Was Nine's Win an Upset?

[Jay94]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:00am

I've never known whether this is the case or not? Was Dreamgirls expected to win Best Musical?

Either way, a huge shame it didn't win.

[once a month]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:06am

Well it certainly was an upset to Michael Bennett and Dreamgirls! Apparently the late inclusion of Tunes' Nine really pissed Benentt off.

Loved both shows-saw them the exact same day.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:12am

It was only an upset because it opened the last day of the season and up until that point it was Dreamgirls all the way.

Personally, I think Nine totally deserved the win. Dreamgirls is an excellent musical, one of the best even.

But to me, Nine is a masterpiece.

[castlestreet]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:20am

Timing, sometimes its everything.

Nine was a show that was written by a total novice and was brilliantly staged by Tommy Tune. While I have seen the show on tape, I can't say I saw it live. Those that did have said it was one of the few masterpieces they ever saw on a stage. Yeston turned out a big and beautiful score to a complex story with a top notch cast assembled on stage.

I think Dreamgirls was a great show as well- but in my book Nine is one of the true greats, and it is so sad that for so many non-theater goers their knowledge of the property is the failed motion picture.

[ggersten]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:28am

I saw Dreamgirls and Nine the same weekend in, I believe, June 83. I remember thinking at the time that Nine was the far better show - but over time, it is the Dreamgirls staging I remember far more than what I saw in Nine.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 9:54am

It was a surprise more than an upset. Dreamgirls was a big hit and the talk of the season. Nine opened just in time to be eligible for the Tonys and was the surprising winner that night, but Dreamgirls cleaned up just fine, especially in the acting categories and Tune and Bennett split the Direction and Choreography awards. At the time I had only seen Dreamgirls, was obsessed of course, and was surprised this other show took Best Musical. Then I became just as obsessed by the gorgeous "usurper". All in all, I wouldve been happy if they shared the award, as Nine didnt deserve to lose either. What a season!

"Sunday in the Park" did the same thing, opening just before the cutoff and being nom'd for as many awards as the BIG hit "La Cage"...but before all of us got to see it. That was just two years later...it just didnt win.

[bryan2]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 5:07pm

I had seen Dreamgirls in try outs in Boston on halloween so when Tony time came I though it had a slam dunk- then when they said Nine I was pissed...until I went 2 weeks later in July and saw it and was blown away by Nine -the staging and the performaces and the story just really amazed me I loved it
It was a masterpiece as far as i am concerned..to bad the Movie just left out tooo much music to have the same feeling...and the little boy singing at the end of the show will never leave me Getting Tall a great song!...love antonio version also

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 5/30/12 at 5:14pm

I think Dreamgirls, too, is a masterpiece. And I'd say it's a far more important musical than Nine in terms of theme and its take on racial issues. Nine, when you get down to it, is about a rich and handsome man's midlife crisis. It's great...but it doesn't have the historical heft that Dreamgirls does. What it has is musical heft through that sumptuous score. Dreamgirls, on the other hand, gets dismissed because it explores the darker themes of what it means to be black in America through pop music.

Once again, it's like comparing West Side Story and The Music Man, which are as close to perfect as musicals get. Same with Nine and Dreamgirls.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 7:15pm

In Mandelbaum's Bennett bio, it sounds like Bennett was very hurt by the whole thing, and apparently requested Tune (who of course had been something of a protoge of his) to wait to open it--also suggesting that maybe it wasn't read to open yet. The quotes from those close to Bennett say that at the time his patially cocaine induced paranoia had really gotten the best of him for a while around when it happened. I know for some time after he refused to talk to Tune, and I'm not sure if they ever mended fences by the time he died.

Kelly's Bennett bio, One Singular Sensation is MUCH MUCH more "dishy" in its gossip--and has a number of factual errors that even I noticed right away, so I wouldn't take it as honestly, but he goes into the whole thing in much more (awful) detail, implying it mentally was the last straw for Bennett and caused near suicide. Like I said, the book is the equivalent of something like Hollywood Babylon--except even less verrified in fact--so I wouldn't read too much into that, but it obviously upset him.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 7:28pm

Nine is one of the most beautiful musicals ever written. A true masterpiece.

