The Big Tonys Post
If you’re friends with me on Facebook, or Twitter, or in real-life, you probably know that I went to the Tonys on Sunday night - the annual awards ceremony honoring Broadway shows and actors.
I’m a bit Broadway-obsessed and I think it’s genetic: My mom is Broadway-obsessed, and she passed it onto my sister Alyssa and me. When we were young, money was extraordinarily tight. I haven’t really written much about it (not publicly, at least), but my mom was constantly scraping to make ends meet and I always felt different than my friends. And yet, my mom made sure Alyssa and I were exposed to the theater. We spent hours upon hours on lines for discount tickets (oh, how thankful I am for Internet discounts these days). And our gifts to mark major occasions - birthdays, graduations - were generally theater tickets. It would be pretty poetic if Alyssa and I ended up pursuing careers as actresses, but we ended up as writers. Still, I think of my favorite song, “What I Did for Love,” from A Chorus Line, my favorite show, as something that was written for me.
So last week, when I got an email from my friend Courtney informing me that she had scored tickets to the Tonys and inviting me to go with her, I started laughing out loud, and then I started crying.
Courtney is even more into Broadway than I am. For example, if I passed a girl from the Hair tribe on the street, I’d probably recognize her. But Courtney would recognize the producer, and the director, and the set designer, and the guy who did the lighting. So there’s no one I’d rather go to the Tonys with, and I was so touched when she said the same thing about me. I went to her apartment a couple hours early and I brought along two dresses - there was the little black dress that I’ve had for years. I always end up wearing it, even when I plan to wear something else, because I like it and it’s comfy; and then there was a newer black dress that I happened upon a few months ago. It was hanging in the window of a leather goods store (yeah, I didn’t get that either) and it was shockingly inexpensive. When I hesitated before buying it, the woman at the store knocked off another twenty bucks, so I got it figuring I’d wear it this fall to my nephew’s bar mitzvah. So what if I already had a black dress I loved? I’m from New York: Black is my color. No matter what I tell myself, I look better in black, always.
Courtney and I had a little fashion show and I took pictures of everything - even of the tickets themselves. They came in a pretty black commemorative box with the Tonys logo embossed on the front.
These were the outfits we settled on. (I wore the newer black dress. Hooray for variety!)
As we made our way to Radio City Music Hall, it was raining in that sort of spitting-on-you kind of way. In an act of great generosity and motherhood, Courtney’s mother, my dear friend Denise, walked us over to the theater and then walked home with our umbrellas so we wouldn’t have to schlep them around for the rest of the night. We went through security (not as secure as I anticipated and I was sad about leaving my camera behind) and into the lobby. My head was spinning. Right next to us in the crowd was Katie Finneran, a Tony nominee. I heard someone call my name and turned around to see Sarah a blogger I met at BEA, there with a few of her friends. Oh, the people you bump into at the Tonys! It was her third time at the Tonys and she gave us advice, like when to run to the bathroom for optimum star sightings.
Eventually Courtney and I made our way into the big theater. The show started at 7 o’clock but the telecast didn’t start until 8, so we saw awards handed out that I’d never seen before. Then the lights went down and the real show began. I know there were other things on TV on Sunday - the True Blood premiere, and some sporting events, but I really hope you watched the Tonys. The star power was amazing, the energy was palpable. Sean Hayes was an incredible, inexhaustible host. He began by playing a piano medley of show tunes, and then casts of various shows joined him on stage. (Sean Hayes said the ceremony was “the World Cup of show tunes.”) Later on he came out dressed as Little Orphan Annie, and then as Spiderman - both shows are soon heading to Broadway. Green Day, the genius behind my favorite show of the season, American Idiot, performed two songs, “Holiday” and “Know Your Enemy.” I pumped my fist as if I were at a concert. (I was kind of embarrassed because the couple next to me - a sweet couple, but on the old side - looked at me a little funny; still, it was the Tonys, probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, so I let myself just be in the moment.) I remember listening to Green Day’s music years ago - I was still in high school, it was so long ago. But I didn’t fall in love with the music until I saw American Idiot on Broadway, and now I listen to the cast recording just about every day. Watching the cast up there as Green Day belted it out, well, it was one of my top three favorite things about the evening.
