, nothing short of amazing. Every performance was incredible aside from the two mentioned. Every performer brought their all and it led to a mostly unforgettable night. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the speeches were inspiring and great, and it was nice to see multiple shows win. Some of the performances were so powerful and it was wonderful that the Tony Awards might move away from shows sweeping and recognize multiple shows.
I have seen worse Tony Awards, and this one was very good. Arina Debose should definitely host again, this awards show and the one prior were both incredible and reminders on why I love live theater. Last year and this year's shows were delightful, with only minimal confusion.
