{"id":95147,"date":"2026-06-07T23:15:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=95147"},"modified":"2026-06-07T23:15:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:15:38","slug":"tony-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/06\/07\/tony-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This column comes moments after the <em>Tony Awards<\/em>.&nbsp; I intentionally left this paragraph blank in hopes that something truly noteworthy would happen.&nbsp; Given the host, I knew there was a chance <strong>P!NK <\/strong>would plummet from the rafters during one of her inevitable aerial stunts.&nbsp; And sure enough, she flew in \u2013 as Peter Pan singing, \u201cI\u2019m Flying!\u201d&nbsp; She was helped down by former <em>Tony<\/em> host, <strong>Neil Patrick Harris<\/strong>, who cheekily said, \u201cHaven\u2019t you heard?&nbsp; The flying twinks are all vampires now.\u201d&nbsp; She then segued into an all-star opening called \u201cLeading Lady Marmalade\u201d, joined by numerous hunks, starlets, \u201cdolls\u201d, and various <em>Broadway<\/em> luminaries&#8230;and <strong>Lea Michele<\/strong>.&nbsp; P!nk certainly proved she had the pipes (and the gams).&nbsp; I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention the hot blond guy helping winners from stage right.&nbsp; And, for the love of God, could <strong>Paul Rudd<\/strong> have straightened <strong>Alden Ehrenreich<\/strong>\u2019s tie before his speech?&nbsp; If the point of the <em>Tonys<\/em> is to drive tourism to <em>Broadway<\/em>, I\u2019d say mission accomplished.<\/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>The <em>Tony Award<\/em>-winning musical <strong><em>Chicago<\/em><\/strong> is known for stunt casting \u2013 usually centered around the role of Roxie Hart.&nbsp; People from <strong>Christie Brinkley <\/strong>to <strong>Pamela Anderson <\/strong>have left their mark on the role.&nbsp; Occasionally the part of Billy Flynn is assumed by such luminaries as <strong>Usher<\/strong>, <strong>George Hamilton<\/strong>, <strong>Taye Diggs<\/strong>, <strong>Mark Ballas<\/strong>, <strong>Colman Domingo<\/strong>, and even <strong>Jerry Springer<\/strong>.&nbsp; The next Billy Flynn will be another member of our community.&nbsp; Starting on June 22<sup>nd<\/sup>, <strong>Matteo Lane<\/strong> joins the cast (you\u2019ll be forgiven for thinking he\u2019d play Mary Sunshine).&nbsp; As with most of these other people, this will mark Matteo\u2019s <em>Broadway <\/em>debut.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Chicago, the <em>Chicago Shakespeare Theater <\/em>is presenting the North American premiere of the stage version of <strong><em>Brokeback<\/em><\/strong> <strong><em>Mountain<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; I reviewed the <em>West End<\/em> world premiere of this play back in 2023 when it starred <strong>Lucas Hedges <\/strong>and <strong>Mike Faist<\/strong>.&nbsp; I thoroughly enjoyed it (which is saying something, since I loathed the film).&nbsp; This production stars <strong>Harrison Ball <\/strong>and <strong>Jack Cameron Kay <\/strong>and runs through June 28<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; You can get more info at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ChicagoShakes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>ChicagoShakes.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This column comes moments after the Tony Awards.&nbsp; I intentionally left this paragraph blank in hopes that something truly noteworthy would happen.&nbsp; Given the host, I knew there was a chance P!NK would plummet from the rafters during one of her inevitable aerial stunts.&nbsp; And sure enough, she flew in \u2013 as Peter Pan singing,<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95147","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\/95147","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=95147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95148,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147\/revisions\/95148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}