Streaming Review: To Do A TONY AWARD® Broadcast, You Need 3 Things… Ariana DeBose, Ariana DeBose & Ariana DeBose

Welcome to another installment of our thoughts on some streaming entertainment, this time coming to you from the fab children at CBS/Paramount+.  So jump in the stream with Bobby, and let’s see if our rainbow lands on a pot of gold.

This week’s streaming entry in the BobbyFiles comes from the center of the universe, or, as you may know it, dear Bobby readers - BROADWAY! We are talking about the 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS® that was broadcast on CBS on June 11 and is now available to stream into your homes anytime commercial-free, for those paying members of Paramount+, as well as free to stream from CBS.com with a few commercials peppered in here and there - free ain’t FREE anymore, my angels. The very fact that there WERE Tonys this year, in the wake of a Writer’s Guild Of America strike that could very easily have closed the show before it opened, is a TelevisionLand miracle.  You see, my dear ones, no writers means no scripts, but this year a compromise was reached and the TONY AWARDS® broadcast went forward unscripted. “How is that a compromise?” Bobby can hear you yelling from the cheap seats… The WGA agreed to not protest the ceremony, for if there had been a picket line outside the United Palace Theatre, there is not a soul in this town who would have crossed it, even to pick up their own awards. It was touch and go there, in the days leading up to the Tonys, but Broadway’s biggest night was not collateral damage this round. Turns out, though, that all you need for your unscripted, live television awards broadcast is Ariana DeBose.

A star with the star power, charisma, and talent to work without a net, La DeBose did what a star does, like a… star - she proved herself a nimble and gorgeous captain of Antoinette’s yacht. Kicking off the night to a jazz medley of Broadway standards, DeBose & Co. danced their way through some pretty fab choreography by Karla Puno Garcia, and some really nifty camera work from director Glenn Weiss and his team that wove the picture in and out of the moving dancers, as well as instrumentalists decorating dressing rooms, stairs, and lobby throughout, as the camera traveled up and down the length and breadth of that enormous theatre, all in an unbroken tracking shot. DeBose, a bonafide triple threat who got her start on our New York City stages, slinked and stepped and threw herself down flights of stairs into the waiting arms of strong young men, and showed her talents can easily carry her from stage to screen and back again with ease, proving her bright and powerful (one more!) star is here to stay. Out of breath from dancing her face off, AD explained the unscripted nature of the evening with a comic’s timing and a dancer’s verve. Throughout the show, there was a most definite uptick in the energy each time she came to the stage but in the end, if you ask little Bobby, there just wasn’t enough of DeBose in DeBroadcast. 
 

 

It made Bobby wish they had given her a few more plates to spin, as she definitely could’ve handled them. One raindrop we must let fall with our rainbow, though, does involve our beautiful host. Midway through the night there came a moment to present John Kander & Joel Grey with their mutual lifetime achievement honors. Dancing to the HOT HONEY RAG from Kander’s musical CHICAGO (The still-running revival of which Mr. Grey starred in some 25+ years ago) AD and Julianne Hough missed the target in executing some substandard choreo by Garcia. The brief number was a swing and miss in the steps and in the lack of unison between the two dancers. To further compound the gaffe, there was really no presentation made, as the two venerable honorees were not allowed to receive the honor or say anything about it. Both BroadwayWorld editor, Stephen Mosher, & BWW contributor, Brady Schwind, agreed that the whole moment was ill-conceived, it had nothing to do with Fosse/Reinking, and it was a disappointment overall. “Mr. Grey and Mr. Kander are true giants of the theatre, and we are honored to say Wilkommen as the recipients of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Awards," said Heather Hitchens, President and CEO of the American Theatre Wing - Yeah, but apparently they aren’t giants enough to be allowed to speak, as all the other honorees did, and it was Wilkommen and get the hell off the stage, as the two nonagenarians walked out with their arms around each other’s shoulders, waved to the crowd, and walked right back off stage right… embarrassing.

