Broadway notebook: Tony Award nominations - the musicals
NEW YORK - Among the big questions going in to the Tony Award nominations Tuesday morning was whether Harvey Fierstein's "A Catered Affair," based on a Paddy Chayefsky teleplay and 1953 movie would crack the list for Best Musical.
It didn't, and what's unspoken so far is that the result appears to be the first-ever sweep of pop-rock and its ethnic genres over Broadway's musical awards.
The four Best Musical nominees span just about the whole spectrum of the kind of music once alien to musical theater. The top contender is "In The Heights," a somewhat bittersweet Latino musical about life in the barrio that mixes pop with hip-hop, salsa, merengue.
It's the one musical that nods slightly toward the traditional show tune but as The New York Times review noted at its transfer from off-Broadway to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, it's full of "sounds that are an ear-tickling novelty on Broadway."
The biggest challenger and a possible winner is "Passing Strange," a brew of rap, hip-hop, blues and straightforward rock that tells the story a young African-American man from Los Angeles searching for his identity, and a muse.
The other two, either one of which is responsible for kicking "A Catered Affair" out of the top running, are "Cry-Baby" and "Xanadu," stage remakes that plow nostalgic mainstream pop-rock. "Cry- Baby" is based on the 1990 John Waters movie, to me not so much a "Hairspray" followup as a "Grease" with edge. "Xanadu," whose national tour is already in the making, is a tongue-in-cheeck knockoff of the equally silly 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie about a Greek muse and a modern-day roller disco.
Neither "Cry-Baby" nor "Xanadu" have much of a chance in any of the top categories, but their presence on the Best Musical list lends Broadway credibility - known as "cred" on other, hipper streets. This appears to be the belated tipping point of R&R's presence as part of the institution known as American Musical Theater.
Not that traditional musicals have been left out. The showdown between the revivals of "Gypsy" and "South Pacific" amounts to a battle of the titans, with "Sunday in the Park with George" a sturdy third. "Grease" is nominated, basically, because the category has a maximum of four slots.
THE NOMINEES
For the complete list of nominees and special awards, click here.
JACK ZINK, the Sun-Sentinel theater, music & cultural affairs writer, has spent 38 years on the Gold Coast...