Last updated: 8:34 pm
June 27, 2008
Posted: 1:22 am
June 13, 2008
LET'S unpack the crystal ball, give it a good shake and see who's going to win a Tony on Sunday night.
BEST PLAY
You don't really need the crystal ball for this one: "August: Osage County" - which wags have dubbed "Long Day's Journey Into Oklahoma" - hands down. Playwright Tracy Letts' shelf is already groaning with awards (Pulitzer Prize, Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk), but there's always room for a Tony.
Runner-up: Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer," a haunting and absorbing play (now closed), magnificently performed by Jim Norton, Conleth Hill, Ciaran Hines, Sean Mahon and David Morse.
BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY
"Boeing-Boeing" - that flimsy French farce from the 1960s by a writer no one's ever heard of - has edged out "Macbeth."
"It's a terrible play, but I laughed my head off," says one Tony voter.
"Macbeth" seems to have been done in by a failure to live up to expectations. Critics heaped praise on it, but some voters complain that the production, which closed last week, was too long (three hours) and frantic.
The production did, in fact, have everything in it - including a kitchen sink in which Lady Macbeth scrubbed her bloody hands.
BEST MUSICAL
A very tight race between "In the Heights" and "Passing Strange" should have both camps on the edge of their Radio City Music Hall seats.
The mighty Shubert Organization, one of the producers of "Passing Strange," hasn't been shy about campaigning for votes.
"They called me twice," says a veteran producer. "But I'm an investor in 'In the Heights,' so they didn't get anywhere."
That voter notwithstanding, "Passing Strange" picked up momentum in the last week, and the sense around Broadway yesterday was that it will also pick up the Tony.
The show's score, by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, will also win.
A few asides:
* The producers of "A Catered Affair" are still bitter that the show wasn't nominated. A couple crossed out the nominated musicals on their ballots and wrote in "A Catered Affair."
* Cubby Bernstein may have wracked up several hundred thousand hits on YouTube, but "Xanadu," the show he's hawking, doesn't seem to be getting much traction at the box office.
