Sunday, June 11, 2006

Not Outrageously Special Tony Award Edition

I mean, I'd only seen two of the nominated shows: Sweeney Todd and Souvenir, both strewn with adverbs and such in these pages. So I didn't have a lot of emotional investment in the proceedings. I suppose I was sorry that Patti LuPone didn't pick up a statuette for her dirty work, but for all I know La Chanze (who I hope will be provided with a last name as part of her prize) actually brought things to the role of Celie that Angela Lansbury simply didn't have in the original production. Oh, wait...

So all I really want to say is I guess people should stop writing musicals now that they're giving top honors to musicals where the important process was photocopying. Yes, I have a giant chip on my shoulder about jukebox musicals, never having seen one. That's just because the whole idea is so goddamn stupid. I'm just terribly afraid in fifty years the choices on broadway are going to be "Toxic! The Musical" and "Glitter, the Mariah Carey Story." That sound you hear coming from Mount Olympus is Euterpe, the lyric muse, chugging (nay--shotgunning) a bottle of Drano.

For a much more thorough round-up, please see manprano.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen, Maury. Jukebox musicals is the perfect name for whatever we're calling this disaster that hit Broadway with the advent of Mamma Mia. I hear Jason Robert Brown's wife is composing... Any word on that?

Maury D'annato said...

I'm going to have to admit total ignorance of who Jason Robert Brown is, and get doubly on your shit list (in re: Chicago, all I can say is for all my swagger on here ((ha ha)) I must be secretly a wallflower about meeting fellow blogsters and blogstresses...with one notable exception.) So anyway I'm guessing he's a broadway composer since they all seem really middle-name-identified what with Ricky Ian Gordon and Whatsit Whatsit LaChiusa and stuff and p.s. who the hell goes by Ricky past middle school?

Chalkenteros said...

the whole jukebox musical concept is gefückt up. I was embarassed for myself watching that "scene" from Jersey Boys last night. I never went back to CBS after switching to HBO at 10 for Entourage (which, I might add, was mightily disappointing).

After the Drowsey Chaperone bit, the entire Tony affair was gloomy and pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Well, you can be forgiven for not knowing who JRB is, but I'm going to pout if you don't holla next time you're in town.

Besides, if Matt Dean likes me, I can't be all bad can I?