[bdn223]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 7:52pm

This type of "upset" is more common in acting catagories where a show opens in the fall (Follies) and a member of the cast (Elaine Paige) gets amazing reviews, and then in the spring another show opens (Nice Work) and a member of its cast (Judy kaye) gets just as amazing reviews, and the prior is all but forgotten.

[Jay94]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 9:19pm

Wasn't Bennett happy with the half dozen of Tony's he had already won?

[jv92]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 9:19pm

One thing that I've always wondered is that IF NINE had not opened that year, would Sondheim have won Best Score for MERRILY... (Its only nomination), or would the poorly rhymed lyrics and Motown-ripoffs of DREAMGIRLS have won?

I think Bennett, while a genius, was not the most gracious man post-CHORUS LINE. It almost was like telling a little kid that wins a baseball trophy that he's the new Jeter. (Does that make sense? Not really.) Of course, Bennett was a genius and the next Jerry Robbins, but I think CHORUS LINE's success may have went to his head just a tad. Just a tad. He was also, as stated, heavily on drugs in the late 70s into the 80s.

Updated On: 5/31/12 at 09:19 PM

[751guy]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 10:10pm

I worked on the original DREAMGIRLS production when it premiered in Boston, leaving the audience dumb-founded and speechless after the first act curtain. The silence went on for what seemed like minutes, although it was only probably about twenty seconds. Of course, what happened next... the response was the most deafening sound I've ever heard in a theatre. The Boston audiences were stunned by what they had just witnessed and these were seasoned, hard-core theatergoers who had witnessed a lifetime of theatrical magic.

NINE opened late in the season and was the 'new kid' on the block. I always say the DREAMGIRLS cast had pissed off everyone in town for six months, stiffing one waiter after another, so by the time of the Tonys, it was payback time. And yes, it was a shocker NINE won!

If you ever see the Tony broadcast from 1982, the five producers are shown on the screen in blocks and as they announce 'Nine' as 'Best Musical,' I swear Dreamgirls' producer Bernie Jacobs can be seen saying 'Holy F**k!' At the time and in hindsight, it's hysterical.

I know NINE is a favorite here and rightly so, but DREAMGIRLS with its stunning performances and cinematic staging was a monumental production. I loved NINE, too, and it won 'Best Musical' and in that time and place, it probably was. Then again, who ever said the Tonys actually always give the award to the best?

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 5/31/12 at 11:54pm

The backlash shows how unfortunate it was that Michael was so "high" at that time that instead of being proud of a friend's success he asked Tune to postpone NINE. It was, of course not Tune's call to do that. What producer would move an opening to early Summer?
Both shows were flawless and landmarks.

I'm sure it was a very close vote on Best Musical and NINE got the votes, it happens.

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 6/1/12 at 9:44am

Sondheim would never have won the Tony for MERRILY. The show was considered a disaster (the recording had just become available, months after the show closed), and the award was clearly going to go to NINE or DREAMGIRLS.

And the trick about opening at the very end of the season really was started that year, when NINE introduced what came to be known as "the Tommy Tune rule."

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 4:54am

Nine didn't just open at the end of the season. It opened the very last day of the season. So It was Sunday night opening, Monday rave reviews, Tuesday Tony nominations. So it had incredible momentum going into the Tonys. Plus you had all the press with Anita Morris being banned from TV for her costume. It was neck and neck that evening with the two shows splitting the book and score awards and then the surprise win of Ben Harney over Raul Julia. so it really could have gone either way....but I think predictors were giving Nine the edge.

(I'll never understand how Anita Morris lost to Lillianne Montevecchi though.)

[AADA81]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 5:32am

I lived in NYC back then and I remember "Dreamgirls" being the absolute talk of the town. I saw it in February '82 and thought it was stunning. It's Tony win seemed pre-ordained and then "Nine" came out of nowhere with rave reviews and long lines. "Nine" was touted as being superior in artistic achievement, which I think it was, and "Dreamgirls" was talked about in terms of staging and choreography. "Nine" was definitely a presence in the media, though. You didn't have to see the show to be familiar with the white geometric set design.

