TONY TONY TONY

It is time for us to take a break from our work-imposed exile from the blogosphere to weigh in on one of the most salient reflections of contemporary culture available to those without a PhD. We refer, of course, to the Tony nominations.

Named for Marie “Antoinette” Perry, the nation’s first hard-nosed female theatre producer (whose penchant for firing artists at the drop of a hat led to the misplaced decapitatory overtones of her nickname), the Tonys are a yearly tradition in which Broadway congratulates itself for being so fabulous. The nominations for the 2007 awards were announced this year by actors Jane Krakowski and Taye Diggs as they skydived from a plane above Manhattan before a stunt parachute landing in the middle of Times Square.

Broadway babies have been predicting the nominees since well before any of the shows opened, meaning the result will have come as no surprise to those in the know. For the rest of the world, however, the list presents a fascinating matrix of the state of the world (at least the musicals do; nobody pays attention to the plays). Let us examine the shows that are in the running for Best Musical.

• Curtains
  In this musical adaptation of the hit television sitcom Frasier, David Hyde Pierce (playing, in a typical piece of Broadway stunt casting, the title role originated by Kelsey Grammar) goes from radio shrink to private eye to musical-theatre star and finally back to radio shrink when the whole thing turns out to be a dream. It is the final collaboration of Kander and Hammerstein, the duo responsible for such hits as South Chicago, The Cabaret and I, and The Sound of the Spider Woman. This show represents old people.
  
  
• Mary Poppins
  Remember how everybody loves movies and nobody loves theatre? Mary Poppins does, and she’s going to use a “spoonful of sugar” to make sure that people forget that truism while forking over $100 a ticket instead of slapping the film onto the end of the Netflix queue. For some reason things that happen right in front of you are more expensive than things that happened in the past that someone pointed a camera at. Anyway, this show represents children.
  
  
• Grey Gardens
  Another movie show, but this one based on an obscure documentary. The original film posits the theory that JFK was murdered by arrangement of his wife, Jackie O, and that she tried to frame her relatives, a couple of crazy old women on Long Island, for the crime. In this version, the crazy old women don’t actually kill JFK, but instead sit around their crumbling house singing about food and clothes. This show represents gay people.
  

• Spring Awakening
  Based on August Strindberg’s controversial play of the same name, this show is about how rock-and-roll originally emerged in late 19th-century Germany, only to be repressed by the Powers That Be for another sixty years. As with any show about of rock-and-roll, there is sex between underaged people, and power ballads. This show represents older people who wish they were still younger people.

As you can see, the entire span of humanity is represented by these four choices. If we feel like it, we’ll weigh in tomorrow on how the nominees for Best Revival of a Musical do the same thing, only in an even more cutting-edge fashion.