{"id":93795,"date":"2025-05-04T14:25:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T21:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=93795"},"modified":"2025-05-04T18:24:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T01:24:20","slug":"audra-vs-nicole-vs-cole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2025\/05\/04\/audra-vs-nicole-vs-cole\/","title":{"rendered":"Audra vs Nicole vs Cole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLife is precious.  I don\u2019t know how much longer my father has.<\/em><\/span>”
\n<\/em><\/span> – <\/em><\/span>Prince Harry <\/strong>tells a reporter why he\u2019d like to reconcile with King Charles<\/strong> \u2013 and that
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u201cthere is no point in continuing to fight\u201d.  And he wonders why nobody in his family talks to him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m typically up for a three-way.  But this week, there was a three-way tie for what would end up as our opening quote.  Would it be Prince Harry<\/strong>\u2019s typical dimness?  Or Donald Trump <\/strong>saying, \u201cI picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you,\u201d to Terry Moran<\/strong>?  Or perhaps acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almod\u00f3var <\/strong>saying of El Presidente<\/em>, \u201cYou will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time…you will go down in history as one of the greatest dangers to humanity since the beginning of the century.  You will go down in history as a catastrophe.\u201d  While Prince Harry won, Pedro was close.  However, the century is only 25 years old.  It\u2019s like saying the greatest catastrophe of the final 25 years of the last century was the AMC<\/em> Pacer<\/em>!<\/p>\n

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Before we get to other political news, I think we have to talk about the biggest story of the past week \u2013 the Tony <\/em><\/strong>nominations!  Let\u2019s look at the race for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical<\/em>.  I like the good old days when we could just say Best Actress in a Musical<\/em>.  Anyway, those delightful divas from Death Becomes Her<\/em><\/strong> will cancel each other out.  And, God bless that BOOP!<\/em><\/strong> girl for making the cut.  But this race is all about Mama Rose and Norma Desmond.  Frankly, someone should simply ask Patti LuPone <\/strong>to choose \u2013 after all, she played both parts (she can play any role).  You have relative newbie Nicole Scherzinger<\/strong>, who seemed a shoe-in before Gypsy<\/em><\/strong> opened (and before she commented on Russell Brand<\/strong>\u2019s Jesus <\/strong>hat).  But you also have Audra McDonald<\/strong>, who is now the most Tony<\/em>-nominated actor in history, and who has won an award in all four female acting categories.  Who will win?  If I were a betting man, I\u2019d put money on Audra.<\/p>\n

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Of course, if you put money on Kieran Culkin <\/strong>being nominated, you\u2019d be licking your wounds.  Not that he would have had a prayer of winning once it was determined that Cole Escola <\/strong>qualified as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play<\/em>.  The reason this was even in question is that Cole is playing a female role \u2013 Mary Todd Lincoln<\/strong>.  And in real life, Cole uses the \u201cthey\u201d pronoun.  So do they really want to win an award branded for men?  Perhaps.  Last week, Escola told Stephen Colbert<\/strong>, \u201cI really want to play a straight guy.\u201d  My response was the Danny Thomas <\/strong>spit-take, and a trip to Best Buy <\/em>to replace a shorted-out TV.   But good for him…er, them.<\/p>\n

Two notable \u201ches\u201d were also shut out of nominations.  Despite having the highest-priced tickets in Broadway <\/em>history, both Denzel Washington <\/strong>and Jake Gyllenhaal <\/strong>in Othello<\/em><\/strong> were snubbed by the Tony <\/em>Committee.  While some people are saying they were hurt by all the hoopla (a word I like to work into at least one column a year), others point to reviewers who were simply underwhelmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLife is precious.  I don\u2019t know how much longer my father has.” – Prince Harry tells a reporter why he\u2019d like to reconcile with King Charles \u2013 and that \u201cthere is no point in continuing to fight\u201d.  And he wonders why nobody in his family talks to him. I\u2019m typically up for a three-way.  But<\/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,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93795"}],"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=93795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93812,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93795\/revisions\/93812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}