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[0:00] Aaron Albano: You're listening to Tony Telecasts from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:10] Mo Brady: And I'm Mo Brady. Welcome listeners to our miniseries bringing you all the drama behind the drama of a theater season in Broadway history. In each podcast episode, we will watch a telecast of a previous Tony Awards. Not only the performances and the speeches, but the season as a whole. So let's dive in and talk about the 1998 Tony Awards. But first, Mo, take us back to 1998.

[0:32] Mo Brady: I'd be happy to, Aaron. A young 17-year-old Mo Brady is playing Fagin in the Issaquah High School production of all... No, that's not what you meant. That's not what you wanted. Okay, the 52nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 7th, 1998 at Radio City Music Hall, hosted by Rosie O'Donnell for the second year in a row. Going into the ceremony, Ragtime led the pack with 13 nominations, followed by The Lion King with 11. The acclaimed Roundabout Theatre production revival of Cabaret had 10 nominations, with Side Show and The Scarlet Pimpernel as new musicals, and 1776 and The Sound of Music as revivals.

[1:22] Aaron Albano: But aside from the telecast, what was happening at the time, Mo?

[1:27] Mo Brady: A lot of things happened during the 97-98 season, Aaron. A lot of which was covered in all the politically skewed humor of the telecast. President Bill Clinton was in his second term in office, and by the time of this broadcast, he was elbow-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Ooh, simpler times, Aaron. Also referenced as a joke in the telecast, 1998 brought upon the advent of Viagra, which was approved by the FDA in March of that year. LOL. In New York, this season also marks the Disneyfication of Broadway, wherein a partnership of Disney, Live Ent., and the New 42nd Street Incorporated transformed Times Square from the seedy, sketchy neighborhood history knew it to be to the child-friendly, glamorous tourist trap we know it is today. This season also boasted the opening of 35 Broadway productions, and notably, this was the year that Cats surpassed A Chorus Line as the longest-running show on Broadway.

[2:19] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[2:20] Mo Brady: You see, I told you the orchestra was beautiful. And now, presenting the Cabaret Girls! Rosie!

[2:29] Aaron Albano: Just if anyone wants to just make this clear, Aaron did both those shows on Broadway. Just so we're clear.

[2:34] Mo Brady: Shut up. How dare you? Aaron Gilbono. Let's pour one out for the non-nominated musicals. As we're starting every episode with, let's talk about the musicals that were not nominated. First off, Triumph of Love. Do you know anything about this show?

[2:50] Aaron Albano: I don't. I don't really know anything about any of these.

[2:53] Mo Brady: Sounds great, though. I would have loved to see it. It was a seven-person musical that featured Betty Buckley, F. Murray Abraham, Susan Egan, Christopher Sieber, Nancy Opel, Roger Bart, and Kevin Chamberlain.

[3:04] Aaron Albano: I mean, it's a solid cast.

[3:06] Mo Brady: I mean, I'll see them. I'll see those seven people do anything.

[3:09] Aaron Albano: Fair.

[3:10] Mo Brady: And then there's Sleepman, which is sort of the skewered musical of the telecast, right? It's the one that gets a joke in from Rosie O'Donnell.

[3:18] Aaron Albano: You're right, because it's the Paul Simon show.

[3:20] Mo Brady: Mm-hmm. Yes.

[3:21] Aaron Albano: Got it.

[3:22] Mo Brady: It ran from December to March, which is not a typical running time for a Broadway musical. Typically, if you run in December, you think you're going to make it to June.

[3:29] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[3:30] Mo Brady: But it did feature Sara Ramirez and veteran ensembleist John Jellison in the ensemble.

[3:36] Aaron Albano: Work. Okay.

[3:37] Mo Brady: And the third was High Society. Now, this was the only currently running musical not nominated at the time.

[3:45] Aaron Albano: So it was perhaps the lone wolf.

[3:48] Mo Brady: But it did feature Mark Kudisch, Jennifer Smith, famed ensembleist, and a young, young Tony-nominated Anna Kendrick.

[3:55] Aaron Albano: Oh, that was that show.

[3:57] Mo Brady: You know, this was the show that had their own Tony party that was just drinking and being like, screw this Tonys, and just checking their grosses every week.

