{"id":90476,"date":"2022-06-19T23:53:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T06:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=90476"},"modified":"2022-06-20T00:00:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T07:00:05","slug":"billy-co-take-on-the-tonys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2022\/06\/19\/billy-co-take-on-the-tonys\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Take On The Tonys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we went to press last week, the big news was the <strong><em>75<sup>th<\/sup> Tony Awards<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; It turned into big news for <strong><em>Billy Masters LIVE<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; We didn\u2019t plan on having a show last week.&nbsp; We didn\u2019t announce it in the column.&nbsp; But after a few days, I felt there were things worth discussing.&nbsp; Not only the awards themselves, but about <em>Broadway <\/em>coming back.&nbsp; How does theatre move forward?&nbsp; How does the world move forward?&nbsp; I assembled a dream panel \u2013 <strong>Bruce Vilanch<\/strong>, who has written his share of awards shows (to say nothing of his other numerous gifts); <strong>Richard Jay-Alexander<\/strong>, who has directed, produced and acted in shows; <strong>Michael Musto<\/strong>, who has critiqued shows; and <strong>Anastasia Barzee<\/strong>, who has graced shows on <em>Broadway <\/em>and beyond.&nbsp; I represented you \u2013 the audience.&nbsp; I am first and foremost a fan.&nbsp; I love this business we call show.&nbsp; What transpired was a raucous chat that has become our fastest viewed episode all season.&nbsp; Check it out on our <em>YouTube <\/em>channel, <strong><em>Billy Masters TV<\/em><\/strong>, or on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BillyMasters.com\/TV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>BillyMasters.com\/TV<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.&nbsp; While there, why not subscribe to our channel?&nbsp; You never know when I\u2019ll pop up with all-new content.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pYvo5hpDq3A\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In light of rumors that some of the numbers performed at the <em>Tonys <\/em>were not technically \u201clive\u201d, I asked whether lip synching was common at this event.&nbsp; Apparently it is.&nbsp; I understand the reasons not to perform live on television with millions of people (hopefully) watching.&nbsp; But when it occurs during a celebration of live theatre, it just seems\u2026I dunno\u2026icky.&nbsp; If you can\u2019t hack it on the live stage, stick to television and film.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Another step in the wrong direction, in my humble opinion, is the altering of material by a master.&nbsp; Yes, many shows have questionable moments.&nbsp; It\u2019s hard in these woke days to get away with performing <strong><em>Show Boat<\/em><\/strong>, for example.&nbsp; So, don\u2019t do it.&nbsp; You certainly don\u2019t re-write it.&nbsp; These things were written by geniuses.&nbsp; And they are reflections of their time, and of our history.&nbsp; And yet, there was the <em>New York<\/em><em> City Gay Men\u2019s Chorus <\/em>(or, as <strong>Len Cariou <\/strong>called them, the <em>New York Gay City Men\u2019s Chorus<\/em>) performing the title song to <strong><em>Mame<\/em><\/strong> with lyrics that would make <strong>Jerry Herman <\/strong>turn over in his grave.&nbsp; I understand not wanting to wax rhapsodically about them ole plantation days.&nbsp; But, for the love of God, did someone actually think that \u201cgrits\u201d and \u201ckick\u201d rhyme?<\/p>\n<p>Everyone online was weighing in on <strong>Hugh Jackman<\/strong>\u2019s physical appearance.&nbsp; Then he ended up testing positive for Covid.&nbsp; The <em>Tony Awards <\/em>\u2013 a celebration of <em>Broadway<\/em>, or a super spreader event?&nbsp; Let us look on the bright side \u2013 because even this has a silver lining.&nbsp; Sure, hundreds of people who paid ridiculous amounts for tickets will ask for a refund because they won\u2019t get to see Jackman in the flesh.&nbsp; But, this gives Hugh\u2019s <strong><em>Music Man<\/em><\/strong> standby a chance to go on.&nbsp; And that standby is <strong>Max Clayton<\/strong>.&nbsp; While his name might not be known to most, he is the boyfriend to <strong>Matt Doyle<\/strong>, who just won the <em>Tony <\/em>for \u201cFeatured Actor in a Musical\u201d for <strong><em>Company<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we went to press last week, the big news was the 75th Tony Awards.&nbsp; It turned into big news for Billy Masters LIVE.&nbsp; We didn\u2019t plan on having a show last week.&nbsp; We didn\u2019t announce it in the column.&nbsp; But after a few days, I felt there were things worth discussing.&nbsp; Not only the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90492,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90476\/revisions\/90492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}