Friday, June 12, 2015

Flashback Friday: The 1990 Tony Awards

I can't believe it has been 25 years since the 1990 Tony Awards!  Aside from it being a quarter century ago, it represents a milestone for me, too.  It was the first time I saw all four Best Musical nominees on Broadway.  Except for just missing Michael Ball by a few days (I saw Marcus Lovett) in Aspects of Love, I also saw all four Original Broadway Casts as well.

Here are the 4 nominees, in the order they performed on the telecast:


Grand Hotel: The Musical
11 nominations, 5 wins
My personal favorite - the staging was thrillingly theatrical, the score haunting, the cast perfection. When is it coming back?? The late, fabulous and rubbery Michael Jeter was amazing, and so was Brent Barrett, who by this time was playing The Baron, while, sadly, a very ill David Carroll watched from the audience.


City of Angels
11 nominations, 6 wins including Best Musical
I also loved this show and was happy it won.  Very funny, jaw-dropping staging, clever, smart book, dazzling cast and one of my all-time favorite scores.  Revive this please!! The show was a who's who even then, featuring several actors that are still doing the Broadway thing theses days, including Rachel York, Dee Hoty, Tony-winner Randy Graff, Tony-nominee Gregg Edelman and Tony-winner James Naughton.


Meet Me In St. Louis
4 nominations, 0 wins
As Kathleen Turner purrs, it was very "old-fashioned."  I remember enjoying it, the sets and costumes were lovely, and the cast was full of great people (George Hearn, Betty Garrett and Milo O'Shea to name but three) and a pair of newcomers (Donna Kane and the very delicious Theatre World Awards winner Jason Workman) who haven't really been back since.  This was back before there were hard rules about an original score and book - both much like the film and both nominated.


Aspects of Love
6 nominations, 0 wins
Andrew Lloyd Webber's attempt at being Sondheim, many thought.  I thought it frightfully boring.  I mean, how many times can you sing "Love Changes Everything" in one song?  This telecast features a version of the song written specifically for the Tonys.  And having seen the show, I find the staging of this to be genius and much better than the show itself.  You get gto see all of the aspects and the whole story in about three and a half minutes.  I'll admit that, in growing up a lot over the past 25 years, I've come to appreciate the show much more.


Jeff

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...