That little moment aside, the evening proceeded with succinct efficiency. Mosher & Schwind both offered that all the presenters were good without all of the usual frustrating award-show banter, and the presenters were on their toes, having to work without scripts. No net on live Television means artists had to be creatively sharp and in the moment. Of the whole evening, Schwind said, “It was a great Tonys because they were forced to focus on the musical performances and the awards.” This down-to-business pace kept things moving and didn’t drag viewers down the tedium well. As for those musical performances, we three BWW writers agreed as to the following - SHUCKED represented its show very well, ditto SOME LIKE IT HOT, because, as you all know - “Tappy Make Me Happy!” KIMBERLY AKIMBO represented well because of Victoria Clark’s shimmering performance, which also describes the tone of that show; PARADE, a best revival nominee, picked the best number in the show, which gave its stars vocals that showed them to their best advantage, and INTO THE WOODS, another best revival nominee, was fun and most definitely sold tickets for their National tour. On the flip side, though, we all three agreed & JULIET did NOT present well, as the number chosen from this Catalogue Musical was the wrong choice and felt more like a canned Dancing With The Stars number. The one brief shining moment that should have been CAMELOT was a total miss this year, and, going by their Tonys performance, so is the production itself. Lerner & Loewe shows should be very light on their feet and this performance “... seemed like they were wearing cement shoes,” Mosher said. In a slightly strange turn of events, there was a performance from the current production of FUNNY GIRL - a not-nominated musical revival, because they went up LAST season, so one wonders why did the Theatre Wing invite them back this season? The simple answer is that the story of Lea Michele being so extraordinary in the wake of this production's stumbling start is of great theatrical interest, and since Lea could not be nominated for her replacement performance, she and her story deserved the recognition. Also, this “television commercial” for the show most definitely would bring people to the box office because Lea hit a whiz-bang home run with DON’T RAIN ON MY PARADE.
 

This brings us all back to the 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS® - As a commercial for Broadway, this year's ceremony was a solid representation to theatre fans all across the nation. Unlike the Oscars, where politics reigns and people get slapped, the vibe of this year’s Tonys was love. The backstage shots of cast members, including stars, cheering and high-fiving others as they came off stage between awards and musical numbers were touching in that “team spirit” kind of way, and spoke well of the heart of the American stage community to the people in middle America. In these times when audiences are in a big shift from older to younger with massively different tastes, this year's awards represented a Broadway that is in transition. With old-style shows like Shaiman & Wittman’s tap-a-licious SOME LIKE IT HOT and the Stro-helmed NEW YORK, NEW YORK - the last Kander & Ebb musical (with some Linn-Manuel Miranda Polish) we will ever see - facing off for box office dollars and awards recognitions with YA voiced shows & JULIET, KIMBERLY AKIMBO, and SHUCKED, the Tony Awards® this year moving bravely ahead under adverse circumstances were able to demonstrate craft, artistry and, most importantly, DIVERSITY. Hosted (a second time) by an out, proud, queer woman of color, presenting awards to queer and genderqueer players and creators, showing productions that are making “Non-Traditional” castings less and less traditional by actually doing more than token casting, and with all the players shown supporting each other backstage and in the house (catch Christian Borle in tears as his SOME LIKE IT HOT co-star, J. Harrison Ghee, took home their Tony) and the overall package that was the 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS® uplifted itself and gave the commercial theatre some mostly fine representations to non-New York residents who just may buy tickets to tours or on their visits to NYC. As such, and in agreement with my boss and The Schwindmeister, Bobby gives the 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS® a solid…

3 ½ Out 5 Rainbows - With Arianna DeBose Awarded Bobby’s full 5 Rainbows

Stream the 2023 TONY AWARDS® Commercial Free On: PARAMOUNT+

Or Free With Commercials On: CBS.COM
 

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