Contact - 2000 Tonys
Contact - 2000 Tonys
#1Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 7:01pm
Hello!
I was watching the 2000 Tonys on YouTube and when I heard Contact won, I decided to search YouTube to find more clips of the show. It seemed the only promotion it did was its "Simply Irresistible" number. What was the appeal of the show to let it win the Tony for Best Musical? Was it well-received by critics? I guess I just never see much about the show anymore, nor see any regional theaters put it on.
TheGingerBreadMan
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/7/12
#2Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 7:03pm
It was simply a weak season. There was an array of mediocre shows.
#3Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 7:10pm
The Wild Party and Marie Christine were both more inventive, thrilling, and deserving of the award. Toni Collette was robbed.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
#4Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 7:23pm
I'd be interested to see a regional production of CONTACT, but it's hard to remount a dance show. That being said, AIDA, WILD PARTY, and MARIE CHRISTINE are all personal favorites that were overshadowed.
"I saw Pavarotti play Rodolfo on stage and with his girth I thought he was about to eat the whole table at the Cafe Momus." - Dollypop
#5Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 7:41pm
I LOVED Contact. I also greatly enjoyed Aida & The Wild Party. Tough season, but Contact was more original.
A Chorus Line revival played its final Broadway performance on August 17, 2008. The tour played its final performance on August 21, 2011. A new non-equity tour started in October 2012 played its final performance on March 23, 2013. Another non-equity tour launched on January 20, 2018. The tour ended its US run in Kansas City and then toured throughout Japan August & September 2018.
#6Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 8:35pm
CONTACT was also the impetus for the Tonys creating the Special Theatrical Event award.
broadwaysfguy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/27/14
#7Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 9:30pm
contact was not a musical and aida should have won in 2000
BroadwayMan5
Featured Actor Joined: 7/30/15
#8Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 10:01pm
I think Aida should have won but at the very least, it should have been nominated. It was not a perfect show by any means, but it had beautiful music, some inventive designs, and some super strong performances from the leads
#9Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 10:07pm
I may be in the minority, but Contact is one of my favorites of the 2000s. As a longtime dancer, I saw Contact as being the ultimate example of what good dance compositions try to do: tell a complete story with motion. The staging, music, and dialogue put together with the dance was such a great night of story telling to me.
The show is rarely staged regionally, but the individual sections are occasionally staged by colleges. I saw a great staging of "Did You Move?" a few years ago and was a background dancer in the second act piece titled "Contact" about a decade ago as a graduation piece that was staged by two original cast members.
Wayman_Wong
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/22/04
#10Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 11:09pm
I agree with BroadwayMan5: ''Aida'' should've won Best Musical.
But I think the Tony nominators were snobs to snub it because it was a Disney show. If it had been nominated for Best Musical, it might've won; the Tony voters were more receptive, awarding it 4 out of 5 nominations: Actress, Score, Scenery and Lighting.
I also thought Sherie Rene Scott should've won Featured Actress, but she didn't even get nominated! ... Happily, ''Aida'' found an audience, running for over 1,800 performances (which was more than the 4 Best Musical nominees - ''Contact,'' ''James Joyce's The Dead,'' ''Swing!'' and ''The Wild Party'' - put together).
Speed
Broadway Star Joined: 7/12/03
#11Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 11:38pm
Contact was awesome. A completely original piece of theater directed/choreographed by Susan Stroman at her best. There is no point in doing it without Stroman's choreography. It is her creation. It's not a book musical open up to other interpretations. There was talk of a movie but it obviously didn't happen. To answer the OP 's question, Ben Brantley raved. One of the most positive reviews I've ever read.
Speed
Broadway Star Joined: 7/12/03
#12Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 11:39pm
Contact was awesome. A completely original piece of theater directed/choreographed by Susan Stroman at her best. There is no point in doing it without Stroman's choreography. It is her creation. It's not a book musical open up to other interpretations. There was talk of a movie but it obviously didn't happen. To answer the OP 's question, Ben Brantley raved. One of the most positive reviews I've ever read.
#13Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/22/17 at 11:59pm
I found Contact to be one of the most boring things I've ever seen. I couldn't wait for it to end.
My favorite musical of that season was Aida, as others have mentioned. A far from perfect show, but it was at times thrilling. And I think it's the best theatrical score Elton John has written to date (yes, far better than Billy Elliott).
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#14Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 2:32am
I can't stand when live performance lovers can't take things that are outside a traditional structure. Contact was an amazing experience with music.The fact that it didn't follow its structure traditionally and by the numbers doesn't make it a non-musical. There were three distinct stories told through music, all awesome in their own way. That is a musical, and it rightly won. It would have done well regardless of the season.
I'm grateful that there are artists willing to push the envelope, mix disciplines and be ahead of their games. Those who claim Contact wasn't a musical sound like bitchy grannies who won't accept anything new.
Funny that no one bitches about Fosse, which won the year before. At least Contact was not just a musical revue.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
Updated On: 5/23/17 at 02:32 AM
#15Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 8:35am
James Joyce's The Dead, while not perfect, was the best musical on Broadway that season. It's a crime the original cast was never recorded.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#16Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 4:23pm
Being bored by CONTACT (as I was) had nothing to do with rejecting a radical new form of musical theater, and everything to do with being faced with cliched characters moving through cliched scenarios that never engaged me enough to care about their stories. For me it was worse than a review like FOSSE, which at least could hook me with the great lyric wordplay and historical interest. Give me the imperfect thrills of THE WILD PARTY and AIDA any day, both of which grabbed me by the heart.
#17Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 4:52pm
The Wild Party and James Joyce's The Dead were both better than Contact, which really wasn't a "musical."
#18Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 5:04pm
I'm amazed at the number of posters who've apparently seen The Wild Party and James Joyce's The Dead, which ran for 68 and 120 performances respectively.
#19Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 5:09pm
adamgreer said: "I'm amazed at the number of posters who've apparently seen The Wild Party and James Joyce's The Dead, which ran for 68 and 120 performances respectively.
What a ridiculous statement.
#20Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 5:36pm
adamgreer said: "I'm amazed at the number of posters who've apparently seen The Wild Party and James Joyce's The Dead, which ran for 68 and 120 performances respectively.
"
Not everyone on this board was born in 2003. I saw all four of the best musical nominees that year. Plus AIDA and MARIE CHRISTINE.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#21Contact - 2000 Tonys
Posted: 5/23/17 at 11:55pm
AIDA was robbed. It was obvious that the Nominating Committee had a bias against Disney. It could easily have won. It's a shame, as this was Disney's first attempt to bring a non-existing film property to the stage, and that should have been welcomed rather than sending the message that they were invading Broadway. AIDA was the third Disney show to exist on the Broadway boards with THE LION KING and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST dominating box office attendance. AIDA has flaws, but forgivable ones. What is good in the show is REALLY GOOD and what needs work in the show is serviceable. The REALLY GOOD certainly outweighs the bad.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
--Aristotle
