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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.

[0:13] Mo Brady: And I'm Mo Brady.

[0:25] Aaron Albano: Welcome listeners to our miniseries about the Tonys, looking into the drama behind the drama of a theater season in Broadway history.

[0:31] Mo Brady: In each podcast episode, we watch a telecast of a previous Tony Awards, not only the performances, but the opening and the speeches, to see how it reflects the season as a whole.

[0:40] Aaron Albano: So let's dive back in and talk about the 1993 Tony Awards.

[0:46] Mo Brady: All right, our first performance was a medley from The Who's Tommy.

[0:58] Aaron Albano: We loved a medley in the 1993 Tony Awards.

[1:02] Mo Brady: We did.

[1:03] Aaron Albano: We were like, you know what, we're just, we're gonna show you the whole show in three minutes. Straight up.

[1:08] Mo Brady: And they brought the whole show. The Who's Tommy ran 899 performances at Broadway's St. James Theater, had 17 ensemble members.

[1:16] Aaron Albano: Listen to this ensemble. You thought my favorite year was good. The ensemble included Alice Ripley, Sherri Renee Scott, Michael McElroy, Norm Lewis, and Christian Hoff. Like, it was an insane ensemble of performers.

[1:30] Mo Brady: So good.

[1:31] Aaron Albano: I guess that's what happens when your ensemble basically park and barks.

[1:35] Mo Brady: I don't know though. This show dances.

[1:38] Aaron Albano: Okay, well.

[1:39] Mo Brady: We didn't see any of that.

[1:40] Aaron Albano: We did not see that. We didn't see any of that dancing. Obviously, it must dance.

[1:43] Mo Brady: It wins Best Choreography.

[1:44] Aaron Albano: It wins Best Choreography, freaking Pinball Wizard is a huge dance number, Sensation is a huge dance.

[1:51] Mo Brady: I'm very familiar with the show. My old children's theater in San Jose has a very unhealthy obsession with this show. They've done this show a lot of times.

[2:00] Aaron Albano: But there's a lot of dance, and I'm shocked that they didn't really include any of it in their performance.

[2:07] Mo Brady: I just want to throw out that just because your children's theater danced in Sensation doesn't mean that in the original broadcast. I can guarantee they didn't.

[2:15] Aaron Albano: Stop it. We can check the tapes.

[2:18] Mo Brady: Was it a replica production?

[2:20] Aaron Albano: I mean.

[2:21] Mo Brady: At your children's theater?

[2:22] Aaron Albano: Okay.

[2:23] Mo Brady: They have brought so much tech to the Gershwin.

[2:26] Aaron Albano: So much.

[2:27] Mo Brady: So much.

[2:28] Aaron Albano: You said it was like, it's like fire and TV screens. And how did they do all of this?

[2:32] Mo Brady: I can only. How do they actually physically bring things over?

[2:36] Aaron Albano: They must have either a second version or they're like getting ready to put the tour out. I don't know how they do it.

[2:41] Mo Brady: Right? Looks good though.

[2:43] Aaron Albano: In part because of all that tech. And it sounds great.

[2:46] Mo Brady: This is such a good score. I mean, it's.

[2:48] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[2:49] Mo Brady: This music, man. It's a pop album, but it is such a good score. I mean, it's The Who.

[2:56] Aaron Albano: This music is so great. And they kind of hit all the like good evocative stuff in the show.

[3:03] Mo Brady: Going from the sweet, like it's a boy from when Tommy is born into like the pinball wizard reprise and I'm free. Just thrilling rock music.

[3:12] Aaron Albano: And then ending with the finale. Like forget it. Like listening to you is so again, this might be me speaking from a very like nostalgic place, but that song is so good and it's very moving viscerally.

[3:29] Mo Brady: It's kind of a thrilling performance. I mean, yes, you get the music that's thrilling, but like Michael Cervis writing a pinball machine that's basically moving like a mechanical bull for the stage turning around. There's fire, there's projections, which I mean, I don't really know what Broadway looked like in 1991 in terms of its projection capabilities, but like are pretty cool. Those are pretty like ahead of their time.