During the commercial breaks, they had things on stage to entertain the audience. I’ve always wondered what happened during commercial breaks - besides people getting up and running to the bathroom. The best (I thought) was when Scott Adsit of 30 Rock read a passage from David Hasselhoff’s memoir. And our seats were amazing. We weren’t in the front front of the orchestra (as my parents later reported, they didn’t see us on TV), but we were fairly close up and we saw everyone walking down the aisle - Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Helen Mirren. I am happy to report that Kristin Chenoweth and Paula Abdul are just about my height. At one point I was standing in the aisle during a break and the actor who plays St. Jimmy in American Idiot brushed past me. I love that show so much! I was flipping out!
Courtney and I had been looking forward to the Glee performances all night, and they didn’t disappoint at all. Glee is like a weekly infusion of Broadway in my apartment. I saw Lea Michele in Ragtime years ago - the tickets were actually my mother’s college graduation present to me. More recently, I saw her and loved her in Spring Awakening. Oh, how she belted out “Don’t Rain on My Parade” at the Tonys - another one of my top three favorite moments. It was the kind of performance that just makes you weep in gratitude just for getting to hear something so beautiful. I read somewhere that Broadway insiders figured she was doing a very public audition for a revival of Funny Girl. If that’s the case, GIVE HER THE PART! (Also, incidental to her performance, it was the first time I noticed her multiple tattoos.)
But to me, the best, most personal moment was when Katie Finneran won the Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. I didn’t even see Promises, Promises - though I plan to now - but when her name was called and she stepped up to the stage, I felt like I knew just because we’d been standing beside her about an hour or so before. Her speech was lovely - she started out by saying what a great time she was having, just last week she got engaged, and the week before Angela Lansbury had taken her to dinner at Joe Allen. (Joe Allen is my favorite place to eat when I go to a show! See, Katie Finneran and I have so much in common!) Then she said she wanted to say something to all the kids out there, watching her and wishing they could be where she was, and thinking maybe it’s out of their reach. I looked this up online because I wanted to get what she said exactly right, it was just so beautiful: “With the world being so fast right now, I want to remind you to focus on what you love because it is the greatest passport - it is the greatest roadmap to an extraordinarily blissful life. Just focus on that one thing; don’t listen to anybody else, and you’ll run into the right people, the right teachers, the right moments and circumstances - and one day you will meet the person that will share that love with you.”
What’s amazing about Broadway performers is the incredible generosity. They have this gift that they give again and again and again - eight shows a week. I gain so much, just being in their presence. When I think about how grueling it must be, how much they must have worked to get there, and all the setbacks, and how they get up there every night no matter what else is going on in their lives, because the show must go on, it just pushes me forward in my writing in a big way. I want to write the best that I can, and I want to give something back too.
Man, this post is running long. There’s just one more thing I want to write about. Courtney and I went to the gala after party, which we were totally laughing about. I mean, what the heck were we doing there? The Tonys was incredible enough, but the after party? Really? We sat in a corner and munched on the mini crabcakes and watched Scarlett Johansson and Matthew Morrison and Naomi Watts walk by. There was one of the actors from the Ragtime revival! There was David Bryan from Bon Jovi! There was Chris Noth! It was getting late and we decided to walk around and just see who we missed before we headed home. I followed Courtney into the back room and I spotted Katie Finneran in a booth with her fiancé and her agents. I wanted to go up to her so much, just to thank her for that speech. But I felt so stupid, because Paula Abdul was congratulating her. What did Katie Finneran care about me? Courtney said she was going to get a glass of water and I told her I would wait for her. I stood lamely by Katie Finneran’s table, trying to muster my courage. I knew I had nothing to lose, but I couldn’t get it together to step forward and say something. Meanwhile, the crowd around her was growing. Apparently there was a long line at the bar too, because Courtney was taking awhile. By the time she came back over, there was a break in the crowd around Katie Finneran. I took a deep breath and walked over. “I just wanted to say congratulations,” I said.
“I forgot to thank my agents!” Katie Finneran said. “I don’t even remember what I said!” She was so giddy and self-deprecating. I told her I wasn’t an actress, but I was a writer, and her speech was amazing and meant so much to me.” My eyes started to tear, and then her eyes started to tear, and then the newly minted Tony winner stood up and threw her arms around me.
Courtney had really wanted to see the American Idiot cast and Lea Michele, but I’m not sure they were even at the after party - or rather, I’m sure they were at some after party, but not the one we went to. So we collected our gift bags and went home. I’ve been munching on my Tonys commemorative chocolates as I’ve been writing this. I’m so grateful for it all right now - for getting to be there, and see the performances, and hear the speeches, and hug Katie Finneran, and be inspired, and especially for my amazing friend Courtney.
