Tonys Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Viewing the EGOT shows

history

The Emmy Award nominations were announced on July 17. The awards will be given out in September. It got me thinking about my history of viewing the EGOT shows.

There are many other award shows, such as the Golden Globes and the Country Music Awards, but these are the Big Four.

Emmys

“The 1st Emmy Awards, retroactively known as the 1st Primetime Emmy Awards after the debut of the counterpart Daytime Emmy Awards, were presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club in Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 25, 1949.” However, the first three Emmy ceremonies were primarily given to shows produced or aired in Los Angeles and only broadcast there.

“Starting with the 4th Annual Emmy Awards, nominations were considered on a national television network basis.” There’s a complicated history involving the East Coast versus West Coast branches of the Academy.

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, I watched the Emmys regularly because there were shows I watched that I rooted for, mostly on the on-air networks, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Hill Street Blues. “Cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. Original online-only streaming television programs then became eligible in 2013.”

Changing environment

Also: “Networks shell out big bucks to get those winged ladies sitting in their offices. TV Guide reports that an average Emmy campaign costs between $150,000 and $500,000. In 1993, HBO reportedly spent $1 million on its campaigns, an investment that paid off when the network took home more awards than most broadcast networks for the first time.

“In 2013, Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ was the first streaming service series to win an Emmy. Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was the first to win an Emmy for outstanding drama in 2017, and in 2018, Amazon’s ‘The Marvelous Ms. Maisel’ was the first to do so in comedy.”

I look at the current nominees. I’ve seen some of the shows in the talk series, variety specials, and game shows. (Three of the Outstanding Variety Special (live) are the Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys.) But aside from Abbott Elementary, I’ve seen very few others, so I’m no longer inclined to watch that awards show.

Grammys

“The second Annual Grammys Awards, held on November 29, 1959, were the first to be televised, but not live. The ceremony was broadcast on NBC as a taped special called NBC Sunday Showcase and hosted by Meredith Willson.”

Finally, the Grammys were broadcast live in 1971, and I watched them religiously. I specifically recall Paul Simon winning for Still Crazy After All These Years and thanking Stevie Wonder for not putting out an album.

Then, in the early 2000s, I stopped watching it because I didn’t know the musicians. But as my daughter started listening to music on her own, I restarted watching, precisely because I didn’t know the musicians.

Oscars

On March 19, 1953, “The Oscars presentation was first televised. The NBC TV and radio network carried the 25th Oscars ceremonies live from Hollywood, with Bob Hope as master of ceremonies, and from the NBC International Theatre in New York, with Fredric March making the presentations.”

It was the only one of the four I’ve always watched. When I was a kid, movie stars were almost like royalty, even if I’d never seen their movies. Starting in the 1970s, I watched because I had rooting interests. As late as 1995, I would listen to the radio at 8:37 a.m. Eastern time to catch the announcements of the major nominations. Now, I record it and watch the show at leisure; this is true of most television I watch.

Tonys

“The 21st Annual Tony Awards ceremony was broadcast on March 26, 1967, from the Shubert Theatre in New York City on the ABC Television network. This was the Awards ceremony’s inaugural broadcast on U.S. network television.”

But I don’t remember just when I started watching the Tonys. Perhaps it was in the 1980s when I caught the Kennedy Center Honors. They’re both prestige shows with low ratings that CBS broadcasts year after year.

In 2005, I wrote about them in the first six weeks of this blog. “I watch the Tony Awards because it is generally all I know of the shows on Broadway. I mean, there is usually ONE show I’ve heard of…” Nowadays, I know a lot more about the shows, even if I haven’t seen them.

When the musicals and plays tour and appear in Schenectady’s Proctors Theatre or occasionally other venues, I have a sense of the storyline. Also, “I like to discover that a number of actors better known from other venues are on the boards.”

Here’s my love letter to the Tonys from 2011.

Actor Geoffrey Rush turns 70

Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner

Although I’ve seen or heard the actor Geoffrey Rush in a number of movies, I always associate him with one. And no, it’s not Pirates of the Caribbean.

It’s Shine, from 1996. IMDB notes: “Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.”

Rush won the Oscar for Best Actor. The film received several other nominations, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Dramatic Score. I bought the CD of the score; it is recommended.

Sometimes, it’s one movie that propels a performer from a working professional to someone who people can recognize by name. But I know almost nothing about the man’s life, other than he’s from Australia.

Again, from IMDB: He was born “in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He was raised in Brisbane, Queensland after his parents split up…”

“He performed in theater for a number of years… Film-goers finally began taking notice of Geoffrey after his performance in Children of the Revolution (1996).

“This led to THE role of a lifetime as the highly dysfunctional piano prodigy David Helfgott in Shine (1996). Rush’s astonishing tour-de-force performance won him every conceivable award imaginable, including the Oscar, Golden Globe, British Film Award, and Australian Film Institute Award.”

After SHINE

“Shine not only put Rush on the international film map but atypically on the Hollywood ‘A’ list as well. His rather homely mug…” Ouch. OK, he’s certainly not classically handsome, but…

His “completely charming, confident and captivating demeanor” allowed him to “more easily dissolve into a number of transfixing historical portrayals, notably his Walsingham in Elizabeth (1998) and Leon Trotsky in Frida (2002),” both of which I saw.

I’ve also appreciated his work in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; Lantana (2001), a murder mystery; Finding Nemo (2003), voicing Nigel the seagull; and The King’s Speech (2010) as Lionel Logue.