[4:06] Aaron Albano: Let's talk about the opening number.

[4:08] Mo Brady: Opening number.

[4:09] Aaron Albano: Okay.

[4:11] Mo Brady: Give us a rundown of the opening of the 1998 Tony Awards.

[4:14] Aaron Albano: Okay. So the telecast opens with Rosie O'Donnell in her second time hosting, which can I tell you, I forgot just how good Rosie O'Donnell was at this.

[4:23] Mo Brady: She's very good at it.

[4:25] Aaron Albano: She's really good at this. But it starts with, I guess it's a big diva medley, kind of spoofing Roxy. But she's learning how to be a diva.

[4:31] Mo Brady: So instead of Roxy from Chicago, it's all about divas.

[4:36] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[4:37] Mo Brady: Yeah. She talks about how she wants to be a diva. And first, it just sounds like it's going to be her introducing these other divas, which we start with Patti LuPone singing Don't Cry For Me Argentina.

[4:47] Aaron Albano: But then the cast of Chicago comes out to back her up for the rest of the number.

[4:52] Mo Brady: And I was like, oh, this number is growing. And then we then get treated to a performance of And I'm Telling You by Jennifer Holliday and Memory by Betty Buckley, which I love that she like did the opening and then went to go take a seat for her nomination. Good for her. Just a star all around.

[5:10] Aaron Albano: What do you think of the opening?

[5:11] Mo Brady: I really liked it. It was chill. It was not as like explosive as the one we have just seen.

[5:18] Aaron Albano: I know. It's so hard for me to look at this one, not in comparison to 2013, which we just watched. I was like, that's it.

[5:26] Mo Brady: So I will say I do love the way that it was these three divas. But then also the ensemble was the cast of a show. It was the cast of Chicago who had just opened the year prior and had won the year prior. It was another opportunity to sort of like advertise a show instead of like a handpicked ensemble from whoever choreographed the number.

[5:50] Aaron Albano: Yeah, it's a weird idea. I mean, not that the ensemble of Chicago was not handpicked by a person.

[5:57] Mo Brady: Well, yeah, correct. But like it was it was another show. It was another way to feature an existing show on Broadway to say, hey, these are some people you can go and see if you wanted to buy tickets also. They won last year. Go watch them.

[6:12] Aaron Albano: I wanted to ask you about the choice of these three performances, these three divas. Did it feel like the right three divas to you?

[6:18] Mo Brady: For those three women, that's pretty representative of the crème de la crème of Broadway in 1998. The shows they were representing, maybe not, but we're not talking about like, hey, Rosie, this is how you be in these shows. This is hey, Rosie, this is how you be a diva in our industry. So I think we're good to go.

[6:38] Aaron Albano: Yeah, there was no Chita Rivera. There were no triple threats.

[6:41] Mo Brady: She was not learning how to be a triple threat diva.

[6:44] Aaron Albano: No, she was learning how to be a park and barker.

[6:46] Mo Brady: Yes, that is real. That is very true.

[6:48] Aaron Albano: So let's talk about putting a hat on a hat. I thought the use of Rosie in this was so interesting. Outside of the opening, basically Rosie would come out and tell a joke and the audience would laugh and then the voice of God would say, here's a presenter. And then the presenters would come out and introduce the awards.

[7:05] Mo Brady: So I think now what we do basically is we say, here's Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell. And then they come out and they are like forced to try to make a joke and then present. They're like the faux hosts of that category. And this takes that entire responsibility off of them. And Rosie O'Donnell just makes a joke about Bill Clinton or Viagra.

[7:26] Aaron Albano: Is it putting a hat on a hat or is it actually the right amount of hats?

[7:29] Mo Brady: You know, honestly, I get why we do it the way we do now. But something about this format in 1998, where we're using Rosie to, I don't know, host the show. Like, I really dug it. I thought she was a fantastic host. The audience was dying. The way she just drove the ceremony along. I was fine with it because she knew how to do that. We didn't need some presenter to try to be witty and pithy via teleprompter because she had it covered.

[8:02] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[8:03] Mo Brady: What I didn't like was the voice of God when the presenters would come out would say, basically, this person is from film or television, but they're also a stage actor.

