This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:21] Mo Brady: Welcome listeners to our mini-series about the Tonys, bringing you all the drama behind the drama of a theater season in Broadway history.

[0:28] Mo Brady: In each podcast episode, we watch a telecast of a previous Tony Awards, not only the performances, but the opening, the speeches, the whole thing, to see how it reflects on the season as a whole.

[0:40] Mo Brady: So let's dive back in and talk more about the 1987 Tony Awards.

[0:47] Mo Brady: Okay, let's get into these performances.

[0:55] Mo Brady: We start off for Best Musical with a performance by Me and My Girl doing the Lambeth Walk. This is a 27-member ensemble. We've got Bill Ryle, current member of Wicked, Cleen Asbury. This is a fascinating number to me because it looks like the audience is eating it up and I can't really figure out why.

[1:19] Mo Brady: It's led by Tony Award winning Robert Lindsay. Going into the audience, there's an infectious number, there's audience participation. My favorite is that they like go into the audience to get out of the way for the dancers, the actual dancers, because they were just giving you like a good electric slide towards the beginning of the number.

[1:36] Mo Brady: It is a very clearly structured number, right? It's like, it is the number where like one person starts doing a dance and everyone else is like, what are you doing? A dance? And then two more people join them. And then four more people join them. And then more and then everybody joins them and then the audience joins in. It is like the structure of the number is very clear. It also maybe is like the same lyrics or chorus over and over again.

[2:05] Aaron Obano: It is 100% the same lyrics and chorus over and over and over again.

[2:10] Mo Brady: So it's like very clearly built and it seems to work very well. Coming at it like not knowing a thing about Me and My Girl, not knowing a thing about this number. I was like, huh, they really love that, don't they?

[2:26] Aaron Obano: They really did. And I was like, I can use maybe a verse or two, but I guess we're good with 47 choruses of just the same and over and over again. I did not like the number.

[2:43] Mo Brady: This is the kind of number that I would have watched as a child and been like, oh, I can be on Broadway. Look, you smile, you swing your arms a little bit, you step on counts. Look, Broadway. Uh-huh. We can quickly move on to the second number, which is Starlight Express.

[2:59] Aaron Obano: Starlight Express. This is the first time I have ever seen anything from Starlight Express, Aaron.

[3:08] Aaron Obano: Same, same.

[3:09] Mo Brady: This is a performance of the titular song, Starlight Express, and then a clip of what I assume is a number called Light at the End of the Tunnel. We see 20 onstage company members, including Marian Lamb, Jane Krakowski, Andrea McArdle, Joey McNeely, like we got some—

[3:28] Aaron Obano: Wait, Jane Krakowski's in there?

[3:29] Mo Brady: Yeah. She's, I think she's Dinah. She's the dining car.

[3:31] Aaron Obano: Okay. Yeah. She's the dining car. Cool.

[3:34] Mo Brady: What is going on? Like, what is the plot of the thing? I am unclear.

[3:39] Aaron Obano: Okay. Here's the thing. They're playing trains?

[3:43] Mo Brady: Yeah, they're playing trains or train cars.

[3:46] Aaron Obano: I don't think they're cars. I think they're actual trains. I think like one person is one train. One person is another train.

[3:51] Mo Brady: Oh, sure. But there's like Rocky, there's like Rocky 1, Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4. So—

[3:56] Aaron Obano: Oh, so those are like different cars to one train.

[4:00] Mo Brady: And like the dining car wouldn't be in its own train. It would be a part of a larger—

[4:04] Aaron Obano: Okay, fair. I'm just saying, as a former cat, I have a bone to pick with Starlight Express because for all the hate that we get for playing cats, these people are playing trains.

[4:18] Mo Brady: I love that you say that as if it's worse.

[4:21] Aaron Obano: And my immediate reaction is I'm like, it is, but I guess it might not be. I mean, they're both wrecked, but the cats gets far more shade because we're playing still living beings. But you got a full company here playing trains.

[4:38] Mo Brady: It's like a race, right? There's like a, I think the plot is that there's like a train race. Someone said that it's like the little engine that could, but trains?

[4:49] Aaron Obano: That feels right. So the opening, the first song we see is like a man kind of like standing behind like young ingenue. And it's like the young train being like, I want to drive fast. I don't know.

[5:04] Mo Brady: I don't know either.

[5:05] Aaron Obano: So the opening I thought was weird. Also, this number is interesting because they do most of the first half on stage at the Mark Hellinger. And then we see a recorded clip from the Gershwin itself. And we can really see the set. This set is incredible.