[3:55] Aaron Albano: Yeah. Okay, it's the mechanical bull that I was like, this has to be recorded footage. Like I feel like maybe we got pre-record and then the finale was live. Because there's no way you bring like mechanical elements to the Tonys.

[4:12] Mo Brady: I guess we've seen that before. We saw that with Starlight Express where they do a portion of the opening. They did part of it live and then they do a part of it. Someone tell us.

[4:21] Aaron Albano: Someone call in and tell us.

[4:23] Mo Brady: Call in. This is not a nominated performance, but if you did not know who Des Mackinac was before this Tony Awards, he got a showcase in this.

[4:33] Aaron Albano: Yes, he did.

[4:34] Mo Brady: Yes, he did. And for two reasons. He is the director of Tommy and he's also at this point, the artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, which wins the 1993 Tony Award for Best Regional Tony Award.

[4:46] Aaron Albano: So he gives two speeches and his show is winning all over the place.

[4:53] Mo Brady: Without remembering who had won for Best Musical, I really, through the ceremony, was like, Tommy's got to win this, right?

[4:58] Aaron Albano: Right.

[4:59] Mo Brady: I'm sort of surprised. I mean, because they basically won everything except for Actors and Best.

[5:04] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[5:05] Mo Brady: It was everything except.

[5:06] Aaron Albano: What do you think of his speeches?

[5:09] Mo Brady: I don't quite remember his regional speech for La Jolla.

[5:13] Aaron Albano: He talked about thanking American Express because...

[5:16] Mo Brady: Oh, because they got...

[5:17] Aaron Albano: Because we need the money.

[5:18] Mo Brady: Yes. So that was pretty cool and pretty, like, real and authentic.

[5:23] Aaron Albano: But the second one, his second one when he wins for Best Director, he uses his speech to speak about the AIDS epidemic and they try to play him off and he yells right through it.

[5:34] Mo Brady: He yells right through it because what he's saying is important and the audience agrees.

[5:39] Aaron Albano: Oh, yeah, for sure. And this is sort of what I was, this is what I was referring to in part one of our breakdown of 1993 when I said, like, AIDS is just really apparent.

[5:50] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[5:51] Aaron Albano: Des says, Des, Mr. Mackinac says, quote, Nobody can step up here tonight without thinking about the fact that our profession has been decimated over the last few years and nothing has hit us harder than in our leadership. I'm thinking of Michael Bennett, E.J. Antune, and the great directors we've lost. If they were here with us, I'd like to say they'd be moving theater into the future. Thank you for recognizing our effort to do just that.

[6:16] Mo Brady: Yeah. It really all works. Like, it is mourning people lost from AIDS. It brings it back to the show in a way that is like, obvious, but doesn't feel icky to me.

[6:26] Aaron Albano: Yeah, absolutely. But it's throwing the honor to those we've lost. And you can't play that off.

[6:32] Mo Brady: Nah, bro. Like, read the room, guys.

[6:37] Aaron Albano: And so I'm glad that he just yelled through it and allowed us all to hear this speech. It was really, really great.

[6:47] Mo Brady: The second nominated performance was Paula from The Goodbye Girl.

[6:59] Aaron Albano: This was a show that played 188 performances at the Marquee and had 21 ensemble members, including Marian Lamb, Cynthia Rubia, Scott Wise. These are names we hear time and again in the 90s, but we did not see any of them.

[7:14] Mo Brady: We only saw the two leads of the show, Martin Short and Bernadette Peters, which apparently I didn't realize, but apparently our second season of the Tony telecast is the Martin Short season.

[7:24] Aaron Albano: Oh, we just love to talk about Martin Short.

[7:28] Mo Brady: This was giving me major romance, romance vibes.

[7:31] Aaron Albano: Oh, romance, romance.

