The Bests, Worsts, Leasts, and Mosts of the 2024 Tony Awards
We're on EGOT Watch for Angelina Jolie
No matter what goes down in terms of who wins what, you can always watch the Tony Awards feeling confident that it’ll be a rousingly competent live show full of assured singing and enthusiastic dancing, put on by professionals who do live theater eight times a week and love the hell out of the genre. Yes, some of the sound and lighting felt a bit muddy at times during last night’s festivities, but it was hard not to be enthralled by the snippets we saw of Illinoise and The Outsiders — which performed a rumble — and the charms of Merrily We Roll Along, and vocal bombast of Hell’s Kitchen. The speeches are invariably delivered with the oomph of people who are very comfortable with public speaking, and the earnestness of Big Theater Kid Energy. It’s always a refreshingly warm night; very rarely does something happen where you think, “Ugh, people are gonna have some hot takes on this.” Having said that, of course we have notes. There are always notes.
MOST REPETITIVE: This superlative would go to us if we repeated at length all the complaints and comments we have this year that we also made in last year’s newsletter. So we’re just going to corral them here: It’s annoying that several of the awards are presented on a Pluto TV pre-show rather than the CBS telecast; we love that the Tonys shows clips of acting performances and the Oscars should take note; it’s CRIMINAL that there is no televised red carpet beyond what New Yorkers can watch on New York One. Give us Laverne Cox screaming at Bebe Neuwirth that she’s an icon, honey!!
BIGGEST FEAST ON OUR OWN WORDS: Last year, we waxed poetic about Ariana DeBose’s hosting chops -- and she did do a great job in 2023, especially considering that she was flying without professional writers, due to the WGA strike. This time, we’re walking back the overall praise a little bit; Ariana was absolutely fine -- you cannot say she doesn’t commit -- but it felt as if she wasn’t connecting with the room the way she had in years past. It didn’t help that her opening number was weirdly low energy and felt a bit like something you’d see on an expensive cruise, but even what should’ve been an easy joke about her BAFTAs rap landed with a thud. Honestly, this may just be because hosting three times in a row is a lot for any awards show and, as competent as she is, her energy is beginning to feel a little bit samey. (If we recall correctly, Neil Patrick Harris’s third hosting stint also suffered from diminishing returns.) Maybe let’s mix it up a bit in 2025. Honestly, do the Tonys even need a host?
BEST THANKS: Kecia Lewis shouted out her ear, nose, and throat doctor; Will Brill said he wouldn’t be there without his therapist; Jeremy Strong thanked all the ushers and front-of-house folks at Enemy of the People. Daniel Radcliffe hailed his dresser, whom he met on Equus and worked with ever since. Multiple folks gave laurels to the front-of-house staff at their various theaters. It was great that everyone acknowledged, repeatedly, the village that it takes to create one performance and how far that village stretches beyond just agents and managers.
MOST PANDERING TO NON-THEATER AUDIENCES: Alicia Keys is incredibly talented, clearly, and Jay-Z makes “Empire State of Mind” a certified banger; we are all for celebrating their talent and for people getting a free concert. But their reunion feels like something for a pre-Tonys gala, because neither of them appears in Hell’s Kitchen -- a jukebox musical using Keys’s oeuvre -- even though we guarantee some casual viewers came away from last night’s telecast thinking at least one of them does, thanks to their surprise performance. It felt unfair to the cast of that show to have Keys and Jay overshadow their performance — and a little harsh to the other casts to give so much more air time to Hell’s Kitchen. And worst, Jay-Z apparently did all his rapping from... the lobby, so not even the people in the room where it happens got the full free show they should’ve. (This was allegedly for “security reasons,” and preserving the surprise, but neither of those reasons makes total sense. Maybe Jay-Z once saw a ballet he really hated at Lincoln Center and vowed never to return, and this was the compromise. ) The Tonys are exceptional precisely because they know how to honor their genre and the performers who make it special. It isn’t the Grammys and it doesn’t need to be.
MOST LES MIS MOMENT: Not the actual stage production; the Tom Hooper film, to be clear. For some reason, the director and producers of this year’s Tonys chose, occasionally, to shoot their presenters in extreme close up. Not quite the up-the-nose close of Les Miserables, but a waist-up situation that also required said presenters to look directly into the camera, and occasionally made them go out of focus. Every time this happened, we instinctively backed up a little bit. We do not need to reinvent the wheel here!
MOST MISERABLE MOMENT: Speaking of Les Mis, Eddie Redmaybe -- DEAR GOD, neither of us can type that correctly, and yet neither of us wants to, either -- performed the iconic “Wilkommen” with the Cabaret ensemble, and his performance was SO mannered and muggy and overall just weird. (It recalled that we didn’t like him as Tom Hooper’s cinematic Marius, either; turns out we have strong negative feelings about that film.) Maybe no one can, or should, follow Alan Cumming. If he ever leaves The Traitors, please do not replace him with Eddie Redmaybe (GAH there it goes again).
BEST LOVE STORY: The trio at the center of Merrily We Roll Along has been a delight since they debuted, with Jonathan Groff officiating Lindsay Mendez’s wedding and Daniel Radcliffe acting as ring bearer. Mendez didn’t win last night, so we didn’t get to see the other two lose their minds, but Dan cried when Groff won Lead Actor and Groff SOBBED when DanRad took home Featured Actor (Mendez also cried for them, but, like, a gentle and genteel tear; we cannot stress enough how hard Groff was weeping). Depressingly, if this show were about two women and a man, everyone would be trying to dig up dirt on catfights and secret jealousies. Still, it’s nice to see that a show about the ups and downs of lifelong friendships may have created some truly solid ones.
