Tony the Tiger Awards

Okay, so as I may have mentioned, I work at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at Tisch. This year, for the first time in, oh, about, 20 years, some of our Alumni have a chance to be nominated for Tony Awards.

So I got to work early today to listen to the Tony Award Nomination Announcement Webcast. And, general impression? The designation of the Tonys as "Gay Superbowl?" Accurate.

They have two announcers right now, talking about musicals as if they were sports teams, handicapping the possible nominees, etc.

Anyway, awards about to be announced, be back in a moment.

Update 8:30am - Okay, there was a weird moment of sexual tension on stage, I think, when the pres. of the league of theater producers said how his favorite moment of the year was being on stage with some lady. Kind of strange to hear that over web radio. Also, you can buy tickets to the Tonys... I knew that, but do they do that for other awards show? Or is it that the Tonys are really sad?

Update 8:32am - Good grief. I'm really nervous. Why is that? I seriously doubt I'll be nominated for Best Guy Who Once Made Some Copies for Possible Nominees. Although, that would be awesome.

Update 8:33am - FYI, the musicals we're concerned with are "Little Women," and "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." Oh! Alan Cumming is announcing the nominees. I hope he makes some joke about playing Loki in "Son of the Mask."

Update 8:44am - Hooray! They're waiting to announce the big awards live on CBS, but here's the important stuff so far... Funny story, the only name they pronounced wrong was Rachel's. Hilarious.

Dan Fogler - Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical (Spelling Bee)
Celia Keenan-Bolger – Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Spelling Bee)
James Lapine – Best Direction of a Musical (Spelling Bee)
Bill Finn – Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre (Spelling Bee)
Rachel Sheinkin – Best Book of a Musical (Spelling Bee)

Update 8:49am - Okay, and the final nominees are...

Sutton Foster – Best Actress in a Musical (Little Women)
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – Best Musical

Holy crap.

Sorry to make a big deal out of this, but not only am I personally excited that Rachel and Bill were nominated for Best Freakin' Musical, but its also a huge deal for my work, basically validating 20 years of this program's existence.

For the Tony Awards, I'm Alexander Zalben. We'll see you back here on June 5th, when we live blog the Tony Awards.

Oh, and later today, when I post about some stupid technology and crap like that.

(Btw, here's the rest of the nominees in case you're interested for some reason: http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/index.html)