I had a really good writing day today. I think it was because of the Tonys.
I’m a bit Broadway-obsessed and I think it’s genetic: My mom is Broadway-obsessed, and she passed it onto my sister Alyssa and me. When we were young, money was extraordinarily tight. I haven’t really written much about it (not publicly, at least), but my mom was constantly scraping to make ends meet and I always felt different than my friends. And yet, my mom made sure Alyssa and I were exposed to the theater. We spent hours upon hours on lines for discount tickets (oh, how thankful I am for Internet discounts these days). And our gifts to mark major occasions - birthdays, graduations - were generally theater tickets. It would be pretty poetic if Alyssa and I ended up pursuing careers as actresses, but we ended up as writers. Still, I think of my favorite song, “What I Did for Love,” from A Chorus Line, my favorite show, as something that was written for me.
So last week, when I got an email from my friend Courtney informing me that she had scored tickets to the Tonys and inviting me to go with her, I started laughing out loud, and then I started crying.
Courtney is even more into Broadway than I am. For example, if I passed a girl from the Hair tribe on the street, I’d probably recognize her. But Courtney would recognize the producer, and the director, and the set designer, and the guy who did the lighting. So there’s no one I’d rather go to the Tonys with, and I was so touched when she said the same thing about me. I went to her apartment a couple hours early and I brought along two dresses - there was the little black dress that I’ve had for years. I always end up wearing it, even when I plan to wear something else, because I like it and it’s comfy; and then there was a newer black dress that I happened upon a few months ago. It was hanging in the window of a leather goods store (yeah, I didn’t get that either) and it was shockingly inexpensive. When I hesitated before buying it, the woman at the store knocked off another twenty bucks, so I got it figuring I’d wear it this fall to my nephew’s bar mitzvah. So what if I already had a black dress I loved? I’m from New York: Black is my color. No matter what I tell myself, I look better in black, always.
Courtney and I had a little fashion show and I took pictures of everything - even of the tickets themselves. They came in a pretty black commemorative box with the Tonys logo embossed on the front.
These were the outfits we settled on. (I wore the newer black dress. Hooray for variety!)
As we made our way to Radio City Music Hall, it was raining in that sort of spitting-on-you kind of way. In an act of great generosity and motherhood, Courtney’s mother, my dear friend Denise, walked us over to the theater and then walked home with our umbrellas so we wouldn’t have to schlep them around for the rest of the night. We went through security (not as secure as I anticipated and I was sad about leaving my camera behind) and into the lobby. My head was spinning. Right next to us in the crowd was Katie Finneran, a Tony nominee. I heard someone call my name and turned around to see Sarah a blogger I met at BEA, there with a few of her friends. Oh, the people you bump into at the Tonys! It was her third time at the Tonys and she gave us advice, like when to run to the bathroom for optimum star sightings.
Eventually Courtney and I made our way into the big theater. The show started at 7 o’clock but the telecast didn’t start until 8, so we saw awards handed out that I’d never seen before. Then the lights went down and the real show began. I know there were other things on TV on Sunday - the True Blood premiere, and some sporting events, but I really hope you watched the Tonys. The star power was amazing, the energy was palpable. Sean Hayes was an incredible, inexhaustible host. He began by playing a piano medley of show tunes, and then casts of various shows joined him on stage. (Sean Hayes said the ceremony was “the World Cup of show tunes.”) Later on he came out dressed as Little Orphan Annie, and then as Spiderman - both shows are soon heading to Broadway. Green Day, the genius behind my favorite show of the season, American Idiot, performed two songs, “Holiday” and “Know Your Enemy.” I pumped my fist as if I were at a concert. (I was kind of embarrassed because the couple next to me - a sweet couple, but on the old side - looked at me a little funny; still, it was the Tonys, probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, so I let myself just be in the moment.) I remember listening to Green Day’s music years ago - I was still in high school, it was so long ago. But I didn’t fall in love with the music until I saw American Idiot on Broadway, and now I listen to the cast recording just about every day. Watching the cast up there as Green Day belted it out, well, it was one of my top three favorite things about the evening.
During the commercial breaks, they had things on stage to entertain the audience. I’ve always wondered what happened during commercial breaks - besides people getting up and running to the bathroom. The best (I thought) was when Scott Adsit of 30 Rock read a passage from David Hasselhoff’s memoir. And our seats were amazing. We weren’t in the front front of the orchestra (as my parents later reported, they didn’t see us on TV), but we were fairly close up and we saw everyone walking down the aisle - Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Helen Mirren. I am happy to report that Kristin Chenoweth and Paula Abdul are just about my height. At one point I was standing in the aisle during a break and the actor who plays St. Jimmy in American Idiot brushed past me. I love that show so much! I was flipping out!