[7:32] Mo Brady: Okay. This was like a rom-com movie of a musical, this scene that we saw.

[7:39] Aaron Albano: See, I felt like I was getting La La Land vibes, but instead of a park in LA, they're on like the rooftop of something.

[7:47] Mo Brady: Did you like it?

[7:49] Aaron Albano: I just think I've got a personal ickiness about Martin Short at this point. So I'm just like, I just like don't need to see him anymore. He just seems so amused by himself in a way that I'm like, well, you don't need my approval because you seem very well taken care of over there.

[8:04] Mo Brady: However, Bernadette Peters to me was so endearing. Like this is like romantic lead Bernadette Peters in her prime. I think by the time that even I was paying attention to musical theater, I was in like Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Annie Get Your Gun, Follies, like I'd sort of gypsy, like in my mind, she's a leading lady, but she's not a romantic ingenue.

[8:30] Aaron Albano: And so to like see her be the thing she was before the decades long career that I've been aware of. I was like, of course Bernadette Peters is the romantic lead in a Broadway musical. She's so cute.

[8:44] Mo Brady: Do you know Goodbye Girl at all?

[8:46] Aaron Albano: Nope.

[8:47] Mo Brady: I don't either. And I just with these two originating these characters, I mean, like there's on one hand, I'm like, I don't like him. But on the other hand, I'm like, maybe he's just not my cup of tea. Because I, me, Aaron Albano, can't imagine this chemistry being anything. But apparently it was, right?

[9:08] Aaron Albano: You would have to assume that there was meat and there was heart here.

[9:13] Mo Brady: I just can't see it from my biases toward its leading man.

[9:18] Aaron Albano: And the way he's so aware of the audience in this performance.

[9:22] Mo Brady: So maybe it's just even though it's not like aware of the audience, like the performance of Little Me that we saw, it feels like equally aware of the audience. But I'm like, maybe there's just, you know, just like, someone's not your taste. Clearly he's other people's taste.

[9:40] Aaron Albano: All right, eat up, folks, because we're gonna pass on this meal.

[9:46] Mo Brady: Our third performance was another medley from Blood Brothers.

[9:50] Aaron Albano: This played 840 performances at the Music Box.

[9:53] Mo Brady: Oh, wow. That's a decent run.

[9:55] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[9:56] Mo Brady: 10 ensemble members, including Carrie Butler.

[9:59] Aaron Albano: Carrie Butler was in there?

[10:00] Mo Brady: You don't really see her. She's sort of like hiding stage left in the final shot. Like she's barely visible.

[10:05] Aaron Albano: But in my mind, I was listening for her in the ensemble vocals, and I could hear her even if that wasn't true.

[10:11] Mo Brady: So again, we get a medley that basically gives us the plot summary of the entire show.

[10:21] Aaron Albano: Oh, what did you think of this?

[10:23] Mo Brady: I couldn't tell you what that plot was. There were brothers and they were dead.

[10:26] Aaron Albano: I mean, there were bodies. There were two ensemble actors playing dead bodies through this entire performance.

[10:33] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[10:34] Aaron Albano: But then we like got like their memories or their I don't know. I think I think the actors who like sang play them and it's like ensemble members play these dead body doubles.

[10:46] Mo Brady: It was giving me way Sunset Boulevard vibes. Did you see the most recent revival of Sunset Boulevard on Broadway?

[10:52] Aaron Albano: No.

[10:53] Mo Brady: It happened with a body floating very close to the edge of the stage, like a like a dummy of a man's body where the lip of the stage would be. And it was used in the opening scene. And then it flew up except for that it was downstage of the proscenium. So you could see the dead body floating through the entire rest of the performance, including intermission.

[11:17] Aaron Albano: There's just a dead body hanging up in the rafters of the palace.

[11:23] Mo Brady: Cool.

[11:24] Aaron Albano: So at first I was like, oh, maybe they use the dead body from Sunset Boulevard. And they were real actors. They were on the Tony Awards, but they played on the floor the entire time.

