2012 Tony Awards: Abridged

A Broadway Abridged Recap by Gil Varod
Presented with Badoop-Badoop Technology by Tivo™

scene: the beacon theater.

Enter that kid who was in that TV show with Racetrack Higgins from the Newsies movie.

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

I could probably just perform last year's number again and that would drive you people wild, wouldn't it? How about I just perform a new number but don't rehearse it? Will Patti Lupone mowing the lawn make up for terrible timing?

patti lupone

Seriously, how awesome would it be for me to actually mow your lawn?

[badoop badoop!]

paul rudd

Would anybody laugh if I said I left my index cards in a corner deli? Anyone? No? Oh well, here are the nominees for Featured Actress in a Play, and the one with the most applause wins! Judith Light, and Linda Edmond, and Condola Rashad, and Spencer Kayden.

audience

(a little applause)

spencer kayden

(mouthing to camera)

i-love-you-so-much

PAUL RUDD

Uh yes Spencer, everybody loves me so much. And finally: Celia Keenan-Bolger.

audience

(a whole truckload of applause)

paul rudd

And the winner is Judith Light! Sorry for lying about the applause bit.

judith light

I SO CANNOT BELIEVE I WON THIS AWARD, ThAT I AM BANGING THIS PODIUM INTO THE GROUND WITH MY FIST!

[badoop badoop!]

nick jonas

I am the ambassador to kids night and... wow my voice is way less nasaly when I'm not singing! Anyway, here's the cast of BACKFLIPS THE MUSICAL singing "High Times, Hard Times".
Haha.
Just kidding, they're singing Sieze The God-Damn Day.

[badoop badoop!]

announcer

While we weren't broadcasting live, the award for Best Orchestrations and Best Book and Best Set went to someone. Why, did you CARE? Well leave the caring to us, we're CBS!

[badoop badoop!]

neil patrick harris

Guys--

(giggles)

Guys I put some movie names and musical names together like--

(giggles)

like a Wheel of Fortune "Before and After". I hope you find it as hysterical--

(giggles)

as hysterical as--

(giggles)

(gets into a giggle fit)

My I'm cute!

[badoop badoop!]

michael mcgrath

Thank you for this award for "Nice Work If You Can Get It". Who else did I want to thank? OH YES! I want to thank Nathan Lane for letting me steal his persona. And for recording so many episodes of Timon And Puumba The Television series, which allowed me to study all of his vocal nuances--

nathan lane

(grabs Tony)

Give me that!

[badoop badoop!]

bernadette peters

A bittersweet look...
at the follies of youth...
as seen through the eyes of age and experience...
Two couples...
remember their glorious past...
and confront the rocky realities...
of their present...
shadows of their younger selves...
lies that ultimately...
lead them...
...
Wow I'm boring myself.
Here's that overrated Sondheim musical that caused its composer to write cranky letters to the Times hoping it would snag him a Best Revival Tony. Go to LA and see Victoria Clark mop the floor with my role!

[badoop badoop!]

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

When we return, Hugh Jackman! Of course does that mean right after we return, or at some possible point way later in the evening, like on your local news? Who kno--
Uh, Dude in the Lion King outfit, what are you doing?

guy in simba costume in audience

I live here.

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

In the audience?

GUY IN SIMBA COSTUME IN AUDIENCe

Yeah, Cirque Du Soleil stole my home too.

[badoop badoop!]

ANNOUNCER

And here is, uh, another new musical. Ghost. Like the Whoopie Goldberg movie. No I did not make this up.

ghost girl

OH
MY LOVE
MY DARLING
IT'S WEIRD TO SEE ME BREAK
OUT IN-
TO THIS SONG.

ghost guy #1

I am dead, you can tell cause my lighting is blue! AND I AM SINGING REALLY LOUD!

ghost guy #2

I keep walking across the stage and apologizing! Maybe walking across the stage is what killed the dead guy?

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

Yeah, so please buy a ticket to see Ghost, if you have any idea what was happening onstage there.

[badoop badoop!]

director of once

I am actually Irish!

[badoop badoop!]

ben vereen

And now let's hear a selection from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.
Notice I said Tim Rice first because I respect lyricists, even ones who put verse stress on "B" instead of "C" in the phrase "4 B.C."
Tonight we're going to just have the cast do a concert version in front of projections--

(producer whispers in his ear)

What do you mean that's how the actual production is done?

jesus projection

It's important to set our Jesus apart from all the other Jesus musicals. Our Jesus looks like a Harry Potter moving newspaper!

[badoop badoop!]

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

I am doing a funny upside-down Spider-man bit!

camera man

OK, I'll over-zoom in to make sure you're almost totally out of frame for most of it.

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

I assumed you were going to keep sweeping in and out over and over again like you do for every musical number. So: improvement!

[badoop badoop!]

jessica chastain

Everybody! I'm a girl, which means I have boobs! I thought you should know! Now here's an award for Christian Borle as an apology for SMASH.

