Last Night Only

Wow. I'm still grinning from watching the Tonys last night. I thought the awards show was the best I've seen in years. :) Very entertaining. As if I don't ever want to go to New York... now I *really* want to go! Congratulations to best new musical, Avenue Q! You had me at "It Sucks to Be Me." Dannnnnng! I just checked amazon.com, and the sales rank for the album is #2! Congrats again! The puppets are cute. Actually, you had me when the one blue puppet with the raised eyebrow and glasses hit on Hugh Jackman. That was hilarious. Yikes, I'm totally going out of order, but highlights! There are many:

Audra McDonald! She won her 4th Tony yesterday for best featured actress in a play. Isn't that amazing? She continues to do such great work, and I couldn't be happier that she won. She has earned and deserved it.

Idina Menzel! Woohoo! I don't know all that much about Wicked except for what a couple people told me (and they love the show, so it's all good), but I knew that the combination of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth is way too powerful to overlook. So glad she won best leading actress in a musical. I've gotta see Wicked someday. I really liked the song they performed. It's such a cool song. (Edit to say that Wicked is #1 on the amazon.com sales rank. Wow!)

So it happened! Hugh Jackman hosted and won for best lead actor in a musical. He, too, deserved it. I was impressed with his voice on the opening number, "One Night Only," and was equally impressed that he could kick as high as the rest of the Rockettes. :) He can sing, dance, act, and host. I'm not as interested in The Boy from Oz, but I'd see it. It was hilarious when he -- as Peter Allen -- pulled an embarrassed but compliant Sarah Jessica Parker up to the stage. She kept holding up her dress at her chest and said, "I'm scared of my top." It *was* CBS, you know. His speech was great. He said he noticed for two years how the music would start playing when people had their most important thing to say, so he started out by saying the most important first and thanked his wife.

Other highlights (yes, there are more!): Michael Cerveris won his first Tony, Tony Bennett's still got it, Kristin Chenoweth sang in her bubble, Fiddler performed "Tradition," Tonya Pinkins from Caroline, or Change sang an emotionally powerful solo, Big River's performed in ASL (I didn't know that), Victor Garber sported the makings of a mustache (is Jack Bristow going to have one? heh heh), Phylicia Rashad won best actress in a play, Carole Bayer Sager appeared (she co-wrote "The Prayer"), Brian Stokes Mitchell & Laura Linney introduced the plays, and Mary J. Blige sang "What I Did For Love."

Best quote of the night comes from the acceptance speech for Avenue Q: "It certainly doesn't suck to be us tonight."