“Rush’s intermittent returns to the stage have included productions of Marat-Sade, Uncle Vanya, Oleanna, Hamlet, and The Small Poppies. In 2009 he made his Broadway debut in Exit the King,” written by Eugene Ionesco, co-starring Susan Sarandon, and co-adapted by Rush. He got a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance.

On television, he played Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) on HBO, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award, meaning he’s won the acting Triple Crown.

“His marriage (since 1988) to Aussie classical actress Jane Menelaus produced daughter Angelica (1992) and son James (1995). Menelaus, who has also performed with the State Theatre of South Australia, has co-starred on stage with Rush… She also had featured roles in a few of his films, including Quills (2000) and The Eye of the Storm (2011).”

Geoffrey Rush is a successful, talented actor, who largely travels below the radar of a lot of people.

My favorite numbers from musicals

“there will be no morning star.”

Back in April, Mark Evanier linked to someone’s Top 100 Broadway Songs of All Time from 2020. Some took great umbrage with the list, especially with EIGHT songs from Hamilton, and SEVEN from The Book of Mormon. Plus there was a dearth of songs from Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and Kurt Weill.

Conversely, Dave’s Music Database from 2016 has NO songs from Hamilton. Whereas WhatsOnStage created a pretty balanced list in 2017.

In honor of what would have been the month for the Tonys, I’m going to, instead, pick my favorite numbers from musicals. Moreover, and this will be difficult, I’m going to limit it to one song per show.

I’m not going to worry if it was a song added to the movie version of the Broadway productions. You’re the One That I Want from Grease can be considered. Heck, someone put Over the Rainbow on a list. But nothing from Jersey Boys, or Tina, or Mamma Mia, or Summer, songs that were pop tunes long before the musical.

I recognize that I too would, without discipline, would lean heavily towards the songs in my lifetime. Most of the earlier ones I associate as part of the Great American Songbook. Whereas the later tunes I recognize, mostly from the movie versions of musicals and I have a specific PERFORMANCE in my mind’s ear.

FWIW. Heading towards my favorites. I could have picked at least 20 more songs, including A Musical from Something Rotten!

Mel Brooks

Springtime for Hitler (The Producers, 2001) – the stunned silence of the audience from the 1968 movie at 2:25 is delicious.
Send in the Clowns (A Little Night Music, 1973) – I know this largely from the version by Judy Collins.
Some Enchanted Evening (South Pacific, 1949) I used to intentionally come up with the mondegreen Sam and Janet Evening
I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables, 1985) – it’s terribly schmaltzy, in a good way
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered – (Pal Joey) – I opted for Ella.

Close Every Door (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, 1972) – I always thought Joseph was a thin album, but this was the strongest piece by far. Yes, Donny Osmond.
It’s a Hard-Knock Life (Annie, 1977). This became a pop song in the 1990s, as I have it on one of those compilation discs.
Oklahoma (Oklahoma!, 1943). If I didn’t know how to spell the 46th state, I do now. Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and More were considered.
All that Jazz (Chicago, 1975) I also like Cell Block Tango.
Summertime (Porgy and Bess, 1935)- SO many versions, several on the same album.

More Rodgers and Hart

Falling in Love with Love (The Boys from Syracuse, 1938). A song from the Supremes Sing Rodgers and Hart. I could have picked This Can’t Be Love, or Sing for Your Supper, covered by the Mamas and the Papas, from this show.
Circle of Life (The Lion King, 1997) – I’ve seen this at least four times, not counting the animated version. Twice a Broadway-level performance at Proctors in Schenectady, once at a high school, and once in a church production featuring my daughter
Don’t Rain on My Parade (Funny Girl, 1964). Barbra’s like butta.
Mack the Knife (The Threepenny Opera, 1928). Of course, it’s the Bobby Darin version, but I like the original too.
Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat (Guys and Dolls, 1950). About 1960, my father worked on a production of this show for Binghamton Civic Theater.

Money makes the world go round – Cabaret. I saw the movie with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey when it first came out. The title track is probably a better SONG, but this resonated more.
Superstar (Jesus Christ Superstar, 1971) A pivotal album for me as I went to college. Perhaps I Don’t Know How To Love Him or Heaven on Their Minds could have been chosen.
Edelweiss (The Sound of Music, 1959). This was such a convincing song that people actually thought it was a real folk tune And it’s the reprise that gets to me.
The Flesh Failures/Let the Sunshine In (Hair, 1968) – the reprise of Manchester, England, not the jaunty first version but an anguished one gets to me.
The Time Warp (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1973) The bass vocal line is right in my vocal range.

Who’s gonna pay…

Seasons of Love (Rent, 1996) – higher math.
And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going) from Dreamgirls. This is your basic showstopper.
Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton, 2015). Leslie Odom Jr. said he decided he wanted to do this show after hearing 21 seconds of this song. I could have picked My Shot, Wait for It, or a number of others, but this sets the table.
Tradition (Fiddler on the Roof, 1964). The fact that this story translates into so many languages and cultures is a sign of its enduring strength. I could have picked If I Were A Rich Man or Sunrise, Sunset, but this too sets the table. My second favorite musical.
Tonight/ Quintet (West Side Story, 1957) – when I heard this in the 1961 movie, I practically cried. You can do multiple melodies like that. This is why this was my favorite musical. Oh, and the other songs too, such as Somewhere and America.

What’s on your list?

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MUSIC

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‘Be More Chill’ parody of Michael in the Bathroom

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The Monster Song – Freezepop

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I’m Still Standing – Sonny Vande Putt

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First Suite in E-flat – Gustav Holst

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