[8:14] Aaron Albano: Oh yeah.

[8:15] Mo Brady: Literally every single presenter was like, you know them from this. But did you know they're also from this? Like it was such a tired trope. And I was like, who is watching the Tony Awards for the presenters? I can promise you zero people watch it.

[8:33] Aaron Albano: It's like that thing that they're like trying to reach like middle America or non-theater fans and be like, but Keri Russell is on it.

[8:41] Mo Brady: I mean, isn't this what all like every year CBS and the Tonys have this struggle where like they desperately want the audience and they think the way to go is to get as Hollywood as possible.

[8:54] Aaron Albano: Let's just have a party. Let's just have a party at Sardi's. We'll put it on YouTube. The future us, the children of America can watch it and we'll call it a day. And we'll be here at 2040 to like recap them later.

[9:08] Mo Brady: We'll see you then, Aaron. We are throwing a ball tonight. The man who caters brought all his waiters.

[9:11] Aaron Albano: And food, I presume.

[9:12] Mo Brady: The floors are polished and blooms are balled. So last time we talked about how all of these Tony telecasts try to present the non-musicals or the plays, for lack of a better term.

[9:25] Aaron Albano: I call them tockicles.

[9:28] Mo Brady: That's so rude.

[9:29] Aaron Albano: Oh, poor plays. Always get the short end of the stick.

[9:34] Mo Brady: I love plays. I love seeing plays.

[9:36] Aaron Albano: Just not at the Tony.

[9:37] Mo Brady: Just not at the Tony Awards. So this season, we have Alec Baldwin reading from a teleprompter.

[9:45] Aaron Albano: And for the production of Art, we get B-roll.

[9:49] Mo Brady: And it's like Alfred Molina, Alan Alda, and Victor Garber, which is like a solid cast. And he just talks about the show. And then we get footage from the show. But then we get to the other three, which is Beauty Queen of Linan, Golden Child, and Freak. And then, this thing starts giving a monologue. And I was like, oh, we're seeing a performance. And then he moves on to Golden Child, who also gives a performance. And then we get Freak, who gets a mic problem performance.

[10:17] Aaron Albano: Oh, that's so disappointing.

[10:20] Mo Brady: Poor John Leguizamo. God bless. It wouldn't be the Tony Awards.

[10:48] Unknown speaker: A part of me was like, oh, these three stars just couldn't be bothered. I want to talk about why this telecast was so short. Okay. So when I watched it, I was like, oh, it's only two and a half hours long. And then I realized it was actually only 90 minutes long. Yeah, this telecast was very short. Even the 1991 Tony Awards were an hour and 53 minutes long, right? These were like a clean 90 minutes. We were in and out. And they were hardcore about shortening it. You could tell Nathan Lane had had it. They told him to shorten it up. And he was like, not happy with it. Yeah, why so short? Not clear. There were two great, you know, there's like a normal number of nominees for both musical and revival.

Unclear. And yet, it was a full telecast. It was a full show. We did it. Like, I was kind of fine with it. I was like, can they always be under two hours? Because this is great. Or, hey, look, it's possible to fit all of the awards in three hours. Want to just do that? Fair. That's real. Yeah, I was like, I don't need another performance of the Phantom of the Opera. Because we did just fine without it. Like, it was fascinating. It was a well encapsulated show. Yeah. I was fine with it. I'd be fine with it, too. It was hosted. There was an opening number. And we had performances from the shows. 90 minutes, no intermission. Who could ask for anything more?

[12:22] Unknown speaker: Let's talk about the nominated performances. Yeah. Oh, I feel like this Tony Awards has two iconic Tony performances. And the first is the opening number from Ragtime. Oh my gosh. This, to me, is like one of the best. Do you agree? Or is this like living in the same place in your mind? I mean, I don't even know if it's an iconic Tony performance. It's just an iconic musical theater opening in general. Ragtime is a musical that was written with a great Tony performance song. Because they basically just took the opening, right? And they were like, well, there you go. We introduced you to folks. They like chopped it up a little bit to get it within the time frame. But like, we got it. I also loved how it just filled the space.

