Secco Recit

(All historical background is from Look I Made A Hat,  by Stephen Sondheim) Circa 1953, Stephen Sondheim took an interest in a book by Alva Johnston entitled The Legendary Mizners, a biography of brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, an architect and con man respectively (among other things) who caused the Florida real estate crash of 1925/26. Sort of kind of maybe. It's all pretty sensationalized, but historical accuracy is of no concern for a theatrician. Sondheim attempted to obtain the rights to adapt the book into a musical, but was beaten to the punch by David Merrick and Irving Berlin. A few years later, while working on Gypsy  (so, circa 1959), the Mizner brothers musical had not come to fruition, and Sondheim asked Merrick what had happened to it. It turns out that everyone involved lost interest, and Merrick had let his option on the book lapse. Between 1960 and 1990, Stephen Sondheim was pretty much continuously working on other projects. In 1993, having just ...

When Sunday In The Park With George  premiered in 1984, it received mixed reviews from critics, lost every Tony award to  La Cage Aux Folles  except for scenic and lighting design (the advantages, I suppose, of being a musical based on a painting with a song even titled "Color And Light"), and though it ran for about a year and a half, closed at a net loss. It did win a Pulitzer prize, but while it has an obvious appeal to artistic snobs, it doesn't seem to have much to offer the average Broadway audience. Since then, it has become revered as one of the greatest works by one of the greatest composer-lyricists ever to write for Broadway. Its most recent revival, currently on Broadway, was adapted from a sold-out concert performance at City Center, and since opening at the Hudson Theater has received rave reviews. And deservedly too. Jake Gyllenhall is not as good a singer as Mandy Patinkin, but he still plays the part exceptionally well. Annaleigh Ashford is a weaker Mar...

So Hamilton just set a record with sixteen Tony nominations. It's worth noting, though, that seven of those nominations were for actors. So really it's only nine nominations that will apply when it's finally possible to get tickets in three years. Second, because of multiple nominations in the actor categories, Hamilton can only possibly win thirteen Tonys. The record for most Tonys won by a production is held by  The Producers , which won twelve. It was nominated for fifteen. The reason Hamilton was able to grab one more nomination is because The Producers did not have any female characters prominent enough to be eligible for the Actress In A Leading Role award. The Producers swept every category it was nominated for, but I wouldn't get too excited for Hamilton. The Producers was up against very little competition. Look at the 2001 Tony awards and tell me, how competitive was that really? Of course, that may be due to hindsight, but Billy Elliot , which al...