The Tony Awards Edition!

by Katie McCollow

Are you guys ready for the Tony Awards on Sunday?? HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTOOOOOOON!!!

Hmm. Stretching it out like that makes it look like it’s pronounced ‘Hamiltune’, and that was not my intention.

A more skilled writer, say, oh, Alexander Hamilton, would’ve figured out a better way to write it, like maybe HAMILTUUUUUUUHHHN, but if Lin-Manuel Miranda’s magnum opus is to be believed, or Ron Chernow’s book on which the musical is based, which I fully admit I have not read, but that’s only because my sister is hogging it plus is seems really long and also why do I have to, now that I’ve memorized the show?

Mr. Miranda has proven what I’ve long believed: anything worth knowing has a soundtrack. Anyway, if someone had a problem with something Mr. Hamilton had written, he would’ve invited them to do unspeakable things to themselves, so in that spirit, I am not changing it. HAMILTOOOON!

If you’re not super-stoked, or kind of into it, or even mildly interested in the greatest thing that’s occurred in pop-culture since Harry Potter showed up, please just do yourself a favor and download the soundtrack right this very minute, you still have a few days to drink the Kool-aid.

DaaaaaaaaAAAAHHHH I CAN’T WAIT. My household has been completely addicted to it since last fall. We all agree that when we are listening to it alone, say in the car or in the shower or what have you, we can each do all the parts perfectly. Let’s just say we’re excited to watch it sweep on Sunday.

I would be so good in this

We’ve been mulling over what the appropriate victuals will be to mark the festivities Sunday night, and after about seven seconds of debate, realized duh, we have to have hot dogs and apple pie. Because ‘Merica!

The Tony Awards has long been our favorite awards show anyway, for the simple fact that it’s the most entertaining. It understands that its main purpose is to get people to want to see shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gxg5HWTIAY

And I loooooove musical shows, even the non-Hamilton ones. I have an idea for a musical, and if anyone reading this cares to steal it go right ahead, I think we all know I’m never going to do anything with it.

My idea is a musical adaptation of Kenny Loggins’ 1997 book, Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on the Path of Love. It’s the love story of Mr. Loggins and his then wife, Julia, how they met and fell in love while she was giving him an enema and then got married in a nudist ceremony. Obviously Mr. Loggins’ songs would provide the soundtrack—“Danger Zone” during that fateful first enema;  “I Am Not Hiding” at the wedding…

*EDITOR: Katie’s backup caption: “ Now I gotta cut loose, footloose
Kick off your Sunday shoes
Please, Louise, pull me off of my knees”

Lest you think I am not a Kenny Loggins fan, you are very wrong. I friggin’ love him, and honestly I’d like him to write this show himself because I’d like to see him back on top.

If a bastard, orphan, son-of-a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence; impoverished, in squalor can grow up to be a hero and a scholar AND have a wildly successful musical made about him, you can, too, Kenny Loggins, you and your string of soft-rock hits and enema love story, that yes, eventually ended in divorce but that makes it all the more poignant.

My Five Other Favorite Founding Fathers, in No Particular Order (but maybe they’d move up the ranks if someone would write musicals about them): 

Just Kidding!

My Top Four Favorite Musical Soundtracks After Hamilton:

This was tough, I ain’t gonna lie to you, and I reserve the right to change my mind in the comments section if it turns out I forgot something. There is a 100 percent chance of that happening, and I’m hoping that, just like last week, you kind folks will weigh in with your favorites too, because that’s what makes it fun. Plus if there’s some great show out there that I have never heard of, I need to hear about it.

My Fair Lady, 1956

BECAUSE JULIE ANDREWS and Rex Harrison, (wait…he’s singing but talking? And yet I love it??) and because every song is perfection, as is Al Hirschfeld’s album-cover art. Lying on the floor under the round table in our living room, listening to it and staring at it and imagining it…

Brigadoon, another Lerner and Lowe classic, was also big at our house, and it’s good, but it’s no MFL. I didn’t see either movie (I’ve never seen a stage production of either) until years after I’d heard the soundtracks, and MFL surpassed all expectations while Brigadoon flat-out stunk, despite Gene Kelly.  It totally did, you’re wrong.

I wanted to love it. I know you’re yelling at me but I’m plugging my ears.

The Phantom of the Opera, 1986

Hold on to your hats, folks, cuz what I’m about to say next it gonna piss the H out of whomever’s still reading this—I am talking about the movie version, not the original cast recording, which I hate.

Just typing Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford makes my eardrums bleed. Gerard Butler, on the other hand, sings like (I’m quoting Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman here) a “meatloaf stuffed with too much garlic”, and if someone can tell me why that’s a bad thing, I’m listening (not really).

His mild-to-moderate  speech impediment does not stop him from belting to the cheap seats one iota, and beautiful Emmy Rossum’s thin, teary warbling is a joy, a joy I say. When she and Patrick Wilson sing “All I Ask of You”…I can’t even…I need to be alone.  

Annie Get Your Gun—the 1999 revival

Again, not the original, but I about wore this CD out when it was released. You can hardly go wrong with Bernadette Peters, who won a Tony for this, but even Marilu Henner can’t ruin Irving Berlin. I know this because that’s who played Annie in the touring version, which is what I saw with my daughter, who was four at the time, when it came to town. She loved that soundtrack, too—I swear she begged me to play it every day for a year, which probably contributes to why I love it so much, but the music…it bears repeating. Not even Marilu Henner can ruin Irving Berlin.

Annie, 1977

I was in this very house I live in now—my grandmother’s house, in 1977. I was nine, and I’d slept over, which I did a lot. Nana had the TV on, and Andrea McArdle was singing “Tomorrow” on one of the morning talk shows. Like everyone else in the country, I was immediately and completely obsessed. My mom bought the album and my friends and I sobbed along with “Maybe” until we were spent. Gawd…That poor little girl just wants her parents to come find her! If only we were orphans, too!

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, 1973

What? Another Andrew Lloyd Webber and no Sondheim? Why should we listen to anything she has to say?  I know, I know! But I saw this show with Donny Osmond in 1992 with my new husband, and it was spectacular, and we played it and played it and played it…Donny Osmond, you guys!

Look, trying to get this to five is impossible and dumb. How can I leave off West Side Story or Sweeney Todd or Rent (well, let’s be honest, Rent’s great songs are balanced out by a few serious dogs, am I right?) or Ragtime or The Last Five Years or LES MIS FOR GOD’S SAKE AAAAHHHHHHHH IT’S TOO HAAAAAARDDDD wait a minute I forgot Godspell and Dracula even though I know it closed after like ten minutes but the music is really pretty I hate this game…

EDITOR: Here’s a little treat for Katie. This happened after she wrote this post. Definitely stick around for the second half. Jane Krakowski knocks it out of the park (p.s. I’m not insulting your intelligence by reminding you that James Corden is a Tony Award winner):

P.S. I’m pretty sure these guys nearly side-swiped me as I was cycling down Columbus earlier this week…. –j.w.