I mean, we've talked about how things either fill up Radio City or don't. And man, Ragtime filled up that stage. Those huge triangles of everybody walking around each other. Well, and here's the best part. Because it's like, talk about masterful storytelling in one number. Like, it filled the space, not because we had three like pyramids, which we did. And they were moving in tandem with each other. But story-wise, the negative space between them filled the rest of the space up. That's right. You're right. Yeah. All three of these pods, for lack of a better word, are really tight into each other. Just like in the show, and just like in the history that it is talking about, the tension between the pods were able to fill up Radio City Music Hall in a way that no one else was able to do.

There are camera shots in this performance of Ragtime that are like etched in my brain. Okay. Because I was 17 years old. Sure. But like that pan across from like stage left to stage right, where you like see close-ups of everybody when they're like sort of like dancing by themselves. And then they go to the triangles. Yeah. You get this pan across the entire stage. And you see all of these like actors like in their moment. And it's so beautiful to watch. It's the perfect commercial for the show. It was moving. It was riveting. It was entertaining. But you know exactly what that show's about. And it left you like, oh, I want to go see what happens next to these people. Correct. Good job, Terrence McNally.

Also, good job, Graciela Danielle. Yes. Also, Brian Stokes Mitchell in 1998 was a snack. He's a snack in 2020. What are you talking about? He's a snack in 2020. But he was like a 20 year younger snack in 1998. He came out and I was like, oh, oh, I get it. Um, Sound of Music. The question I wrote was, why does trotting out a classic musical at the Tonys feel less icky than when Annie did it in 2013? Because Sound of Music is better than Annie. That's all I got for you. Sound of Music is great. Sound of Music is so wonderful. It's, yeah, it's Sound of Music. And Do Re Mi is like hokey, but it's also really great. They get mid song applause for marching. Yeah. Cool. And also unlike between Climb Every Mountain, which is low key, my favorite song on the show, when that's starting your quote unquote performance, because that was straight up pre record, right?

Oh, sure. Yes. Because I think because of the costume change from Rebecca Luker going from wedding dress into. Strong choice. Yeah, I thought it worked. And I thought it was pretty seamless, too, because I think they had the nuns like standing over, like all the way over on the side at Radio City. So they could go from like nuns in B roll cut to nuns at Radio City. Yeah, like it all felt rather seamless. And they paid them anyway. So I'm glad that the nuns didn't get cheated out of their Tony's money. There you go. 1776. 1776. Sit down, John. How'd you like this? I don't really know 1776. I was like, sure. That's a lot of dudes. It's a lot of dudes. It's so many dudes. I just recently watched 1776 for another podcast.

But. Oh, what podcast was that, Aaron? That would have been Broadwaysted. I've heard of it. Also on the Broadway Podcast Network. Also on the Broadway Podcast Network. Shout out to Brian, Kevin and Kimberly. But because I like 1776 after now knowing the show, it's a big cast of just all white men. But the one thing that I thought about when they were doing their performance was like, wow, these men are belting. And it reminded me of this story. Jeff Pugh and I went to high school together. And he said this back in the day, and I'll never forget it. He was talking about the difference between choral singing and musical theater singing. And he was like, choral singing is so annoying because everyone's concerned with blending and how they sound and their tone.

Where musical theater singing, everyone's just singing as loud as they can. And if they happen to blend, then bonus. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of accurate. And this performance proves that theory. They're just skelting at John Adams. And maybe it blends, maybe it doesn't. But that was what I took away from 1776. That it was loud.

[20:39] Unknown speaker: Let's talk about the second of what I would call the iconic performances from 1998, which is The Circle of Life from The Lion King. God. Firstly, like, no tea, no shade. When a show has been running for a very, very long time, it is very easy to just write it off as something that is sort of tired and sort of... It's for tourists. It's not real art. Yeah. To watch this performance right at the peak of excitement, A, just seeing a show at that time in its run is already thrilling. And then watching something as iconic as The Circle of Life in that state was breathtaking. And I was like, we all know Lion King. I know this music like the back of my hand. I've seen this movie more than that. And yet, watching this performance, it took my breath away.