[badoop badoop!]

matthew morrison

When the cast of GLEE leaves, I won't be able to afford razors so I figured I'd start not-shaving right now. Here's a bunch of too-short scenes from NICE WORK!

kelli o'hara

I sure hope if I sing while holding a gun for 4 seconds and you don't have a setup, it will earn me a cheap laugh as opposed to being totally lost!

matthew broderick

Kelli! Kelli! The producers found a song that makes me look the least possibly bad! The rest of the cast does the dancing and acting around me!

KELLI O'HARA

But you still have to sing without looking mildly retarded.

MATTHEW BRODERICK

Dang, I knew I was forgetting something.

[badoop badoop!]

best supporting actress judy kaye

I have an acceptance speech joke! How nice of me to prepare.

[badoop badoop!]

peter and the starcatcher

LET'S DO A DRAG SONG AND THEN THE END OF THE PLAY! That'll make the most sense, way more sense than any scenes that set up the play.
No wait let's sing about being on the Tonys! Then people will definitely know what our play is about.

[badoop badoop!]

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

I'm going to sing a few dozen songs in one medley--pay attention to how I'd be a better Evita than Elena Rogers!

[badoop badoop!]

frank wildhorn

I think there's been a mistake. Somebody let me into a Tony Awards Audience! Hey has anybody done a musical of THE WOLF MAN yet?

[badoop badoop!]

alan menken

Thank you for my first Tony! Should I be proud of getting the first RGOT?

jack feldman

Razzie-Grammy-Oscar-Tony?

ALAN MENKEN

I don't even know how to pronounce RGOT. Ar-got? R'got?

[badoop badoop!]

josh groban

I'm introducing Once instead of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who couldn't be here today--
...I'm now being told they are in the audience.
Anyway in order to not do the cliche choice of "Falling Slowly", they're going to go with the equally riveting "When Your Mind's Made Up"--
...I'm now being told they are doing the one song that sounds like elevator music.
WHY DO YOU PEOPLE WASTE JOSH GROBAN'S TIME SO?

[badoop badoop!]

israeli girl from NCIS

Isn't it obvious why I'm onstage? It's time for Evita!

elena rogers

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

ricky martin

Thank God that's the only line you'll be singing tonight. Now silently pace the stage while I "act", by which I mean gesturing with this one hand over and over again.

ISRAELI GIRL FROM NCIS

Guys this is being followed by a Les Mis movie preview. You are actually going to make the Les Mis movie look like hollywood gold by comparison.

patti lapone and mandy patInkin

Also? We're also going to sing some Evita in a few minutes to clarify just how much better we were. Which means someone on the Evita team must have pissed off somebody at the Tonys, otherwise that's just cruel.

[badoop badoop!]

ANNOUNCER

And now here is the cast of Hair doing "Day By Day". Wait, what?

paul rudd

Haha I stole your index cards too!

announcer

So long as you keep your promise to never allow Judd Apatow to bring in a Knocked Up musical, you can do whatever you want.

[badoop badoop!]

producers of porgy and bess

We just want to remind Stephen Sondheim that his cranky letters only matter when they're supporting SHOWS THAT HAVEN'T ALREADY CLOSED. Welcome to reality.
And now: Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard Harvard--

[badoop badoop!]

cruiseline tracy turnblatt

Come on a cruise and see Hairspray, a musical about a 40ish-year-old woman who isn't overweight! Also, sell your stock in Royal Carribean quickly.

[badoop badoop!]

actors equity

It's a good thing we have received this Tony Award. Now the amount of respect we get will clearly be different, thanks to the Tonys, those arbiters of respect and taste.

[badoop badoop!]

hugh jackman's wife?

In previous Tony Award shows Hugh Jackman has vaguely pointed towards the audience and said "There's my lovely wife". This year, I've come out wearing this dead bird to say "Hi, I'm Hugh Jackman's Wife", to keep the yearly tradition of overselling how straight he is.

[badoop badoop!]

candace bergen

Who has five Emmys and looks like they just saw a ghost? THIS GAL!

[badoop badoop!]

raul esparza

Leap of Faith is the story of a musical that looked way, way better on the Tonys than it was. But don't worry if you are accidentally tricked by the performance-to-show mismatch: it is no longer open.
You are welcome.

[badoop badoop!]

Announcer

While you were at commercial, Nina Arianda and Audra McDonald won. And you didn't get to watch it. HOW DOES THAT FEEL, HUH?

[badoop badoop!]

south park guys

Avenue Q vs Wicked.
Urinetown vs Millie.
Sunday vs La Cage.
Some years the better shows win. Some years the community votes for whichever one will be better for touring dollars, and everybody kind of shrugs and accepts this like it isn't a seriously fucked up measure of quality.
This year's reason why Once wins over Newsies is...

(open envelope)

Newsies will sell well enough with the Disney Brand! Congrats to the creators of Once for going up against the already-lucrative-enough Disney brand.

[badoop badoop!]

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

You guys realize that after another year or so How I Met Your Mother will be over and I'll be doing actual Broadway shows, right?

broadway community

Yaay!

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

Which means I'll have no time to host these things anymore.

BROADWAY COMMUNITY

Who on earth is going to host in your place?

HUGH JACKMAn