[11:34] Mo Brady: Hey, make that money.

[11:36] Aaron Albano: But the performance was, I don't know, it's they definitely were trying to tell us what the show was about.

[11:41] Mo Brady: It was compelling enough for me to, like, be curious about what the show was about, but not compelling enough for me to spend my money to go find out what the show was about.

[11:52] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[11:53] Mo Brady: That's sort of where I was.

[11:54] Aaron Albano: Yeah. I was like, oh, I wonder what Blood Brothers is. I'm watching this Tony Awards on my computer. I could easily just Google what's Blood Brothers.

[12:02] Mo Brady: Didn't.

[12:03] Aaron Albano: A second window, but we're not intrigued enough to open that second window.

[12:07] Mo Brady: Yeah. Because also I was like, is this history? Is this fiction? It has a very Les Mis vibe to it.

[12:14] Aaron Albano: This medley.

[12:15] Mo Brady: Yeah. This maybe it's sort of like the triangle of performers with people kneeling on the sides. Like it feels very One Day More to me. And the music sounds very Britpop.

[12:25] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[12:26] Mo Brady: Which I think it is. And so it has. There's an element of melodrama where you either are in or you're not. And I don't know if this was just like we were exiting that time, like we were exiting the Les Mis, Miss Saigon, epic melodrama.

[12:42] Mo Brady: Age of musical theater that I will just like, I want to go see Kiss of the Spider Woman instead.

[13:00] Aaron Albano: Kiss of the Spider Woman, our fourth nominated musical, performs Where You Are. Now this performed 904 performances at the Broadhurst. I found it really interesting that except for The Goodbye Girl, these shows all must have opened and closed basically at the same time.

[13:14] Mo Brady: Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's true. 899 performances, 840, 904. So like, they all had the same runs, but they all basically ran the same amount of time.

[13:21] Aaron Albano: Yeah. Kiss of the Spider Woman had a nine-member ensemble, all men. So it was like the opposite of nine. It was like, yeah, great. This is our only production number of the whole show, other than the opening, the opening number. But like, you know, we get a park and bark medley from both Tommy and Blood Brothers. We get a two-hander for The Goodbye Girl. This is the only time we see dancing for a show. And it's dancing, man. This is some good dancing. This is some choreography by Vincent Patterson and Rob Marshall.

[13:56] Mo Brady: Yeah. Ever heard of him? Which is. And it is very Rob Marshall-esque. This performance is very Broadway, in capital B Broadway. Like, and I'm here for it. In opposition to the other shows nominated where they made the executive decision to not do just one number, I guess because they thought they didn't have like a number that would do well on the Tony Awards. This is like a number that would do well on the Tony Awards.

[14:22] Aaron Albano: Yeah. If you were seeing this show, you'd be like, that's the Tony number.

[14:25] Mo Brady: Yeah. Well, I think this presentation is very well done. I don't know Kiss of the Spider Woman. I know it sort of, but I've never seen it. I don't know it all the way through. I know it kind of basically, but I feel like what I got from this Tony performance is exactly how much I needed to know in order to be intrigued to go buy a ticket. It's a great production number. I get the singing. I get the dancing. But I also get sort of context where we see Brent Carver and Anthony Cravello, both sort of setting the scene. So I understand that it's in Brent Carver's mind. I understand that it's his fantasy. I understand those people, like I get enough set up that I know what I'm watching. And it's great. And it's you've buried the lead in this performance review, Aaron, which is Chita Rivera is singing and dancing.

[15:17] Aaron Albano: Yes, she is. Yes, she is. She wins her second Tony Award for it. The first time. Remember, we saw in 1984 for The Rink, the audience goes crazy. Liza Minnelli goes crazy. Yes. Chita to win. And here we are nine years later. She gets her second Tony Award. And she's she's crushing it in the show. She is dancing. She's getting lifted all over the place. And this is when she is 60 years old.

