Brian's NYC

Well, another season on Broadway is over, and nothing really surprised me about last night's awards.

Whoopi was fantastic as host. Her interspersed skits and routines were brilliant, and kept the show fresh and funny. She is quickly joining the ranks of memorable and capable awards show hosts of our generation.

The opening with The Lion King performing "Circle of Life" has been seen time and time again all over the place, and was just as unthrilling as it has become recently. But kudos to them for being open 10 years....it's still a theatrical spectacle, in terms of visual arts.

Other performances were interesting, but mostly unthrilling. Is that because I've seen most of them? The RENT performance proved how tired the show has become, with the awkward "La Vie Boheme" performance totally trumped by the OBC's "Seasons of Love" reprise. The commentary in the middle was quite moving, though. I don't like the combination of the full and reprise of "Part of Your World" that they've been having Sierra Boggess perform everywhere. She has such a great belt, and they do away with it and have her change keys and go into her head voice at the end of the reprise. Good exposure for her, and the show I suppose, though. In The Heights had a strange song selection, but was fun to watch (seeing the show next week, I can't wait!!). Passing Strange and Sunday in the Park with George was weird and unthrilling, too. I liked the South Pacific performace, though. And Cheyenne Jackson rocked it out in the Xanadu performance. Everything else was kind of as I expected it to be.

As far as the awards go, nothing surprised me! I'm happy for Laura Benanti, Deanna Dunagan, Rondi Reed, and Lin Manuel Miranda for winning awards for their work. I think it's great. I didn't particularly like how they combined so many awards, like they weren't important enough (CHOREOGRAPHY?! BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL?! BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY?!). But I suppose having a 4 hour awards ceremony is too much for television...

I'm sad that Curtis Holbrook didn't get to perform with Xanadu, and found it interesting that Tamyra Gray performed with RENT, even though she did her last performance earlier in the day. I'm also bummed Christopher Fitzgerald got snubbed for Frankenstein, and would have loved to see Raul Esparza go home with an award. But there are always politics and upsets that play into awards shows like this, so what can you do!!

Next season it will be all Shrek and Billy Elliott and Godspell and crazy stuff like that! Here's to another year of Broadway!