And it took my breath away 22 years later. What is it about this number that does that? I have a few ideas. Go. One is that something about the song and the orchestrations and the vocal orchestrations for the Broadway version specifically, it just feels like a warm bath. Like every time I listen to this song, I feel like I'm getting into a hot tub and my entire body starts to tingle. It's just like all the chords just work in this way that makes the hairs on my body stand. And then it's like, it's the best of what theater can be. And I don't mean that The Lion King is the best show. I just mean that it's similar to Harry Potter where you like see the strings of this magic, and yet you can like simultaneously know it's not real and yet it feels exciting.

Yeah, right. It's not trying to be an illusion. It is using art and the suspension of disbelief of that art to be fully artistic. Puppetry is one of the oldest forms of theater. Oh, sure. I was counting the number of like, because in the ragtime number, they got the mid-number applause when they were doing the triangle shifting. And so I was like, okay, how many times do they cheer for the eventual winner of Best Musical in the middle of the number? And it was like, they cheer when the giraffes come on. They cheer when the zebras come on. They cheer when the elephant comes out. I mean, the elephant. There will never be a moment that is like more weepy inducing for me in the theater than the moment the elephant comes down the aisle.

It's so good. It's just- And it's also like, it's this, I feel like one of the things that like the whisperings and mutterings about the 1997-1998 season is that like ragtime should have won, ragtime was the show, and Disney sort of stole it from ragtime. Sure, I remember that narrative. And just watching it again, I'm just like, yo, I don't know, guys. Like, ragtime is strong, but so is this. Like, on one hand, it is apples and oranges. You cannot compare the two, even though we force the- But that's literally what the Tonys do. Yeah. It forces us to compare. Yeah, it forces us to do it anyway.

[20:46] Mo Brady: Like, this number is so moving 22 years later that I'm just like, you can't really say that this fodder stole Ragtime's rightful place in musical theater history. They're just both very good.

[21:02] Aaron Alvano: Yeah. And then we have Milk Toast. What did you think of Wilkeman from Cabaret?

[21:10] Mo Brady: I was so underwhelmed by this performance.

[21:13] Aaron Alvano: Yeah?

[21:14] Mo Brady: I was watching it and I was literally like, yeah, this feels like Cabaret. And on one hand, I'm just like, are we in 2020 where this just feels normal? And I think that's true.

[21:24] Aaron Alvano: I think it is exactly true.

[21:26] Mo Brady: Yeah. But I think it's because 1998 Cabaret redefined what Cabaret was.

[21:33] Aaron Alvano: Mm hmm.

[21:35] Mo Brady: Like all the shout outs to Joel Grey, we don't think of him anymore.

[21:39] Aaron Alvano: Is that true? Do you not think of him as the MC?

[21:41] Mo Brady: I think of him as an MC. I think of him as the original MC. But when I think of the iconic MC, it is Alan Cumming.

[21:50] Aaron Alvano: Isn't that crazy? The same for me.

[21:53] Mo Brady: It's probably has to do with our age, obviously.

[21:55] Aaron Alvano: Sure. Well, and again, I think it's because this production of this show redefined the show. Sort of the same way we're like, and feel free to disagree with me. I feel like 1991 Once on this Island was a show. But 2018 Once on this Island redefined that show.

[22:14] Aaron Alvano: Sure. Both are great and both are valid and both are beautiful in the history of Broadway. But the revival redefined what we thought of the environment of that show.

[22:26] Mo Brady: Mm hmm. Well, the revival, probably for Cabaret and Once on this Island was an amalgamation of all of the best ideas from regional productions and international productions and school productions.

[22:41] Aaron Alvano: Sure. You know, there's sort of like tropes that end up happening with that show and then they become part of the milieu around that show so that when Once on this Island comes back in 2018, there's like some things that we as theater artists have learned about that show that nobody knew in 1991 that now seem obvious.

[23:01] Mo Brady: So when they're incorporated in the eventual Broadway revival, it's like, well, yeah, these things should have always been in the show. And so it feels like it's that much more kind of found its truth.

[23:10] Aaron Alvano: Yeah. I think this then gets into a bigger conversation, which we won't have today. But like the revival versus the revisal of shows and whether just a remounting of an old production is good enough versus a revisal, like where you bring more things to it.