BIGGEST RELIEF AT A NON-WINNER: We’re not GLAD Rachel McAdams lost, or anything — she’s supposedly heartbreaking in Mary Jane; that was a tough category — but Rachel’s black dress looked awfully sheer on the red carpet, in ways that might not have been entirely intentional. It might have been a REAL shocker under the lights, and that is not typically the kind of surprise people hope for at an awards show. Well, sometimes we do, as general supporters of chaos, but not usually when it involves underpants.
BEST BIT OF TRIVIA: During the pre-show, Julianne Hough revealed that she was an uncredited extra in the first Harry Potter movie, something that you can find on her Wiki page… but how often are you looking at it? That was news to us, anyway, so if she turns up on Cinematrix and/or you need some deep shit for your next bar quiz night, make a mental note.
MOST AWKWARD: The pre-show was hosted by Utkarsh Ambudkar, of Ghosts, and Hough, of lots of things but clearly primarily the movie adaptation of Rock of Ages. Utkarsh’s shtick seemed to be calling out folks he knew, so at one point Julianne decided to do the same thing, which led to a very weird digression about how Sarah Paulson has been living in her NYC house for nine months. We have so many questions. Doesn’t Paulson’s longtime partner Holland Taylor live in New York City? We’d heard they don’t actually cohabitate despite being involved for almost a decade, but you’d still think Paulson wouldn’t need a rental to do a stint on Broadway. Anyway, Hough’s schtick throughout this lengthy story was being like, “You’re so great, but it’s time to go,” which got a light laugh the first time, but when she doubled down at the end with, “Hahaha, but yes, gotta get out,” it swung from a lighthearted tease to more of an eviction notice. We need a miniseries about this whole thing. Fortunately, we know two actresses who’d be perfect for it.
BEST PERFORMANCE IN A GUEST ROLE: Lots of people across both the pre-show and the big dog read speeches off their iPhones. Well, look, it’s possible they were Androids. We’ll never know. But this led to a lot of people scrambling to call up their speeches -- Billy Porter had given his phone to someone backstage and had to vamp until they ran it out to him -- and Kecia Lewis was so overwhelmed in trying to get hers to load that she memorably wailed, “PEOPLE, stop TEXTING me! Jesus!” Pen and paper didn’t fare that much better: Maleah Joi Moon had to ask for help getting her speech out of her purse because of her gloves. This is the THEATRE, darlings! Whatever happened to good old fashioned improv?
EGOT ALERT: Angelina Jolie is now a Tony winner. Her Oscar for Girl, Interrupted, means she’s halfway to the EGOT, with a decent chance of adding the Grammy if The Outsiders records a cast album. We’ll find out in 2025. Dear God, wait, we cannot be collectively looking ahead to 2025 yet?!? Sorry. Regardless, someone get her some prestige TV Emmy-bait, stat.
A Brief Bit of Housekeeping!
FYI: Paid subscribers will get their Bridgerton recap tomorrow, instead of today, due to the Tonys. And Wednesday is Juneteenth, so there will be no Thursday newsletter this week.
Last Call
— We’ll be covering the Tony Awards red carpet looks all day today on Go Fug Yourself, so come by and check it out! There is, as always, much to discuss, from DanRad’s purple suit to Ashley Park’s perilous cleavage. — J
— Jodie Turner-Smith had a lovely comment about to Joshua Jackson and Lupita Nyong’o dating — essentially, that she hopes it’s a happy relationship because she thinks that’ll benefit their family and co-parenting the most. That is a healthy outlook! —H
— Speaking of famous exes, Joe Alwyn has finally addressed the end of his relationship with Taylor Swift. It’s also a very mature and reasonable comment. I’m sure he cannot wait until people stop asking him about her. — J
— Meanwhile, if you were on tenterhooks wondering if J.Lo would post a Father’s Day thing about Ben Affleck, wonder no more. There is something amazing about her using a photo of him from (we’re pretty sure) Pearl Harbor to do so. Does she have it saved on her phone?! Was it her Ben Affleck love touchstone for their many years apart? What made her pick that, rather than, say, an actual picture of him that she took? Jennifer, that movie is terrible!!!
— EVERY TIME I see this photo of Liam Hemsworth and his new girlfriend — which is not that often, but in the last 24 hours has been MANY — I think for a second that he’s dating Emilia Clarke. He is not. But damn. — H
— Finally, this is quite a headline: Armie Hammer Breaks Silence on Cannibalism Accusations. Not that we didn’t know about said accusations. It’s just still something else to read “so-and-so breaks silence on cannibalism accusations” about a (formerly) major celebrity! Anyhoodle, he’s not an actual cannibal, he says. He also says that whole thing was so funny, and he’s so grateful for the “neutron bomb” that this dropped on his life, like… I’m sure the woman who accused him of a whole slew of unsavory things are so glad he’s grateful and can laugh about it all?!? He also says he went to rehab for “drug, alcohol, and sex issues,” which… the cannibalism always gets all the attention in a way that sweeps some of the other allegations under the rug. While we obviously hope he’s a better person now, as he claims, and no charges were filed by the LAPD (though he admitted to the emotional abuse), is anyone really clamoring for his return and career rehabilitation? Can we pass?
I'm hoping the Merrily trio becomes one of those Broadway groups that joins together throughout their careers in different shows. Also, rumor has it they are filming a proshot this week!
I have confess that, even though I knew it was pandering, I found myself VERKLEMPT when Jay-Z came on the screen. I realized last year I was packing up my apartment while watching the Tony Awards and this year, I was watching back in my hometown in the Empire State. And this is why I love awards season.