Courtney and I had been looking forward to the Glee performances all night, and they didn’t disappoint at all. Glee is like a weekly infusion of Broadway in my apartment. I saw Lea Michele in Ragtime years ago - the tickets were actually my mother’s college graduation present to me. More recently, I saw her and loved her in Spring Awakening. Oh, how she belted out “Don’t Rain on My Parade” at the Tonys - another one of my top three favorite moments. It was the kind of performance that just makes you weep in gratitude just for getting to hear something so beautiful. I read somewhere that Broadway insiders figured she was doing a very public audition for a revival of Funny Girl. If that’s the case, GIVE HER THE PART! (Also, incidental to her performance, it was the first time I noticed her multiple tattoos.)
But to me, the best, most personal moment was when Katie Finneran won the Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. I didn’t even see Promises, Promises - though I plan to now - but when her name was called and she stepped up to the stage, I felt like I knew just because we’d been standing beside her about an hour or so before. Her speech was lovely - she started out by saying what a great time she was having, just last week she got engaged, and the week before Angela Lansbury had taken her to dinner at Joe Allen. (Joe Allen is my favorite place to eat when I go to a show! See, Katie Finneran and I have so much in common!) Then she said she wanted to say something to all the kids out there, watching her and wishing they could be where she was, and thinking maybe it’s out of their reach. I looked this up online because I wanted to get what she said exactly right, it was just so beautiful: “With the world being so fast right now, I want to remind you to focus on what you love because it is the greatest passport - it is the greatest roadmap to an extraordinarily blissful life. Just focus on that one thing; don’t listen to anybody else, and you’ll run into the right people, the right teachers, the right moments and circumstances - and one day you will meet the person that will share that love with you.”
What’s amazing about Broadway performers is the incredible generosity. They have this gift that they give again and again and again - eight shows a week. I gain so much, just being in their presence. When I think about how grueling it must be, how much they must have worked to get there, and all the setbacks, and how they get up there every night no matter what else is going on in their lives, because the show must go on, it just pushes me forward in my writing in a big way. I want to write the best that I can, and I want to give something back too.
Man, this post is running long. There’s just one more thing I want to write about. Courtney and I went to the gala after party, which we were totally laughing about. I mean, what the heck were we doing there? The Tonys was incredible enough, but the after party? Really? We sat in a corner and munched on the mini crabcakes and watched Scarlett Johansson and Matthew Morrison and Naomi Watts walk by. There was one of the actors from the Ragtime revival! There was David Bryan from Bon Jovi! There was Chris Noth! It was getting late and we decided to walk around and just see who we missed before we headed home. I followed Courtney into the back room and I spotted Katie Finneran in a booth with her fiancé and her agents. I wanted to go up to her so much, just to thank her for that speech. But I felt so stupid, because Paula Abdul was congratulating her. What did Katie Finneran care about me? Courtney said she was going to get a glass of water and I told her I would wait for her. I stood lamely by Katie Finneran’s table, trying to muster my courage. I knew I had nothing to lose, but I couldn’t get it together to step forward and say something. Meanwhile, the crowd around her was growing. Apparently there was a long line at the bar too, because Courtney was taking awhile. By the time she came back over, there was a break in the crowd around Katie Finneran. I took a deep breath and walked over. “I just wanted to say congratulations,” I said.
“I forgot to thank my agents!” Katie Finneran said. “I don’t even remember what I said!” She was so giddy and self-deprecating. I told her I wasn’t an actress, but I was a writer, and her speech was amazing and meant so much to me.” My eyes started to tear, and then her eyes started to tear, and then the newly minted Tony winner stood up and threw her arms around me.
Courtney had really wanted to see the American Idiot cast and Lea Michele, but I’m not sure they were even at the after party - or rather, I’m sure they were at some after party, but not the one we went to. So we collected our gift bags and went home. I’ve been munching on my Tonys commemorative chocolates as I’ve been writing this. I’m so grateful for it all right now - for getting to be there, and see the performances, and hear the speeches, and hug Katie Finneran, and be inspired, and especially for my amazing friend Courtney.
I had a really good writing day today. I think it was because of the Tonys.