[23:27] Mo Brady: Yeah. And I think that's what Cabaret did for this show. Revisiting it again, especially since we just had the revival of this revival. That's when it becomes like, all right, was this just always Cabaret? Because then we forget that this was so revolutionary in 1998.

[23:45] Aaron Alvano: Thoughts about the Scarlet Pimpernel?

[23:47] Mo Brady: Um, Scarlet Pimpernel? I got nothing.

[23:52] Aaron Alvano: Let's talk about the Tony performance that brought a thousand gay bar playings on the TV screens in the corners. Side Show's "I Will Never Leave You." What an intro. I feel like I've seen this more than I've seen any other performance from the Tony Award.

[24:10] Mo Brady: How'd you like it?

[24:11] Aaron Alvano: So, okay, wait, before we go. So this show was closed at this moment.

[24:15] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[24:16] Aaron Alvano: So I didn't know that. And on one hand, I'm like, wow, they sound really good. Oh, that makes sense. They sound really good because these chords are fresh because they did not have a show today.

[24:25] Mo Brady: No, they did not. But okay. So was a tour going out?

[24:31] Aaron Alvano: No. No, this was like the cheapest, best way, in my opinion, to go on the Tony Awards once your show was closed. It wasn't really selling anything. It was celebrating something. And the audience ate it up.

[24:46] Mo Brady: This was another like huge applause. Oh, I think this performance was better than the Cabaret performance. And if it hadn't been a season with such great best musical nominees, this could have been the best performance of the Tonys.

[25:00] Aaron Alvano: See what rest can do. So wonder what all of our voices will sound like post-quarantine. All right, let's give our Yelp review.

[25:18] Mo Brady: Okay, so which performance made the show look better than it was, Mel?

[25:22] Aaron Alvano: A thousand percent Sideshow because this makes Sideshow look like a coherent good musical that has compassionate characters.

[25:29] Mo Brady: Okay, you.

[25:31] Aaron Alvano: I'm going to get flack for this. Everybody don't come for me. I'm going to say Lion King only because the first time I saw Lion King was at the Pantages Theatre in LA. And we were too busy driving around trying to find parking that when we got to the theatre, we had missed the opening number.

[25:48] Mo Brady: No.

[25:49] Aaron Alvano: That was the response I got from everybody that I told this story to, to the point where everyone was like, you should have just gone home. And the opening number is arguably the best thing in your show.

[25:59] Mo Brady: Sure. And that's not to say the show is bad. The show is fantastic. But the show is not as good as the opening number.

[26:06] Aaron Alvano: There you go.

[26:07] Mo Brady: There you go. Disney fans do not come for me. I still love you. I love the mouse.

[26:12] Aaron Alvano: Which performance made you want to buy a ticket?

[26:14] Mo Brady: Lion King.

[26:15] Aaron Alvano: For exactly the same reason.

[26:17] Mo Brady: You're like, that was worth $140. Thank you.

[26:19] Aaron Alvano: What about you?

[26:20] Mo Brady: I think I'm gonna say Ragtime. But you know, I could go either way.

[26:23] Aaron Alvano: Which speech moved you the most?

[26:26] Mo Brady: For some reason, and I wrote it down, I was like, a lot of the speeches felt really heartfelt this year. More heartfelt than I feel like has been in past seasons.

[26:35] Aaron Alvano: You?

[26:36] Mo Brady: I'm dead inside because really none of them, except for kind of Audra. But like, I was like, how do you feel humble when this is like your third win?

[26:43] Aaron Alvano: Yeah, I think I'm just an Audra stan. So there you go.

[26:46] Mo Brady: And that's what's funny because I like watching her, I was like, oh, was this her first one? And then the God Mike was like, this is her third Tony Award. And I was like, oh.

[26:54] Aaron Alvano: She looks like she's winning her first Tony Award.

[26:56] Mo Brady: I think that's what gets me.

[26:57] Aaron Alvano: Yeah.

[26:59] Mo Brady: Biggest surprise.

[27:00] Aaron Alvano: Art for Best Play.

[27:01] Mo Brady: You want to know why?

[27:02] Aaron Alvano: Just because you didn't see it?

[27:03] Mo Brady: Because I didn't see anything from it.

