Whoopi as Mary Poppins/ WireImage
The Tony Awards (Broadway's version of the Academy Awards or the Emmy Awards) are often a predictable and stuffy affair with few (if any) surprises. However, the 62nd Tony Award telecast will go down in history for providing one of the most bizarre acceptance speeches of all time. When Mark Rylance, star and Best Actor winner for the Broadway show Boeing-Boeing, stepped on the stage of Radio City Music Hall to accept his award he looked out at the audience and said: "when you are in town, wearing some kind of uniform is helpful, policeman, priest, etc.. Driving a tank is very impressive or a car with official lettering on the side." The speech continued in this fashion ending with "otherwise it might appear that you have no idea what you are doing, that you are merely wandering the earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go.". He didn't thank his agent, his director, his co-stars - no one. It was truly bizarre and will go down in the Tony Award record books.
It turns out that Rylance was actually reciting a prose poem by Lewis Jenkins called Back Country and he was actually being eloquent (while exhibiting his dry sense of humor) as opposed to being crazy. This was just one of the many exciting moments during Broadway's biggest night.
An enchanted evening, a dysfunctional family and a group of kids from Washington Heights dominated the 62nd Annual Tony Awards on Sunday night. The biggest night on Broadway didn't provide many upsets but it did provide a ton of star power and a load of laughs from host Whoopi Goldberg.
Whoopi provided many highlights for the evening as she took over the MC duties for the night. She had the audience in stitches with her irreverent humor and the running joke of her stepping into various roles from popular Broadway shows; from Mary Poppins to Spring Awakening to A Chorus Line. It was very clever and pumped renewed life into the broadcast. Because she was so good, we will forgive her for wearing that weird silver clown shirt. What was she thinking?
The big winner of the night was Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. As anticipated, the musical picked up Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical for Paulo Szot and almost every technical award - for a total of 7 awards (more than any other show). However, South Pacific's leading lady, Kelli O'Hara was not able to steal the Tony from Best Actress winner and star of Gypsy, Patti LuPone. Ms. LuPone's speech provided another great moment as she refused to be intimidated by the band and continued speaking over the music to complete her acceptance speech. You go Diva Patti!
The most hotly contested prize of the night was the award for Best Musical. Passing Strange and In The Heights looked to be in a dead heat for the top award, but it was In The Heights that grabbed the silver gong and the big title. The show started out as a college project for writer star of the show Lin-Manuel Miranda (that is a quite a long road from his dorm room to Radio City Music Hall and the Best Musical Tony Award). The show also picked up awards for Best Choreography, Best Score and Best Orchestrations. Miranda charmed the audience by rapping his acceptance speech for the Best Score.
One minor upset of the evening was in the Best Revival of a Play category where the farce Boeing-Boeing bested the critically praised production of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart. Many thought the Shakespearean tragedy and star Stewart were a lock, but Boeing-Boeing snuck in at the last minute and snagged Best Revival and Best Actor for its star Mark Rylance. We should be glad for this; I doubt that Patrick Stewart would have read a poem for his acceptance speech.
For more details on the 62nd Annual Tony Awards you can check out my live blog posts, take a peek at who was the best dressed at the red carpet gallery or view a complete list of winners here.
~ See You On The Aisle
Bixby Elliot
Reader Comments
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Hey Bixby! Nice job with all of your Tony awards coverage! You rock! Most importantly- did you get one of those Tony swag bags?!?!?!
thanks - it felt like i was backstage wit you!
bummed passing strange didn't win - but they got most of it right.
my or even t-voed! we waited one year for this show and are so let down. any chance of a re-run? (which i doubt). thx for the info on this site!
Terrific coverage!
Well, that could be the craziest speech ever...!!
He is my favorite. Just saw his personals ID on millionaires personals site """""W e a l t h y R o m a n c e. co m"""""" last week. I am wondering what kind of relationship he is looking for on that site.
?☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆???☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Didn't get to see the 2008 Tony's. Was @ Signature Theatre in Washington, DC seeing Jeremy Webb (and Chita Rivera and George Hearn) in "The Visit." John Simon was right about this one!
It better be in the 2009 running. So glad you had us Auslandern backs! Your report on Whoopi was a howl!
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