[15:50] Mo Brady: Wait, no. Yes. Wait. This is a 60-year-old woman dancing her base, like not even just dancing, like carrying the number. Let's be real. She's not only dancing, she is out dancing all of these men. And these men are good. Like this is a good. It's not like we're seeing like subpar ensemble men. These are fierce dudes.

[16:12] Aaron Albano: No, this isn't like the cast of Newsies. These are real, real dancers.

[16:18] Mo Brady: Yes. Could you imagine if Chita Rivera just led Seize the Day? Chita Rivera as Jack Kelly. Perfect. I'm imagining it right now. And it looks amazing in my mind. It's time for our Yelp review. Yelp review time.

[16:40] Aaron Albano: All right, Aaron, which performance made the show look better than it was?

[16:44] Mo Brady: Tommy, if you know the show, the show is like a little clunky and convoluted, but it's thrilling. I mean, there's a lot that they could have shown. For one, the choreography for one, the dancing. But like you got enough of the emotional center of the show that it makes you excited to see more of it. What about you?

[17:10] Aaron Albano: I'd agree because I almost didn't put Tommy because I didn't remember that it is such a clunky show because I watched this performance and I was like, that's great. That's Tommy. Super excited to see Tommy. Solid, right? And then the more we talked about it, and I was like, Oh, yeah, that is a kind of clunky show, for sure. So plus one your Tommy review.

[17:27] Mo Brady: Yes. What performance made you want to buy a ticket?

[17:33] Aaron Albano: Kiss of the Spider Woman. It has a driving melody. It's Chita. It looks dark and it makes me wonder you're right. It's like it's like you said, it's sort of a slow burn. Because at the beginning, you're getting all that Brent Carver context. And you're sort of like, okay, whatever. But you do need that to sort of have the emotional investment into then what you're seeing Chita and all of the dancers do. So it was definitely the right move to make me want to spend my money on it.

[18:04] Mo Brady: What about you? I feel like this is the first time we've agreed on both of these questions. I would say Kiss of the Spider Woman as well. I don't know it. But this performance is fantastic. It made me want to see the show. It establishes why these three performers won the Tony for the show. It makes me want to see it. Like I would be this performance did its job.

[18:23] Aaron Albano: What speech moved you the most, Aaron?

[18:30] Mo Brady: Not so much a speech, but sort of a speech sequence, if that makes sense. The Agnes DeMille home speech, I thought was really beautiful. But then it going into her announcement of Wayne, and Wayne winning and his first speech, being very excited, being very grateful. And then getting to accept his Tony Award from Agnes DeMille, firstly, is just wild. I knew that Tommy's what he won for, but I didn't know that's how he won it. Accepting the literal statue from the most iconic choreographer of our age. Not our age. That's not our age. You're old, Aaron. But you're not, you're not that old. Of the age, let's say that. And then he like, he started with like, Oklahoma's the first show that I did.

There's just like this almost passing of the torch that was really beautiful to me. I feel like honorable mention for me, because I like doing those for some reason, was Steven Spinella's acceptance for Best Featured Actor for Angels in America. It's just so joyful and heartfelt and authentic and beautiful. And his last thing as he's getting played off, he thanks his lover, quote unquote lover, he describes him as his lover, Peter Elliot. And he describes him as the husband of my heart. And something about that where I was like, this was 1993. We couldn't get married yet. We wouldn't be able to get married for another 20 years. It didn't even occur to him. Maybe it did occur to him. But he didn't even use like, it's like husband was a qualifier, not even a word that he could use that the audience would understand.

Like, that's what's crazy about it. It's like the husband of your heart. Well, he, he is your husband, isn't he? Oh, no, because no, he's not. We're like, we can't do it far away from that. And so that's, that's why him saying that on national TV felt really poignant. What about you?

[20:17] Aaron Albano: Ron Liebman? Yeah, Angels in America.