I think what might have also hurt "Dreamgirls" is Michael Bennett's reputation by that point. He'd burned bridges and alienated many in the theater community after the "Chorus Line" success. I seem to recall much vitriol when his name came up with colleagues at the time, not that that's what you base awards on...but it sure doesn't help. I suppose the Best Musical could have gone either way, but "Nine" definitely had a "new-kid-on-the-block" aura that gave it a bit of an edge in the end.

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 7:17am

Nine was the far superior show, but let's face it, Tony Awards have nothing to do with merit. (Just look at what will happen next Sunday.)

And enough already with the endless Michael Bennett worship. (Not the Michael Bennett on this board who deserves boundless praise.) He was/is so overrated. Tune was better.

And it's time to stop bandying about the word "genius" so casually. Mozart was a genius. Shakespeare was a genius. Michael Bennett was a successful Broadway director/choreographer.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 7:46am

I remember what the consensus here suggests, that most people tended to like both shows, that they were perceived (rightly) to be entirely different in tone, style and execution of course. Yet because both bore the strong imprint of innovative directors, there wasn't a lot of the sort of SUNDAY vs. LA CAGE debate, which were more "the future of musical theater" angle we often still hear, old school vs. new.

That said, there were some who groused that NINE was the more "adult" show because it was elegantly Euro-centric, as opposed to a show about Motown. Remember, the core form of the music in DREAMGIRLS hadn't fully left radio airplay in the early 80s. The 60s were still in our rearview mirror. So it seemed contemporary in tone. Now, of course, DREAMGIRLS seems more substantive from a sociopolitical even historical standpoint, if not necessarily an artistic one. A show about an Italian narcissist is a rarefied slice of a very select global demographic; a show about a distinctly American, very popular art form has a longer reach into our collective consciousness. Nothing to do with artistic merit, but certainly as the separate films reminded us, DREAMGIRLS is about us, the role our music plays in our culture. NINE is about -- well, an Italian man with women trouble. (Yes, more than that -- but the take-away? A film maker who burns out? Not a universal experience.) I don't think these content issues can be left out of the discussion when the influence or reputations are debated.

Updated On: 6/2/12 at 07:46 AM

[SFFrontRow]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 8:53am

1982 was my first exposure to Broadway theater and I saw both original productions in May prior to the Tony awards. As a newbie, I was awestruck by Dreamgirls and left cold by Nine. I thought Nine was showy in a "look at me I'm theatrical" kind of way while I really did see the more cinematic fluidity of Dreamgirls and that awesome cast (although Nine had a GREAT cast, I was confused by who was who - remember I was a newbie and was overwhelmed by the number of characters). I also preferred a more linear story back then and Nine was anything BUT linear.

After 30 years of attending Broadway theater (and having seen just about everything of importance over those years), I can appreciate the brilliance of Nine and realize how each show had their own sense of style and presentation. At that point it gets down to two things, personal preference and the buzz factor. Flip the opening dates and you may have had Nine the frontrunner and Dreamgirls the "upset" winner.

I would have gone with Dreamgirls because of the more cinematic essence of that show. Flashy in a different way than Nine.



Updated On: 6/2/12 at 08:53 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 9:00am

"I thought Nine was showy in a "look at me I'm theatrical" kind of way "

Funny, that's how I felt about Dreamgirls.

Actually, all of Bennett's shows had that "look at me aren't I brilliant" feel.

[SFFrontRow]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 9:03am

To put it more succinctly, I was young and theatrically inexperienced. Dreamgirls was more like a movie and Nine was over my head at the time.

[lupone76]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 9:22am

That's funny Front Row, cause at the time I was really young. I'm sure even younger than you were. I was a mere 7 years old. I instantly loved and understood Nine(the best a 7yo can)and was confused by Dreamgirls and not into at all. I dragged mom and dad back to Nine a few more times during it's run but had no desire to return to Dreamgirls. I remember even at that early age loving the score to Nine. I used to go home and play the record and perform the entire show playing everyones role. When I got on the floor and performed A Call From The Vatican is when my parents realized I was gay.







Updated On: 6/2/12 at 09:22 AM

[chewy5000]

Posted: 6/2/12 at 9:25am

Joseph?