The Bitchery is Back

No, I'm not referring to myself, I had a great time at Ravinia last night with nothing to complain about. The concert was actually very enjoyable, it was a lovely evening, and my car did not break down, plus the GPS got me around the Edens construction very nicely, although I think I single-handedly brought down the property values of several neighborhoods in Winnetka and Glencoe just by driving my piece of crap car through them. I'm also not referring to the fact that when I went to buy my Gypsy tickets on Saturday, the third row seats I had seen Thursday night were gone and the best they could get me was row O (about five rows from the back) way off to the side, but that's still better than the balcony seats I had at City Center last summer (and by the way, it is A Catered Affair for the Sunday show). No, I'm referring to an announcement today that The Little Mermaid, Young Frankenstein, and A Catered Affair will all be performing at the Tony Awards even though none of them were nominated for Best Musical. Remember last year? It was announced a few weeks before the ceremony that Lovemusik and Legally Blonde would perform since they had gotten so many nominations even though Best Musical was not one of them. There was an immediate outcry that that was breaking 50 years of Tony tradition, and within 48 hours their invitations to perform were rescinded. However, the awards show's producers managed to get in a backdoor performance by including an almost full number from each show in the video montage of "all the other musicals on Broadway this season" that traditionally gets shown, otherwise known as "the crap we refused to nominate but contractual obligations force us to acknowledge." There was 30 seconds of High Fidelity, 2 and a half minutes of Lovemusik, 15 seconds of The Times They Are A Changin', and 2 minutes of Legally Blonde. It was pretty obvious what they were doing. Apparently they got their point across if they're feeling bold enough to try for the real thing again this year, we'll see if it sticks. I'd rather have an outcry about performances from Rent and The Lion King, but those are at least Best Musical winners. Hopefully the Lion King number will be one of Elton's and not one of the boring-ass ones by the other guy.