The Bitch of Tonys - Broadway Abridged

My biggest Tony Awards Pet Peeve goes something like this:

Producer 1: What should we do for the Spring Awakening Tonys Performance?
Producer 2: Let's do "The Bitch of Living".
Producer 3: Yes, it shows off the show quite well.
Producer 5: And it's a complete number. We can do the entire thing from beginning to end. Perfect.
Producer 6: We can't do "Bitch of Living".
Producer 10: Why not?
Producer 15: Because if we do "Bitch of Living", we won't be using the entire cast.
Producer 20: Then let's do part of "Mama Who Bore Me" and that'll get the girls in there.
Producer 27: But we want to see the whole cast *together*. Let's also do "Totally Fucked".
Producer 35: We can't say "Fucked" on TV though, so we'll have them just say "Totally"! I'm absolutely sure this won't look fucking retarded.
Producer 873 1/2: OK, it's settled. We do a medley, and this way every cast member gets to be onstage, which is really important.
Producer 2: But what about the whole doing a number that represents the show well and *sells* the show?
Producer 525,600: No. Much more important to do a number that features every fucking person in the show.

Seriously:

Mary Poppins should have just done Step in Time, and Disney can afford to pony up the money to do the tapdance-on-ceiling thing.
Curtains' choice didn't sell the show to any of the 20 people watching the awards with me. The "David Hyde Pierce is a stumbly dancer!" number would have worked better.
Company *would* have looked better with more cast. I love Raul (wish he won, or at least tied) but one guy on a stage doesn't really do it. Maybe not necessarily true for this production though...
Grey Gardens probably did the best number in the show.
And kudos to Chorus Line for shoving "God I hope I get it" into there.

Year after year, they keep shoving in a "let's include the whole cast!" number. Can you imagine what Wicked would've looked like if they threw in pieces of "No one morns the wicked" and "popular" instead of just doing "Defying Gravity" like they did?

6 Comments

MissPinkKate | June 12, 2007 10:22 AM

I'm totally with you on the "Totally !" thing. I can't imagine anyone not familiar with the show saw that section as anything but confusing.

Vance | June 12, 2007 1:12 PM

I thought it was hilarious that they covered their mouth on the "f#$ked" thing and a nice self censoring joke but yeah, I was wondering if anybody else "got it" who hadn't seen the show already? Plus that crazy camerawork didn't help sell the show.

Alice | June 12, 2007 3:32 PM

Yeah, my friends and I were picking on the camera angles. Neither of them seemed to mind the "totally!" but it really got to me. (one had seen the show, one didn't know the song.) I didn't find the mouth covering thing all that cute either, and I thought it was "Totally Fucked" was the worst song to end on.The reassigning/ lyric changes in "Bitch of Living" were just fine. They should have just done that song. Want to use the whole cast? Try "Song of Purple Summer" or "Touch Me"

Anonymous | June 12, 2007 7:19 PM

It kind of seems like that show clings to its swears like "Hey!! Look! I said B*** on Broadway! Didja notice?" As if they'd never seen Avenue Q. It makes them sound like a little kid who learned to swearacuss. That show irks me. Raoul should have won :(Yay for Christine... and I loved Mary Louise Wilson's speech!

maybeimamazed02 | June 13, 2007 6:53 PM

Christine and Mary RULE! Love how Tony winners give acceptance speeches that are articulate and intelligent...none of the overly emotional Julia Roberts Oscar night foolishness.Yeah, the Spring Awakening thing was dumb. Why, oh WHY, not Bitch of Living in its entirety? If you wanted the girls in there, the rockin' reprise of Mama Who Bore Me is fine. If you want everyone in the same song, I agree, do Touch Me or Song of Purple Summer. It's one thing for the 2000 Academy Awards to have the people performing Blame Canada (from South Park) to gasp instead of the ONE use of the F word. One time. Once. Not for the whole freaking song.I kinda liked the Curtains number, although my roommate did NOT. I would have enjoyed a group number from Company, but oh well. And yes, Gil, I LOVED how they worked in the Chorus Line opening. I also really liked the little intros to each musical numbers before the commercial. Especially the one for Grey Gardens.

alyssa | June 22, 2007 7:36 PM

I was in love with how they put A Chorus Line in the opening. And It was perfect that they also put there signiture song 'One' in there!