[5:25] Mo Brady: All right. And I will say like all my shade to John Napier aside, this set's pretty fierce. It is got like a track around. It has like a, like a, like a skate pit in the middle of it. There's like multiple bridges, two bridges that are above the stage that go up and down and also tilt. The second number is basically just the entire company roller skating fast around the space. I mean, all my shade aside, it is thrilling to watch. I was like, this looks cool. This looks fun.

[6:00] Aaron Obano: It's like a Cirque de Soleil show. Yeah. Like you would sort of, you could sort of like watch and be like, admire the visual imagery and the expertise, but you wouldn't necessarily be too invested in the plot.

[6:14] Mo Brady: Did you like the performance?

[6:15] Aaron Obano: Yeah. Again, all of my shade to the actual show as an offended cat aside, they're blowing at the beginning. Whoever that little Thomas the Tank Engine right at the beginning. Rusty is his character's name.

[6:28] Mo Brady: Is that his name?

[6:28] Aaron Obano: Yes.

[6:29] Mo Brady: Cool. See, I should get off my high horse about cats.

[6:32] Aaron Obano: Oh yeah. What are you going to say? Like, Rusty is his name?

[6:37] Mo Brady: Bombellurina. That's a real name.

[6:42] Aaron Obano: And then like, when it jumps to the footage in the Gershwin, like as a child, I would have lived, hell, not even as a child. Me today was like living, watching all of the clips of them skating all over that theater was cool. Did you like it? How was it? How'd you like it?

[6:59] Aaron Obano: Yeah. I mean, I'm sort of spoiling my Yelp review, but what performance made the show look better than it was? I mean, I don't know the show, but I was entertained.

[7:16] Mo Brady: Our third performance was from Rags. They performed the song Rags. This is the show that ran 18 previews and four performances in this very theater. Chiwon stage performers, Dick LaTessa and Judy Kuhn, you know, they must have like teched the show, previewed the show, did their opening weekend, closed the show. And then six months later, they're like back in the same space, looking at the same audience that they basically did six months earlier. That must've been a trip.

[7:46] Aaron Obano: Yeah. It must've been wild.

[7:48] Mo Brady: It is interesting. The show is nominated for five awards, right? Like this is a flop. Like this is a for realsies flop.

[7:55] Aaron Obano: Four performances. Four performances.

[7:57] Mo Brady: And it's like got a pretty decent showing at these awards, not only in their nominations, but in the performance. What'd you think of the performance?

[8:05] Aaron Obano: Judy Kuhn better sing. I mean, I love Judy Kuhn. I love everything that she does, right from Pocahontas all the way to Fun Home. I will watch Judy Kuhn sing anything, but her performance in this, she's selling tickets that aren't available anymore.

[8:22] Mo Brady: She's selling tickets to Les Mis, the other musical this season that she performed.

[8:27] Aaron Obano: Real talk.

[8:28] Mo Brady: That she is a leading lady in.

[8:30] Aaron Obano: She's so good in this performance and like it's closed. It's closed. It's closed. It's wild that like they even get a performance that it's not like B-roll footage. Like did they even tour? They must've toured, right? Maybe not. Probably not. I don't know. They're getting very acclaimed treatment for a show that did not commercially do very well.

[8:53] Mo Brady: Yes.

[8:53] Aaron Obano: This would never happen now. Never, never, never, never, never.

[8:56] Mo Brady: The Deaf West Spring Awakening, they brought the band back together. They did touch me for, I mean, but that was also supposedly to launch a national tour that never went out.

[9:06] Mo Brady: Our fourth performance was a little show called Les Miserables. Ever heard of it?

[9:12] Aaron Obano: It's a little unknown show.

[9:14] Mo Brady: It's so interesting to hear Angela Lansbury describe the show to people who may not know the show, right?

[9:19] Aaron Obano: Les Miserables, I would argue is perhaps the most well-known musical in the world, right?

[9:27] Mo Brady: Yeah. At least if not the definitely high on the list.

[9:31] Aaron Obano: So to like explain it to people who don't know it, she says, the creators found their inspiration in both the traditions of grand opera and American musical comedy. The story is of people's fight to better themselves as seen through the life of one man.

[9:49] Mo Brady: To me, that's a great explanation of Les Miserables. That's sort of like the best one I've ever heard.

[9:53] Aaron Obano: Versus now, if you were like trying to explain Les Mis, you'd be like, it's Les Mis.

[10:00] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[10:00] Aaron Obano: You wouldn't have to explain it. So it was, it was a fantastic explanation, I thought. Also so interesting to see this pairing of numbers as the Tony performance, maybe because it is perfect. It is the combination of at the end of the day and one day more, I'm not sure if it's a good.

