Quick Tony Check In

Ok, I know I've been a little lax, but I've been swamped with shit from work and trying to knock out two papers for school. I'm actually working on one as I'm watching the Tony's, desperately (YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Liza just won her FOURTH!!!! Tony!) racing against rapidly declining motivation to knock out a paper on Oppositional Defiant Disorer. However, I had to make a quick check in with my thoughts. First of all, LOVED the opening number and I'm starting to rethink my position on Shrek, I may at least have to check out the cast recording. I'm still not down with Rock of Ages at all though, Constantine Maroulis still hasn't managed to find any talent since getting voted off Idol. Did anyone else tear up just a little during Angela Lansbury's acceptance speech? There's a good chance I might get to go to New York for the Fourth of July Weekend and that's top of my list to see. Lastly, it's looking like it might not be such a big night for Billy Elliot after all. Yes, it did get Best Book (which I had really been hoping would go to [title of show]) and surprisingly Best Director, but it shockingly lost Best Score and Best Orchestrations to Next to Normal, although the Tribune did predict the win for Score. However, there's a chance that those awards were the committee's way of punishing Sir Elton for the awfulness of Lestat rather than proclaiming N2N the superior musical achievement. I started downloading the N2N recording from emusic and will finish it up next week when my downloads refresh and then I can deliver a more balanced judgement, although I find it hard to believe that any score could have been better than Billy (and BTW, REALLY loved the very opening with the three Billy's dancing to Elton's singing). Lastly, what's with the horrible sound production on this telecast. During the switch from Billy to West Side Story in the opening number, there was more noise from the audience than there was music from the stage coming through, and now as the Guys & Dolls cast is performing, the feedback sounded like a thunderstorm, drowning out the performer. You'd think with their one shot a year at a national audience, they'd be paying more attention to the technical logistics, but at the same time, that's the magic of live theatre. Ok, back to Oppositional Defiant Disorder (I've been acting out long enough taking this break), barring any big surprises, I'll get my final thoughts up tomorrow, or the next day, or sometime. Oh, last thought, run to see A Little Night Music at Light Opera Works, I saw it this afternoon and it is SUPERB, excellent performances all around, and it's always great to hear a real orchestra turning out Sondheim's best score.