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Monday, June 08, 2015

The Tony Awards: Speeches You Didn't See

There will be plenty of time for people to weigh in on the ups and downs of the Tony Awards broadcast last night. I personally thought it was, for the most part, fine: Alan Cumming and Kristen Chenoweth overcame stupid opening material (and some unfortunate schtick throughout) to be pleasant enough as co-hosts. The musical numbers were engaging enough, or not, and either made me want to see the productions in question, or not. Sting has grown a beard and looks like a dope. Jersey Boys has been running for 500 years and I have no fucking clue why they did a closing number, but I hardly lost sleep about it. And finally, while I'm the first to argue that these kinds of awards ceremonies just don't mean very much, I was nevertheless thrilled for the cast and company of Fun Home, and glad to know that the Tony voters recognized that show as a major artistic achievement.

I was, however, kind of bummed that so many good speeches, by winners from some interesting and monumentally important categories, were cut from the broadcast. I thought I'd post them all here. If there are more that I'm missing, please feel free to let me know, and I can put them up, too.

Meanwhile, I look forward to reading more about what other people thought of Sting's beard in the days to come.


Christopher Oram, Costumes, Wolf Hall:

Katherine Zuber, Costumes, The King and I:


 
Natasha Katz, Lighting, An American in Paris:
 
Paule Constable, Lighting, Curious Incident:
 
  Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, Set Design, Curious Incident:

Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, Set Design, An American in Paris:

Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliot, Orchestrations, An American in Paris:


Tommy Tune's Lifetime Achievement acceptance speech:
 
 

John Cameron Mitchell's special award acceptance:

Lisa Kron, Best Book (Fun Home):


Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, Best Score  (Fun Home):

Stephen Schwartz, Isabelle Stevenson Award:

Christopher Wheeldon, Choreography, An American in Paris

5 comments:

Wendy Caster said...

How nice of you to take the time to do this!

Susan Glattstein said...

Thank you soooo much. It's just disgraceful that these were not on the telecast.

Sandra Mardenfeld said...

I loved listening to these speeches ... and I was happy to see some people not just ad libbing but really thinking about what they want to say.

Unknown said...

Can you please include Christopher Wheeldon's acceptance speech!!!!!!!!!

!

Liz Wollman said...

Absolutely! Done!