[10:19] Mo Brady: Me watching it, I was like, I've seen this a thousand times. Well, yeah, we have seen this a thousand times. But I think like, let's be real, "One Day More" in any generation is thrilling as fuck. So even just viscerally, even if you don't know who or what is happening on stage, you're getting like that visceral excitement about wanting to go watch the show, which is probably what sold tickets because what else would they have done? Like, I thought it was weird that they opened with "At the End of the Day," to be honest. It's okay. It's not a flashy number. I love "At the End of the Day," like you give me like an ensemble with like, unnecessary cockney accents, like staggering, staggering forward on very specific counts.

Sure. And there's so many of them. There's so many people, 30 onstage cast members. Here's my question. Do you think Randy Graff is chilling in the "At the End of the Day" section? Because Fontaine is dead by the time we're at "One Day More." But yeah, I would say it's very, it's very hard. It's hard to know whether like, she would have wanted that check and said, "Oh, yeah, I want to be on stage." Well, because also in the original staging, Fontaine's like in the ensemble for the rest of the show, right? Yeah, I think that part of Les Mis, the Les Mis history is fascinating that it all comes out of like, very sort of like ensemble based theater. And they're like, very much about the creation of the characters in this thing. Versus now, I feel like you look at Les Mis and you're like, "Oh, there's like eight leads. And then a bunch of people doing a bunch of stuff in the back."

[12:00] Aaron Albano: Fair. Yeah, absolutely. I think what's most remarkable to me about this performance is how "One Day More" has not wavered. Like that is exactly the way that we see it in all of the PBS great performances, concerts, like, if you went and saw the show, that's how they would do it. Now you'd have the tenorities popping up from the floor doing the thing, you know, you do the step front and the side, there's the gay in the back with the big red flag, like it all looks exactly the same. I mean, it's iconic at this point. It's, it's as iconic as like the Bennett choreography in "A Chorus Line." Like you don't change it. And if you change it, people look at you funny.

[12:32] Mo Brady: You're right. It's like the finale, it's one. One is not necessarily particularly complicated in "A Chorus Line." It's like, one person comes out at a time, they bow, and then they do that weird butt thing to the back corner while everyone else bows, right?

[12:47] Aaron Albano: Uh huh. And yet is exactly what the moment requires, I guess. Yeah, I guess it's an aspect of like, if it's not broke, don't fix it.

[12:58] Mo Brady: Yeah. I guess here's a question because I didn't see the most recent revival of Les Mis. Did this maintain?

[13:03] Aaron Albano: Yeah, they still do this. So then yeah, like, nope, if it's not broke, because despite changing everything else about the show in that revival, they kept "One Day More."

[13:14] Mo Brady: All right, it's time for our Yelp review, which we always start with which performance made the show look better than it was? What do you say, Aaron?

[13:29] Aaron Albano: "Rags," because again, clearly it did not do well for performances later. But I would have bought a ticket to this.

[13:35] Mo Brady: What about you?

[13:40] Aaron Albano: "Starlight Express." And honestly, because like, that was a good commercial to me.

[13:45] Mo Brady: I would agree with that. Whoa, that set is massive. I want to know what happens in that theater.

[13:51] Aaron Albano: It has like audience appeal.

[13:57] Mo Brady: You're right in the same way like a Cirque show has audience appeal.

[14:02] Aaron Albano: Yeah, like you just want to see the roller skating.

[14:07] Mo Brady: What performance made you want to buy a ticket? I mean, for all of my qualms about Les Mis, "One Day More" works.

[14:12] Aaron Albano: You're right. It's a strong number. It's not broke. So we're not going to fix it. What about you, Aaron?

[14:18] Mo Brady: "Fences." I mean, that performance is so good. Again, a play, a play. If you give me a performance from a play, I will like the play. You hear that the American theater wing? Do not put their props on your like pedestals. And you just show me the actors acting. I will like the play. And when it's when those actors are Courtney B. Vance and James Earl Jones, I will buy a ticket.

[14:35] Aaron Albano: What speech moved you the most? You know, it was the most fascinating speech for me in a few ways. It was Michael Maguire for Les Mis, who won a Tony Award for Angela Ross.

[14:41] Mo Brady: Yes.

[14:48] Aaron Albano: There's like three things I want to point out about this speech. And two of them don't have anything to do with being moved. One is when he says, "I'd like to thank my wonderful girlfriend, Susan Stroman," and the audience awes. Literally, it's so funny to see young Susan Stroman, like beaming at this guy. And I'm like, I know who you are, Susan Stroman, you're gonna be famous real quick.

[15:10] Mo Brady: The second is the fact that Angela Ross is a Tony Award winning role.

[15:16] Aaron Albano: Yeah, I would have never guessed that. Never. In 2020, we would nominate 4000 Tenardias and Madame Tenardias before we nominated an Angela Ross for a Tony.