[27:05] Aaron Alvano: And they won nothing except for Best Play.

[27:08] Mo Brady: Oh, sure. Like, I remember during the entire telecast, I was like, oh, Beauty Queen of La Nan's gonna win because they keep winning. You would assume that something that kept winning everything was gonna win Best Play. But then Art for Best Play and I was like, wait, they didn't even have a performance. They were too cool for a performance. And now they're winning?

[27:26] Aaron Alvano: Yeah.

[27:27] Mo Brady: All right. I guess that play was real good.

[27:29] Aaron Alvano: What about you?

[27:30] Mo Brady: I feel like looking at it now, Maren Masey as a mother in Ragtime is more iconic than Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles in the Cabaret Revival.

[27:40] Aaron Alvano: Okay.

[27:41] Mo Brady: I don't know if it's a surprise win, but I wonder if we would have done it differently. I don't know. I'm speaking ill about two women who have passed. I'm just gonna throw that out there.

[27:49] Aaron Alvano: You're not. I feel like you're speaking more about the types of roles that these two wonderful women were playing.

[27:56] Mo Brady: Right. Because your argument is basically like Sally Bowles versus mother.

[27:59] Aaron Alvano: Yes.

[28:00] Mo Brady: Both of which have very iconic 11 o'clock numbers. But one is very satisfying as a child of the contemporary musical theater.

[28:07] Aaron Alvano: Well, I also think that Maren invented mother in a way.

[28:11] Mo Brady: Sure. That Natasha Richardson did not invent Sally.

[28:15] Aaron Alvano: Sally.

[28:16] Mo Brady: Okay. But there was this sort of like non-singer, non-Liza kind of version of Sally, right? That was like-

[28:23] Aaron Alvano: Interesting.

[28:30] Mo Brady: Yeah. The shtick, right? And I think that's part of the reason why she won. Looking at it now, I'm like, okay, you were very good, but I think that Maren creating mother was more of like a gift to the musical theater than your version of Sally.

[28:44] Aaron Alvano: I could buy that.

[28:45] Mo Brady: Sorry. Would you recommend watching?

[28:48] Aaron Alvano: Nah.

[28:49] Mo Brady: I kind of agree. It didn't live up to '91 in 2013 that we just watched, in my opinion.

[28:56] Aaron Alvano: Sure. Of course. I mean, what's cool are the things that we've talked about. Lion King's in its prime, Ragtime is fantastic, but like you could look those up and just watch those performances. I don't think there's anything solidly in the telecast. I mean, aside from like Rosie's banter, but again, you don't need to watch this hour and a half to get that Rosie is charismatic.

[29:18] Aaron Alvano: Yes.

[29:25] Mo Brady: So at the end of each episode, Aaron and I will randomly select a Tony telecast to watch. We will then have the following week to research the season and bring you our most surprising findings.

[29:36] Aaron Alvano: So let's select our fourth Tony telecast.

[29:39] Mo Brady: Oh my gosh. I love this part. I have put a handful of infamous Tony seasons on pieces of paper in this basket, and I will now randomly select one to explore for next week's episode.

[29:51] Aaron Alvano: Drum roll please.

[29:55] Mo Brady: Lip trill drum roll please. We are watching the Tony telecast from 1988.

[30:04] Aaron Alvano: Quick Google. This is Phantom of the Opera versus Into the Woods.

[30:08] Mo Brady: Well, wow.

[30:09] Aaron Alvano: Yeah.

[30:11] Mo Brady: Angeloid Webber versus Stephen Sondheim. This is it.

[30:15] Aaron Alvano: Okay. I feel like I know who won, but then I question, but I guess we'll find out.

[30:21] Mo Brady: To join us for our next Tony's recap, be sure to do your homework with us on the 1988 Tony Awards.

[30:28] Mo Brady: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Alvano.

[30:31] Aaron Alvano: And me, Mo Brady. Special thanks to Wasif Sami for providing the background research for this Broadway season.

[30:37] Mo Brady: There are two great ways you can be helping the Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and the second is by becoming a Patreon member at patreon.com slash the Ensemblist.

[30:48] Aaron Alvano: Please follow the Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network.

[30:57] Mo Brady: You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, everybody. Until next time.