[20:22] Mo Brady: Yeah, I'm not typically a straight white man, acceptance speech kind of guy. But he hits all the points. He says, I saw my first Broadway play when I was three years old. I've been a professional actor for 35 years. Angels in America is my 10th Broadway play. This is my first Tony nomination. I hope you know in your hearts how deeply grateful I am to be here tonight. I share this with the ensemble of Angels in America with whom I work with every night. So it does it's it sort of like does all the things for me. You thank an ensemble and then I'm gonna call you out. What was your biggest surprise win?

[20:48] Mo Brady: I think Kiss of the Spider Woman just because it felt like a Tommy night. Sure. Like it just felt like Tommy was winning so many things. Tommy even won best score in a tie. So it's like, yeah, it really felt like the tides were going in its favor. So then for Kiss of the Spider Woman to turn it around. I mean, I guess it won all those performance awards. But this really felt like Tommy's Tony.

[21:03] Aaron Albano: Yeah, I mean, I feel like we could have another discussion at another time and another age, like a similar conversation about what we talked about in that Into the Woods versus Phantom of the Opera year. We're like what makes the best musical? Because Tommy won everything except for actors. And the big one of the night. Like do your do your actors make the show? Looks like it in this show. What was your biggest surprise win?

[21:39] Mo Brady: My biggest surprise win was Madeline Kahn. This is a good speech, but like a pleasant surprise. Her speech was fantastic. I didn't realize it was her first Tony. So it's Madeline Kahn's first Tony, Madeline Kahn. And I mean, this is also like, I know how iconic she is. But like, this is really the first time I've seen her as not Mrs. White in Clue. Flames, flames on the side of my face. And she was exactly as delightful and hysterical in her acceptance speech as I would have expected her to be.

[22:09] Aaron Albano: Would you recommend watching?

[22:11] Mo Brady: Well, this was 100 for me. Yes. The opening is fun. Rivals Better from 2013. We get Liza. It's only 89 minutes. So it's like super fun. And then there's that underlying level of fear that the winners have about being played off by the orchestra. It adds drama. Like it was like a good Tony. You love the drama.

[22:29] Aaron Albano: See, I'm like, would it have been less good in your mind if it had been like two hours and there wasn't that fear in the winners?

[22:35] Mo Brady: Yeah, because it wouldn't have the roller coaster element. It was like a very heartwarming, well done Tony Awards. But the fact that there was also this layer of fear of like, I gotta get through it. I gotta get through it. Yeah. It just makes it that much better.

[22:55] Aaron Albano: What did you think? Would you recommend watching Aaron?

[23:00] Mo Brady: 100%. Hot take. I think we found it. I almost think this is the perfect Tonys. We found, we got it. I think this is the perfect balance. I think this is the right balance. It's the right amount of celebration, while still hitting all the commercialism that we know of the Tonys. I mean, Michael Crawford, when he's announcing Best Musical, straight up is like, I urge every one of you out there to celebrate Broadway and give yourself a treat by attending one or maybe even all of these spectacular productions. Like, we're not pretending that it's not. This is a commercial. But there's no, it doesn't feel gross yet. Like it still feels like a celebration of what we're doing and the artistry of this industry and the artistry of this community. And so I think it's a really great example of the balance that this ceremony can have, where it hits all cylinders.

[23:44] Aaron Albano: Yeah, this is the perfect Tonys, especially because I think I have this other theory I haven't really shared yet, that I have a feeling that the commercialism of the Tonys starts when Disney comes on the scene and next year is when we get Beauty and the Beast. And so if my theory holds true, this is the year before the Tonys went full-blown commercial. Hot take.

[24:14] Mo Brady: I guess we're gonna have to find out.

[24:23] Aaron Albano: Thank you so much for joining us for our second season of Tony Telecasts. Hope you learned a lot and enjoyed them as much as we did. We're taking a little break from these Tony Telecast recaps for now, but we're hoping to be back to talk about the 2021 Tony Awards soon. Or will they be 2020 Tony Awards? I don't know. Who does? Anyway, The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano.

[24:46] Mo Brady: And me, Mo Brady. 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 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. Until next time.