Well, the Tony Awards aired last Sunday night and there weren’t any surprises of note. Everyone who was supposed to win took home their respective awards and aside from the teleprompter being apparently really hard to read, the night pretty much went as planned. Billy Elliot won almost all of the awards it was up for, including the coveted Best Musical prize. God of Carnage won the award for Best Play, as expected. Neil Patrick Harris proved to be a decent Tonys host, not terribly cheesy but still endearing to Grandmas in Ohio. And the G-rated entertainment offered more musical performances this year including the tours of Legally Blonde, Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia (because that’s apparently what people want).

Other highlights included NPH’s blatant mockery of Jeremy Piven’s “mercury poisoning” (his reason for dropping out of Speed-the-Plow earlier this year) and Frank Langella’s snarky “I’m not mad I wasn’t nominated for a Tony” rant. Winners were genuinely gracious and most, like Gregory Jbara (who won the Best Featured Actor in a Musical award for Billy Elliot), gave truly thoughtful speeches. It was also pretty great that The Norman Conquests won Best Revival of Play, even though none of the four actors who were up for acting awards won (that’s okay, it really is an ensemble show). (more…)