[15:25] Mo Brady: That's real. That's fair. It's just like not the role we think of as like meaty.

[15:31] Aaron Albano: No, because he doesn't. He doesn't have an arc. He leads and then he dies like that. I guess that is an arc, but not a very compelling arc.

[15:42] Mo Brady: Yeah, I just never would have guessed that that was like meaty enough to get a Tony Award. He did say something kind of nice. His very last moment in his speech, he says more important than anything, "I'd like to acknowledge the magnificent and versatile ensemble of Les Miserables. They are the backbone of the show and they each deserve one of these awards."

[16:02] Aaron Albano: Mm hmm. So between the Susan Stroman shout out, my questioning about how Angela Ross was a Tony Award winning role, and then he shouts out the ensemble. I was like, Great, I'm done. You win. What about you? Which speech moved you the most?

[16:11] Mo Brady: Okay, negative moving John Napier because asshole, go back to part one. Positive moving. I think I'd have to say Linda Lavin. She went for "Broadway Bound." She gets on stage like screaming a like she's like, just open mouth gagged at whoever's giving it to her. I forget who gave her the award. But she says like, "This is my first Tony." And she's so earnest and having wanted it. She's like, "I've thought of nothing else in the last 30 days. I've missed entrances. I've flubbed lines. I've written this speech 3 million times." I'm like, and everybody like loves it. Everybody's like eating it up. That it's so beautiful. It's that sort of earnestness. Only someone very well loved in this community can deliver that kind of earnestness and wanting something and get away with it. It's so honest and authentic that like, I want her to have five more Tony Awards.

[17:08] Aaron Albano: It is nice to see someone be like, "I really wanted this because it means something to me."

[17:15] Mo Brady: Yeah. Biggest surprise win, Aaron.

[17:21] Aaron Albano: I think my biggest surprise wins are the Best Actor and Best Actress category that went to the Me and My Girl leads. Not because they didn't deserve it, because I'm sure that they did. It's more so that there was such a lack of Me and My Girl love in this night, despite the audience living for the performance. They were doing the Lambeth walk. They were doing it. That I was just like, oh, not in like a how dare they, but like, they were surprising to me.

[17:39] Mo Brady: How about you?

[17:46] Aaron Albano: My biggest surprise is that Eponine and Angela Ross are the two Tony Award winning roles from Les Miserables. Like, it is not Javert. It is not Valjean. It is not a Tenardier. It's not Fantine. It's no like nothing. It's not Marius.

[18:04] Mo Brady: It's not.

[18:10] Aaron Albano: Yeah. I see Eponine more than I see Angela Ross. But again, maybe I'm biased because we love a girl in a trench coat and a page boy hat.

[18:16] Mo Brady: That is belting at the top of that too.

[18:21] Aaron Albano: Yeah. Would you recommend watching?

[18:22] Mo Brady: I think I'm good. I wouldn't say like avoid it at all costs, but I think it's a fine telecast. I mean, if you're wanting an example of how not to show grace, then watch it because you get that in droves from Sean Napier.

[18:30] Aaron Albano: Do you really need to watch the 1987 Tony Awards to learn how not to show grace on national television? I feel like we've got that pretty down pat.

[18:36] Mo Brady: Fair, fair, fair. How about you?

[18:41] Aaron Albano: Not only is it not graceful, it is somewhat shocking the way he does it that I would say if you are going through the Tony Awards for like, most impactful moments, that John Napier speech is really uncomfortable.

[18:52] Mo Brady: Well, because again, I had like the whiplash of like thinking he was doing something very altruistic. And then realizing he was just being that much more of like an entitled brick, that I was just like, "Oh, get out of here. Get out of here."

[19:09] Aaron Albano: All right. So Google John Napier speech, but the rest of it, you can you can leave unless you're a Me and My Girl stan and then jump on in and then Lambeth walk all the way to 2021.

[19:30] Mo Brady: So this time, we asked you guys, our listeners on Instagram, which Tony Awards you wanted us to review and discuss. Again, thank you, Linda, for this great suggestion of looking back on the 1987 telecast.

[19:41] Aaron Albano: Hey, thanks, Linda. To join us for our next Tony's recap, be sure to do your homework with us on the 2019 Tony Awards, which was suggested to us on Instagram by Joan. Thanks, Joan.

[19:54] Mo Brady: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano, and me, Mo Brady. Special thanks to Wasif Sami for the background research on this week's Tony season. Please rate and review the Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network. Our Patreon members have on-demand access to our full archive, including full conversations with our guests and early access to episodes like this one. You can support us for between $5 and $20 a month at patreon.com slash the Ensemblist. Thanks for listening, everyone. Until next time.