Ironies

There was a little piece of personal irony around the Tonys for me this year. Attending my first ever Tony Awards party (which was a great time -- thanks a bunch, Gray and family) kind of distracted from hearing who actually won. But that's what DVRs and the newpapers are for. Variety had a great recap this morning that filled in all the gaps for me. There's a telling line near the end of the piece though where the phrase "least surprising win" is used. It did seem to me that many of the big awards were pretty easy to predict. I must admit to being floored, though, that Mark Rylance won over the high-powered Hollywood duo of Stewart and Fishburne.

One thought occurred to me when considering the wins for "In the Heights," which is that it's pretty cool that a Latino-centric musical is the toast of Broadway. This is at a time when television in particular is wringing its collective hands about the lack of diversity on network shows. Most egregiously under-represented: Latin-Americans. Isn't it ironic that theater -- frequently looked down on as the realm of elites and an older, moneyed audience -- seems to be taking the lead in terms of artistic diversity?

And to wrap up my personal Tony coverage, this list of "Wow!" moment from previous years' shows is pretty interesting to look through even though the awards themselves are over for this year. Anyone else have any Tony Award thoughts they'd like to share?