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A Big Night for Broadway, and Especially for Billy
Broadway productions with roots in the London theater dominated the 63rd annual Tony Awards on Sunday, with “Billy Elliot” winning best musical and nine other
awards and “God of Carnage” picking up honors for best play, best
director and best actress.
While several categories were
unusually competitive this year because of the large number of strong
Broadway productions, there were also no major upsets. The three
teenage boys who rotate in the title role of “Billy Elliot” — David
Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish — jointly won the award for
best actor in a musical, as expected, and they also injected
considerable charm into the CBS telecast.
Standing onstage
together, they covered their eyes with their hands at different points
and looked away from the camera bashfully while muttering sentiments
like “Oh my God” and “wow” and “unbelievable.”
Then they took a
long pause, as if trying to decide who should speak first — joint Tony
Awards are very rare — and then went on to thank their parents and
siblings and school and dance teachers.
“And we want to say to all the kids out there who might want to dance, never give up,” Mr. Kulish added.
“Billy
Elliot” proved to be the commercial and critical musical hit of the
2008-9 Broadway season, routinely grossing more than $1 million a week
in spite of the recession. Elton John,
who composed the show’s score, made a point of thanking audience
members for that success as he accepted the award for best musical.
“We
came here at a hard time economically, you opened your wallets and you
opened your hearts, and we love you for it,” he said. This year’s
awards were spread around evenly for the most part, with 14 shows
receiving at least one Tony. With “Billy Elliot” far ahead, the musical
“Next to Normal” and “God of Carnage” were next up with three Tonys
each, including best actress honors for Alice Ripley for “Normal” and Marcia Gay Harden for “Carnage.”
The French playwright Yasmina Reza accepted the best play award for “Carnage,” which also took honors for the British director Matthew Warchus.
“I’m
very happy to be here again — maybe you missed my accent; you wanted to
hear it again?” said Ms. Reza, who previously won for her play “Art.”
The award for best revival of a play went to another British import,
“The Norman Conquests.”
If accents were indeed in large supply
through the night, so were celebrity presenters and recipients, with
Broadway having one of its busiest years for actors from film and
television. The Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush (an Australian) was honored as best actor in a play as the monarch in
“Exit the King” by Eugène Ionesco, whose works came to define the
Theater of the Absurd yet are rarely revived on Broadway.
“I want to thank Manhattan theater audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragi-comedy rocks,” Mr. Rush said.
Politics strayed onto the Tony landscape at only a couple of points, most notably when Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, accepted the award for best musical revival for “Hair.”
“Peace
now, freedom now, equality now,” Mr. Eustis said, gesturing to his ring
finger as he uttered those last two words, a reference to gay marriage
rights. “And justice forever.”
Angela Lansbury won her fifth Tony Award, for best featured actress in a play, for her
turn as the medium in “Blithe Spirit,” 43 years after winning her first
award, for best actress in the musical “Mame.”
“Who knew, who
knew, that at this time in my life that I should be presented with this
lovely, lovely award,” said Ms. Lansbury, who is 83.
Liza Minnelli received the Tony for special theatrical event for her one-woman show
“Liza’s at the Palace.” For best featured performances in a musical,
Gregory Jbara (“Billy Elliot”) and Karen Olivo (“West Side Story”) were
honored. The best featured actor award went to another theater veteran,
Roger Robinson, for his role in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”
Other awards went to Stephen Daldry for his direction of “Billy Elliot,” “Mary Stuart” for costume design
and “Equus” for sound design. All three shows had runs in London before
the current Broadway productions were mounted.
The televised
ceremony on CBS began with an unusual opening number: an athletically
choreographed musical mélange that stretched for 10 minutes and
featured performances from 10 different Broadway shows, including “West
Side Story” (with actors singing a section of “Tonight”), “Billy
Elliot” (“Electricity”) and “Hair” (“Let the Sun Shine In”).
Some of the numbers overlapped to the point of near-inaudibility, and there was a peculiar moment as Stockard Channing (“Pal Joey”) and Aaron Tveit (“Next to Normal”) made eyes at each other
as they performed songs from their shows that, in tandem, bordered on
the discordant. Dolly Parton sang the title number from the musical “9 to 5” even though she is not in the show.
The telecast did not lack for star power: the first award presenters were Jane Fonda (who was nominated for her lead role in the play “33 Variations”) and James Gandolfini (HBO’s Tony Soprano) and Jeff Daniels, who were both best-actor nominees for “God of Carnage.”
Mr.
Gandolfini received one of the big laughs of the night when he and Mr.
Daniels appeared onstage immediately after a number from the musical
“Shrek,” based on the DreamWorks film about a green ogre.
“For the record, Shrek and I are no relation,” Mr. Gandolfini said.
The
competition between the two musicals with the most nominations, “Billy
Elliot” and “Next to Normal,” got off to an unexpected start during a
prebroadcast ceremony, when a tie vote resulted in both productions
winning the award for best orchestration. But “Billy Elliot” then won
for best book, choreography, lighting design, sound design and scenic
design.
This year’s Tony Awards were competitive in several
categories, particularly best revival of a play and the acting
categories. No theater season in recent memory had as many critically
praised plays, musicals and revivals. There were 43 new productions
during the 2008-9 season, the highest number since 1982-83.
The
strong crop of productions also helped Broadway achieve a record at the
box office during the 2008-9 season, with plays and musicals grossing
about $943.3 million. The previous record was set during the 2006-7
theater season, which had total grosses of $938.5 million.
“Billy
Elliot” and the revival of “West Side Story” played a huge role in
setting that record, joining blockbusters like “Wicked,” “Jersey Boys”
and “The Lion King.” “God of Carnage,” with a cast of four well-known
actors led by Mr. Gandolfini, was the rare play that contributed
mightily to the weekly receipts for Broadway, often earning grosses in
the high six figures, unheard of for most plays.
While
theatergoing has remained strong during the economic recession, the
ratings for the telecast of the Tonys have been modest to weak for
years now, and it was not clear if the successful season on Broadway
would lead to greater viewership.
The Tonys tapped the television and theater actor Neil Patrick Harris as host and tried an especially long opening number — featuring a mix
of songs and moments from current Broadway shows — in hopes of
capturing and retaining an audience. The chief competition for viewers
this year was Game 2 of the N.B.A. Finals on ABC.
Mr.
Harris kept up a brisk pace and took time for a few quips, like telling
Broadway producers to take note of the increased ticket sales for “Joe
Turner’s Come and Gone” ever since President Obama and his wife attended the show in late May.
“Take my advice: Cash in, go presidential,” Mr. Harris said. “I can see the marquees now: ‘Barack of Ages.’ ’Phantom of the Oprah’ — she’s almost the president. ‘Obama Mia!’ ”
He also appeared onstage at one point eating sushi, throwing an elbow at the actor Jeremy Piven,
who stirred controversy on Broadway this winter by citing mercury
poisoning from eating too much fish when he quit his lead role in
“Speed-the-Plow.” (An Actors’ Equity union arbitration proceeding
involving the producers of “Speed-the-Plow” and Mr. Piven is scheduled
to begin on Monday.)